“Tony Blair wanted to restore peace, freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people, he wanted to get rid of that brute Saddam Hussein. He spent millions on that, but he says he can’t pay for us who are British citizens to go home” Allen Vincatassin – representative of the Diego Garcians.
The Diego Garcians were exiled from their island in the 1970’s after deals between Britain, Mauritius and the US, Mauritius got it’s independence from Britain in 1965, but let Britian keep the Chagos Islands, of which Diego Garcia is one. In return Britain paid Mauritius £3 million. Then the thrifty British government agreed to lease the island to the US for military use in return for an £11.5 million discount on nuclear submarines.
The people of Diego Garcia were tricked and forced off their island to make way for an air base. All the animals on the Island were gassed, contract workers were brought in and two of the longest runways in the world were constructed, recently many of the bombers that have been flattening Iraq and Afganistan took off from Diego Garcia.
The Diego Garcians were sent to Mauritus, where they have lived in slums for the last 30 years. They lived in extreme poverty, starved, died or committed suicide. The British government maintained the pretence that the island had no permanent residents, and the Diego Garcians were visiting workers from Mauritius.
In 2000 the high Court ruled that their expulsion from the Islands was illegal. Neo Labour, invented a ‘feasibility study’ to decide whether the islands could be resettled, it decided that it would be ‘too expensive’ to repatriate the Diego Garcians, it would be harmful to the local ecology (the B52s apparently aren’t), and anyway the islands are in danger from global warming.
While the Diego Garcians have been continually prevented from returning to their island, others have been welcomed. The US military for one, along with thousands of Filipino and Mauritian workers who have been brought in to build and maintain the base, which is ironic, as the actual Diego Garcians are now in the Jobcentre in Crawley. Multinationals such as Cable and Wireless also have a presence on the island serving the bases. Recently there’s been a plan to allow tourists to visit the island, which raises the sick idea of anyone being able to visit the island, apart from the people whose homeland it is, oh yeah anyone who can afford the £4,500 cost of the cruise to get there!
Now they are arriving in Britain, from the slums of Port Louis in Mauritius, in search of a better life. The Diego Garcians were ‘graced’ with full British citizenship, a token gesture for being forced to renounce their rights for access to their island. The first group, including Allen Vincatassin arrived in 2002, they were told by the Overseas Territories Minister, at that time, Baroness Amos, that they would be given no help by central government. Luckily the local council were more sympathetic and gave them temporary accommodation until they found work.
Since then, 200 Diego Garcians have landed in Gatwick and are living in Crawley. Many of them, and the most recent arrivals face destitution, denied access to any benefits from the government who exiled them from their homes, despite the fact that they hold British citizenship. They have been denied benefits because they fail the DSS Habitual Residency Test (HRT) they cannot prove they have been resident in Britain for more than a month, the Diego Garcians are currently challenging this legislation and asking the government to allow them benefits from the moment they arrive.
There are disputes between West Sussex County Council (WSCC), who are currently footing the bill for temporary hotel accommodation, and central government. The government says that they won’t pay and that WSCC have no responsibility either. WSCC have been looking after the Diego Garcians so far, but are worried about the costs of looking after the one thousand more Diego Garcians who might come. It was a central government decision to displace the Diego Garcians in the first place, so financial responsibility should rest with them. By passing all responsibility onto the local councils the government might turn local people against the Diego Garcians, as they might resent having to pay for their benefits, although when SchNEWS went to meet them, the Diego Garcians reported that locals had been friendly and sympathetic.
SchNEWs accountants worked out that to put all the Diego Garcians in the world on full benefits for a year would cost roughly 1 million pounds, that’s about the cost of 2 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Bearing in mind that most of the Diego Garcians currently in Crawley are working and don’t need benefits, and most of them wouldn’t need benefits for a year, the cost would never be as high as 2 cruise missiles, scrap one, and the Diego Garcians would probably be fine.
lots more information and photos from GlobalSecurity.org
also on znet
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