'What about justice?': Chagos Islanders pin their hopes on Biden
When Laurenza Piron was forced from her home in the Chagos Islands in 1970, she was sent on a boat to the Seychelles. Her parents and siblings were sent to Mauritius. It was two decades before they located one another again, and even then none of them could afford a reunion. So Piron, now 76, never saw her family again.
“I wanted to go, but I didn’t have the money,” says Piron. “Compensation should have been paid. If it had, there wouldn’t be such hardship.”
Piron was among 1,500 people made to leave the Chagos Islands, on the Indian Ocean archipelago, by the US and British militaries. The UK, which owned the land, had leased the largest island, Diego Garcia, to the US to build a military base.
Last year, the international court of justice in The Hague ruled that the continued British occupation of the islands was illegal.
In the 1970s, the UK gave the Mauritian government £4.65m to distribute to the Chagossians in compensation, but no money was paid to people sent to the Seychelles.
Those exiled are hoping that will change as they file a new petition through the US Foreign Claims Act, which awards compensation for noncombatants’ injury, death or property damage by US military personnel overseas.
“Based on the [2019] UN ruling there is an illegal occupation of the Chagos Islands,” says Jonathan Levy, a US-based lawyer representing the Chagossians in the petition. “We’re saying to the government: you owe damages to the Chagossian people for operating a military base on their property.”
In October, the US Department of the Air Force rebuffed a first attempt, stating: “It has been determined that payment of the claims is not in the interests of the US government.” However, the legal team is planning a new legal action after president-elect Joe
Biden takes office in January.
“The incoming Biden administration seeks to change US foreign policy, and the Chagos archipelago is a good place to begin by recognising the claims of the Chagossians to their property and land and by paying a small restitution, given the immense value the rent-free use of Diego Garcia has provided the United States for the past five decades,” says Levy.
Travel brochures depict the Seychelles as an island paradise, an oasis of golden beaches and crystal clear waters. But for Chagossians, it has been a place of discrimination, poverty and homelessness.
When Piron first came to the Seychelles with her husband and three children, they slept on the ground beneath a coconut tree.
“To go to school with no shoes, it would take an hour to walk there,” says Laurenza’s son, Jean-Joseph, 55, who was five years old when he arrived on the island. “On the way, we would pick fruits from the trees and that would be our breakfast because we had no money to eat. Concentrating in lessons was impossible on an empty stomach,” he explains, through tears.
Many Chagossians in the Seychelles were taunted by the locals, told to go back to where they came from. They were called anara, which meant uncivilised, dirty and unvaccinated.
The family have always struggled to make ends meet. Piron’s husband found work as a fisherman, and eventually the family was able to build a small homestead in the forest, not far from the coconut trees they had slept under.
“We never lacked food on the [Chagos] islands. If we needed fish, we would go get some from the ocean,” says Piron, but she adds: “Life is hard here, very hard. I struggle.”
Georgette Gendron, 67, from Diego Garcia, came to the Seychelles aged 12, with her parents and five siblings. With nowhere to go, the entire family lived in a cramped single room in the basement of a relative’s house.
“There was no house, no food, nothing. Can you imagine being told to just go, with no place, with all those kids. We were just like refugees,” says Gendron. “My mama was very miserable. She had health problems. There was a time when papa didn’t have work.”
Cyril Bertrand, 72, happened to be in the Seychelles for medical treatment when the Chagos Islands were closed. His family – seven siblings and his father – were sent to Mauritius.
“The military chased my family with guns. They didn’t want to leave the island. It’s a sad story,” he says.
Bertrand settled in the Seychelles, got married, found a job, and was among the few who could afford to visit his family in Mauritius. Many Chagossians aren’t so fortunate, he says.
Many of the first generation of the exiled population are elderly, poor and
coming to terms with the prospect of never seeing their homeland again. “Most of them die here in Seychelles,” says Bertrand. “They never get to Mauritius. Even though they have family there.”
In 2016, the British government unveiled a £40m support package for community projects for Chagossians living in the UK, Mauritius and Seychelles, to be paid over a decade. So far less than 2% of this fund has been distributed.
The Chagossians interviewed said they had not benefited from the money.
“Compensation would mean we could have had a better life here,” says Gendron. “The wrongs should be corrected. What about justice?”
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