Will Chagos Islanders' Return Mean Problems for U.S. Base?

Britain tried to keep them away. The United States tried to keep them away. But it now looks as if the Chagos islanders might finally be going home.

The Guardian reports that the islanders -- who were expelled by Britain in 1966 after it gave the United States a 50-year lease to build an airbase on Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean -- won a resounding victory in Britain's court of appeals Tuesday.

The court ruled that thousands of people who were tricked, starved and even terrorized from their homes could return immediately, with the decision likely to draw a line under what is widely seen as one of the most shameful episodes in British colonial history.

In 2006, after an earlier court decision, the Daily Telegraph painted a bleak picture of Britain's actions during the expulsion.

The islanders won their first court ruling in 2000. The late Robin Cook, then British foreign secretary, said there would be no appeal and that he would begin a "feasibility study" into the possibility of the islanders' return. But the U.S. told Britain it didn't want anyone near the Diego Garcia base for fear of "terrorists infiltrating the islands."

So in 2004, Tony Blair's government tried to use a procedure called royal prerogative to effectively nullify the first decision. But Britain's High Court overturned that gambit, rejecting the government's argument that "the royal prerogative, exercised by ministers in the Queen's name, was immune from scrutiny."

This latest victory for the Chagos islanders means they can return to a group of 65 islands in the Chagos archipelago, except for Diego Garcia itself. Blair's government has one option left -- an appeal to the House of Lords. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett's office has not said yet if that avenue will be pursued.

9:17 AM ET | 05-23-2007 | permalink