BRITAIN: FAMILIES EVICTED from their homes on an island in the Indian Ocean lost their long-running battle to return yesterday when the law lords (the senior court of appeal court in the UK) ruled by a majority of three to two in favour of the British Foreign Office.
The islanders, some of whom had travelled from their current home in Mauritius to hear the decision, were removed from Chagos to accommodate the US military base on Diego Garcia in the 1970s.
They greeted the ruling with dismay. "We are deeply disappointed," said Chagossians' leader Olivier Bancoult. "But we will never give up."
Judges, Lords Hoffmann, Carswell and Rodger found in favour of the foreign office in its appeal against earlier court rulings that the Chagossians had a right to return. Lords Bingham and Mance dissented from the majority decision. In his judgment, Judge Hoffmann said the Chagossians had been removed with "a callous disregard" for their interests, but that did not affect the case now.
"The right of abode is a creature of the law. The law gives it and the law may take it away," he wrote, adding, "the deed has been done, the wrong confessed, compensation agreed and paid".
Judge Hoffmann said the UK governments obligations to the Chagossians ended in 1982 when it paid them compensation. He noted that the government had said it was acting "in the interests of the defence of the realm, diplomatic relations with the US and the use of public funds in supporting any settlement on the islands".
But Judge Bingham, in his dissenting judgment, wrote: "Despite highly imaginative letters written by American officials to strengthen the secretary of state's hand in this litigation, there was no reason to apprehend that the security situation had changed."
The Chagossians, their legal team and their supporters lambasted the decision. "How can we be expected to live outside our birthplace when there are other people living there now?" said Bancoult. The Chagossians are now considering taking their case to the European court of human rights.
- (Guardian service)