Chagos islanders win key bout in fight to go home

23/05/2007 12:37

LONDON (Reuters) - The people of the Chagos Islands, driven from their Indian Ocean paradise by the British government more than 40 years ago, may soon be able to return home after a stunning High Court victory on Wednesday.

The court dismissed a Foreign Office appeal against their return, saying the right to go home was "one of the most fundamental liberties known to human beings".

It also said it believed the government should not be allowed to appeal any longer, but left that decision up to the House of Lords -- the country’s highest court.

Pending any appeal, Wednesday’s decision means those surviving members of the 2,000 Chagossians removed from their homes in the 1960s and 70s, and their descendants, could return as soon as they can organise a trip, although reaching the tiny, remote archipelago is an enormous challenge.

The islanders were removed during the Cold War after Britain, the colonial administrator of the islands, gave the United States permission to build an air and naval base on Diego Garcia, one of the largest islands in the group.

That base has been used in U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the British government has argued that on security and other grounds it would not be right for the Chagossians to be allowed to return to their homeland.

Olivier Bancoult, the chairman of the Chagos .....continued below

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Refugees Group, who has driven the campaign to win the right to return, emerged from the High Court with his fingers held up in a victory sign.

He said his priority now was to go home as soon as possible and tend the graves of his ancestors.

"I’m very happy for my people," he told reporters as he was congratulated by supporters.

"It’s always been my dream to go home and I will go. We will go back and we will live there and make Chagos great."

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