Returning to their birthplace after decades of enforced exile, five Chagossians leapt from a motor launch on to the palm-shaded beach of Peros Banhos atoll on Saturday afternoon, kissed the pale sand and stood – hands joined together – in thanksgiving prayers.
For Olivier Bancoult, Lisbey Elyse, Marie Suzelle Baptiste, Rosemonde Bertin and Marcel Humbert, it was the moment they had long anticipated – the first time they could step ashore without close monitoring by British officials.
It is 50 years since they were deported to Mauritius by UK officials who cleared the archipelago of its entire population to make way for a US military base on the island of Diego Garcia.
All five wore T-shirts emblazoned with the motto: ‘Chagos My Home’ and ‘Everyone has a right to live in his birthplace’. “We are not coming as tourists,” declared Bancoult, “we are coming as pilgrims to pay tribute to this abandoned place.
“The importance of this trip is that we can send a message to the world – about the kind of injustice the UK government, with the help of the US government, inflicted on our people. If we were white people with blue eyes, maybe we would have had better treatment like the Falkland Islanders?”
This the first visit organised by the Mauritian government, which is determined to regain control of the Chagos Archipelago. Successive international court rulings and a majority vote in the UN general assembly have confirmed that the UK ‘unlawfully’ detached the islands from Mauritius before independence and must return them. The UK insists its retains sovereignty and that the landmark ruling at the international court of justice in 2019 was only advisory.
On Saturday, the Chagossians’ first task was to move a monument, recording a return visit under British supervision in 2006, further up the beach to avoid erosion from encroaching waves. In the sultry heat, they manoeuvred the heavy stone with sticks and sweated labour.
The island’s jetty, which once received commercial ships, has disintegrated; its railway track, that carried goods to the island’s shop and transported copra oil, has rusted away. Even in this remote site, plastic water bottles littered the tideline and there was glass on the beach.
A sign placed beside a concrete box declared: ‘This is a BIOT (British Indian Ocean Territory) fire pit. Outer Island 2018 regulations. Fires are only permitted in this area.’ While native Chagossians are denied permission to return permanently, BIOT officials grant licences for yachts to visit their deserted homes.
Moving inland, trees have overgrown homes and warehouses fallen into decay since the island was forcibly evacuated in 1972. The ground is littered with rotting coconut shells, many sprouting fresh growth. Hermit crabs swarm across the ground and the occasional giant robber crab – capable of splitting coconuts in two with their claws – appeared in the undergrowth.
What was, in the 1960s, the administrator’s bleached white house in a broad clearing is now derelict and overshadowed by palms. A giant banyan tree has taken root in the stone steps to the first floor, its roots gripping the stone. A vast water tank stands rusting beside the building.
Nearby is the island’s chapel, Saint Sacrement. “This is where I was christened,” gestured Bancoult. The roof had collapsed, the walls were covered in yellow and ochre mould.
With his fellow Chagossians, he set to work clearing the floor. Sprouting coconuts were hurled out through the empty windows. Marcel Humbert hacked at palm fronds with a machete, trying to push back the jungle from their former existence. “I was baptised here, too,” said Lisbey. “This is my church.”
Bancoult added: “My grandfather had his funeral here in 1969. My mother made her first communion here. Can’t I have the right to live in my birthplace? It’s racism. They should give everyone in overseas territories the same treatment.”
As the ship approached Peros Banhos on Friday evening, the prime minister of Mauritius, Pravind Jugnauth, told the Guardian in a telephone call that his country’s first expedition to the Chagos Island was “not in any way a hostile act” and not meant to embarrass the UK. “It is merely an exercise of our sovereignty over part of our territory and that is in accordance with international law.”
In terms of the way the Chagossians had been treated, he added: “The UK has acted in violation of human rights and international law when it forcibly removed the Chagossians. Uprooting people from their place of birth and where they were living without any warning and putting them on a ship and just leaving them at the quay in Mauritius. And preventing them going back … That’s clearly a crime against humanity and it’s extraordinarily serious.”
Responding to the criticism on Saturday, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London said: “Successive UK governments have expressed sincere regret about the manner in which Chagossians were removed from BIOT in the late 1960s and early 1970s and we are currently delivering a £40m support package to Chagossians over a 10-year period.”
