When Just One Is Oppressed - My Soapbox
Diego Garcia is a lush paradise situated in the same area as the tsunami. Fertile with sea life, abandoned copra plantations, and the lost long ago dreams of its people.
Reader's Digest version: The island is a British territory that became seductively attractive - strategically speaking - to the United States government in the 1960's.
The U.S. wanted to construct a Naval base in the Indian Ocean, but they had one tiny, fatal condition. The island had to be uninhabited. Unfortunately, real people lived there. Were they wealthy and powerful? Nope. But, the Illini had been self sufficient for generations with their own economic system.
So the two governments struck a deal in which it would be presented to the world as a dumb luck find, this island with no children, no mothers, no fathers, no pets - just your run of the mill seagulls or so says the confidential memo discovered decades later.
Ah, but how to pull off such a feat - therein lies the rub.
How do you get over two thousand islanders to say: okay take my home, my land, my dog, my heart and if you could, please dump me in the slums of Mauritius without any means of survival because I'm a silly little expendable farmer.
Answer: you don't - not without force and a determined cruelty.
It started out easy for the big governments. If any islander sought medical treatment on neighboring islands, he was merely barred from returning. The natives were poor, but not stupid, so they ceased leaving for any reason.
When the exile wasn't speedy enough for the Americans, the Royal Navy created a blockade - no food, in or out. So much for the copra plantations.
In a final act of unthinkable cruelty, military officers on both sides instructed the citizens to gather and bring their family pets. Using the fumes from Army vehicles, the pets were killed in front of God and wailing children.
Shortly thereafter yet another gathering. Their island had been sold they were told. One suitcase per family, you're leaving tomorrow. And that was that.
The Ilois were first held in prisons on Mauritius until they were released into the slums with no education, no money and no hope. Many committed suicide or drank themselves to death.
The new millennium brought a lawsuit against both countries. The British courts ruled in favor of the islanders, but offered no resolution or compensation. They want to return, but the British government is doing a feasibility study because the island is allegedly sinking. Perhaps from the weight of all that guilt and blood.
Is this Darfur? Hardly.
Rwanda? No way.
Auschwitz? Please.
But ponder how many innocents have died in Iraq thanks in part to our B-52s and the island from which they were launched.
For more information, please visit:
Let Them Return
And if you're wondering what this has to do with coming out - well, not a darn thing. It's just something that I feel passionately about and as the founder of Coming Out 101, I will sometimes journey into unrelated stories. Forgive me in advance.
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The final appeal of the Foreign Office is being heard this week in the House of Lords. A decision is expected in the Fall that I hope will finally result in justice for the people of the Chagos Islands.
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Wow, the final appeal. Thanks for sharing that information. It doesn't seem as though many in America have ever even heard of Diego Garcia. Here's to justice.
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