BATTLE OVER INDIAN

By: Amit Roy

 LONDON: The Indian government will be keeping a close eye on the legal battle being waged in London by the indigenous islanders who were expelled from Diego Garcia to make way for an elaborate American air and naval base.
Although India may feel that Diego Garcia, being in the Indian Ocean, is more in its sphere of influence, the US air force and navy are firmly entrenched on the “palm-fringed” island leased from Britain – and will be difficult to dislodge.
Diego Garcia has been used by the Americans for bombing missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and also for CIA “rendition” flights.
The Chagos Islanders, as they are called, are the original inhabitants of what has been described as “paradise lost” – an idyllic atoll 1,000 miles from the southern tip of India that has the status of a British Indian Ocean Territory.
Both the high court and the court of appeal in London have ruled that the expulsion of 2,000 islanders between 1967 and 1971 was illegal but the UK government is seeking to have this judgment overturned by taking the case to the House of Lords.
The whole affair is embarrassing for the British government, which is widely seen by the UK media and many commentators as being morally in the wrong.
Speaking at the launch of a blueprint for the Chagossians’ return, Richard Gifford, lawyer for the islanders, said their “expulsion” had “no parallel in modern times.”
Gifford said: “If Gordon Brown seems slow to criticise the Chinese leadership for their human rights abuses in Tibet, perhaps he is worried by the mote in his own eye. For might he not be charged with the reproach that the treatment of the Chagos Islanders is a crime against humanity?”
It has now been revealed in a report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee that the government has spent £2.1 million (Rs 16.7 crore) of taxpayers’ money in resisting the return of the islanders.
In a letter to foreign secretary David Miliband, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Edward Davey, said: “It is an outrage that millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money have been used in order to prevent the government from facing up to its moral duty to grant the Chagos Islanders a right of return. The government must not continue to use public money to defend the indefensible. The whole sorry episode is a stain on our history.”
The government’s side was put to the committee by Peter Ricketts, the Foreign Office permanent secretary who said: “There is a very import-ant point of law here on whether the government can make laws for the overseas territories by Order in Coun-cil or not and, if not, then there are serious implications for the governance of the overseas territories.”
According to Ricketts, “there is a second point as well, which is our defence obligations, since the United States has made clear that resettlement of the islands by the Chagos Islanders would pose security risks to the operation of the base at Diego Garcia.”
Whatever the legal outcome in London, the Americans will be loath to lose the use of a strategic base. It is also doubtful whether the islanders, whose numbers have grown to 4,500 and who live mostly in exile in Mauritius, can co-exist with the US navy and air force and their 3,000 personnel who run one of the most sensitive and strategic bases in the world.
America’s lease over Diego Garcia does not expire until 2036, 70 years since it was signed. But either party, if not satisfied, can opt out of the agreement in 2016.