PRAGOTI

Hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan have been internally displaced by armed conflict, ethnic tensions or human rights violations, natural disasters such as drought, or secondary dis-placement in the case of refugees and deportees who have returned from neighbouring countries.

No one was allowed to stay on the part of the island unoccupied by the U.S. military or on the two remaining islands. Perhaps the U.S. military had something to hide? This highly secret "mass kidnapping" preceded by conspiracy was unknown to the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress for almost a decade. There were no newspaper reports — nothing!

Courtesy: Renew America

The Indian Ocean paradise of Diego Garcia was once home to more than a thousand contented British subjects. In 1966, Harold Wilson's government sold it to the US in a secret, illegal deal and terrorised the population into leaving.

Courtesy: www.johnpilger.com

John Pilger's documentary titled 'Stealing a Nation' followed by his commentary in the Guardian in 2004 had revealed the shocking, almost incredible story of the expulsion of the population of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean by British governments in order to make way for an American military base.

Courtesy: www.johnpilger.com

Natives of the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia won't be allowed to return to the Chagos archipelago they left more than 35 years ago, following a ruling today by Britain's highest court, the House of Lords.

The London-based court upheld the British government's appeal in a 3-2 verdict, overturning earlier rulings by lower courts which held that the UK government wrongfully took away the islanders' "right of abode."

That right is a "creature of the law," wrote Lord Leonard Hoffman today. "The law gives it, and the law may take it away."

About 2,000 Chagos inhabitants were forced off their land and exiled by Britain in the 1960s and '70s when the UK granted permission for a US air and naval base on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago.

Diego Garcia has been used in US military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. The islanders had been fighting a legal battle in British Courts for the 'right of return'. Britain's House of Lords has denied the islanders 'right of return'.

This post brings together the news of this ruling along with three commentaries and link to a documentary.

A story of displacement and human denigration in the national capital.

Text and photos, Courtesy: Frontline.