The tragic tale of the Chagossian people, itself also a tale of revolt, was a tale told by my own mother. Born in Mauritius, she lived for several years, in the early ’60s, on Diego Garcia, the biggest island in the Chagos Archipelago. There, she had a taste of paradise: peaceful, happy, undoubtedly tinged by nostalgia for childhood. It was only in 1975 that she learned the horrible truth.
The British began a campaign to evict the local population in 1967 to allow their US allies to build a military base—a strategic location, as it were. The depopulation was finalised with the 1971 Immigration Ordinance law, which prohibited Chagossians from entering or remaining on the islands. The rift opened up by forced exile, compounding the original wound of her family’s…