“The object of the exercise is to get some rocks which will remain ours,” wrote Denis Greenhill, the head of the Colonial Office in 1966 after Britain agreed to provide the US with a military base in the Chagos Archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The Americans were promised that the islands where the base, Diego Garcia, was to be built would be uninhabited.
Greenhill, later Lord Greenhill of Harrow, was well aware that this was not the case at the time of writing, but cavalierly asserted that in future there would “be no indigenous population except seagulls who have not yet got a committee”.
In a tone of nauseating jollity, this senior British diplomat picks up on the seagull reference to explain what was going to happen to the 1,500 people or more who had lived and worked in Chagos for generations. “Unfortunately,” he wrote, “along with the Birds go some few Tarzans or Men Fridays whose origins are obscure, and who are being hopefully wished on to Mauritius etc.”
Forcibly removed in three stages
The British government was as bad as its word and within a year the inhabitants of Chagos were being forcibly removed in three stages. The first to lose their homes were those who had temporarily left the islands and were refused passage back on boats so they could not make the return journey. Then in 1969, those living on Diego Garcia were deported to
— source counterpunch.org | Patrick Cockburn | Dec 5, 2022