Who should live in the Chagos Islands?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

I was surfing around, and happened upon this article from last spring: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4909264.stm

Around 500 Chagossians were expelled from their island homes about 40 years ago, to make way for a US military base nearby.

The United States has a veto under existing agreements with Britain, which gives it the right to say who should live in the Chagos Islands - and it has said that for security reasons, there can be no return.

The British government has said that eventually Mauritius will be given sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, but only when what Foreign Office officials call "defence requirements" are ended.

We suck.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. Gee...Did everybody hear about this already?

Seems pretty sad that people whose families lived on this island for 300 years should require a court injunction to tend to the graves of their ancestors...

[mainegreen]

2. Yeah, we and GB and France have screwed over a great many islanders

in the name of Pacific security and nuclear testing. They're just to few in number to raise the holy hell needed to get their plight on the radar of most people.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

3. It's a BBC article...

It's rather telling that it never made it across the Atlantic.

[wildhorses]

4. god damn but, we suck!!!

i am sick of it all:puke:


wildhorses wants to run away

[GoddessOfGuinness]

5. Wherever you run,

avoid the Chagos Islands...

[Redstone]

6. Funny, I never heard of the Chagos, even though Mrs R is from that area.

I'll have an answer for you in a minute.

Redstone

[Redstone]

7. Chicanos from Chicago, of course.

Redstone

[GoddessOfGuinness]

8. There's a limerick in there somewhere...

:D

[Redstone]

9. Yes. And surprising that someone though those island were in the Pacific, when in fact

they're in the Indian Ocean. (Though I know that poster meant well.)

Chalk another one up for Americans' lack of geography sklls.

Redstone

[GoddessOfGuinness]

10. When I think of US Naval bases overseas,

I immediately think of the Pacific. This is the first time I've been aware of one in the Indian Ocean. I guess they like to keep those hush-hush as much as possible.

[Redstone]

12. I think most Americans make that assumption, as I probably would if I didn't know

better because of having met Mrs R, and being in the electronics business. I was aware of the Ford Aerospace (didn't know they had and Aerospace division, did you?) tracking station on Morne Seychelles in the Seychelles Islands, and our base on Diego Garcia, long before it was public information.

Therefore, this is a lack of geographic knowledge that I will NOT criticise. Hope my prior post did not indicate that I was being critical.

Redstone

[GoddessOfGuinness]

14. Not at all...

And I appreciate the info. I didn't know about Ford Aerospace. In fact, I became enamored of the Seychelles after seeing a PBS "Nature" documentary about the islands a long time ago. I don't recall any mention of a tracking station there. So much for thinking the islands were a pristine paradise...

[mainegreen]

11. Whoops! Indian Ocean it is!

:blush:

Normally I'm rather good at geography, but I just assumed that since the story was about abusing islander rights it must be about pacific islands. Thanks for pointing that one out. I'll remember it now!

:D

[Redstone]

13. No need to apologize. Mauritus doesn't exactly register on that radars of most

Americans, and that's OK.

Madagascar might, and Diego Garcia certainly should.

But the Comoros and the Maldives and such places are definitely hard to recognize or keep track of. It's a large and complicated world out there, after all.

Redstone