David Simon: The Chagos islanders' long wait for justice

The treatment of people forcibly exiled to make way for a military base is a stain on the UK's international reputation Few people are such innocent victims of geopolitics as the Chagos islanders. This is a case is very different from those of war zones that we're used to reading about. It's a vexed hangover from the end of empire. The Chagos archipelago – comprising Diego Garcia and several smaller coral atolls – lies in the Indian Ocean between the Maldives and Mauritius. This very isolation sealed the islanders' fate. Amid rising cold war tensions and fears of losing mainland bases as decolonisation swept across Africa and Asia, Diego Garcia was selected by Britain and the US as ideal site for a secure communications and military facility as part of a strategic network of staging posts. In 1965, Chagos was excised from... [read full story]