David Lammy, a descendant of enslaved people, has taken office as United Kingdom Foreign Secretary and said he wants to rebuild the UK’s relations with the Global South.
He has an immediate opportunity to meaningfully address the legacies of UK imperial atrocities, starting with an ongoing colonial crime that he could end immediately – the UK’s forced displacement of the Chagossian people.
The Chagos islands, in the Indian Ocean, were governed under UK colonial rule from the island of Mauritius. The Chagossians, an Indigenous people, are the descendants of enslaved people and contract workers.
Over 50 years ago, when nearly all of Britain’s colonies in Africa were achieving independence, the UK and US governments conspired in secret for the UK to hold onto Chagos and to expel its entire population so the US could build a military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia.
As records show, the expulsion of the Chagossians was based on lies and racism, leaving them in extreme poverty. To this day, the UK government refuses to allow the Chagossians to return to their homeland. This forced displacement, racial persecution, and prevention of their return amount to crimes against humanity under international law. Human Rights Watch argued in February 2023 that individuals should be put on trial for the expulsion of Chagossians and that the UK should pay full and unconditional reparations to generations affected by its forcible displacement.
The new UK Government has inherited these ongoing colonial crimes, but could end them tomorrow. UK governments have repeatedly acknowledged for the last 20 years that the treatment of the Chagossians was “shameful and wrong”, but the same successive British Governments have continued to prevent their return.
Tony Blair’s government used the monarchy to issue an ‘Order-in-Council’, bypassing parliament to prevent the Chagossians from returning.
The UK has treated Chagos – now its only remaining colony in Africa – as a law-free zone, claiming international human rights law and international criminal law do not apply there. The racism is clear: the UK applies human rights law in other overseas territories like the Falklands and on Cyprus, where the inhabitants are of European origin and live freely close to military bases.
The US has continued to play an important role in keeping the Chagossians out and trying to avoid scrutiny of what is happening in Diego Garcia.
In July, US officials appear to have effectively prevented a UK court hearing from taking place on the base. It concerned Sri Lankan asylum seekers picked up at sea, who have found themselves trapped in the law-free zone of Chagos.
The reason Chagos has not become another forgotten UK imperial crime is that the Chagossian people have not allowed it. Numbering in the thousands, and now living mainly in Mauritius, the Seychelles, and the UK (a Commons Research Briefly in November 2022 put the number in the UK between 3,000-10,000), they have struggled for half a century for their right to return and other reparations for the harm that was, and continues to be, inflicted on them.
Lammy also inherits negotiations with Mauritius over the future of Chagos, begun by the previous Government after an adverse opinion by the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Chagossians have not been meaningfully consulted over these negotiations.
Although James Cleverly said “resettlement” of the Chagossians was on the agenda, his successor as Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, notably failed to mention it earlier this year.
Ending the crimes against the Chagossians and ensuring real reparations would be very straightforward. It would be done by ensuring that Chagossians who wish to return to live in their homeland—including the unoccupied parts of Diego Garcia—can do so.
The islands should be restored so the Chagossians can live there in dignity and prosperity, and they should be provided with adequate financial compensation for the harm—physical, psychological and economic—inflicted on them.
This should all be done, this time respecting the right to participation of the Indigenous Chagossian people. This would stand in stark contrast with their racist treatment 50 years ago by UK officials who saw Chagossians as another African people who could be ignored.
Another essential part of reparations would be to ensure this colonial crime of mass displacement of an Indigenous people and racial persecution can never occur again. This should include a meaningful apology from King Charles and the UK Government.
In a letter to Lammy, Human Rights Watch has set out the steps he can take now to end the crime.
There is an urgency for Lammy to act before upcoming elections in the US and Mauritius could make reparations politically more difficult. Lammy has already said that the UK Government needs to redress the past – and current – injustices done to the Chagossians.
He now has the authority and the opportunity to do so and, if he seizes it, can help end a half-century of atrocities.
