David Vine’s “Island of Shame” is an impressive work. In fact, it can reasonably claim to be the definitive account of the deeply disturbing story of the Chagossian islanders.David Vine’s “Island of Shame” is an impressive work. In fact, it can reasonably claim to be the definitive account of the deeply disturbing story of the Chagossian islanders.

THERE’S just no sugarcoating it. More than three decades after the forcible expulsion of the Chagossian islanders from their beloved archipelago, the sense of injustice stirred by this “ strategic population cleansing” is as potent as ever.

If it’s become a well- known fact that this was neither the first nor the last time the US government “ resettled” a local population for military purposes, the story of the Chagos is a case study in the extreme abuses of power that result when two powerful countries work in collusion to get their own ethnocentric way.

Drawing from his extensive research and time spent with the Chagossians, the academic David Vine masterfully exposes the chain of events that led to the “ resettlement”, as well as the subsequent attempts by both US and British governments to dissimulate the gravity of their actions.

Keeping it hidden

In a dispassionate tone, the American carefully reconstructs the Manichean Cold War context and the atmosphere of paranoia that pervaded all policy spheres. “ A new vision had emerged of an ‘ intrinsically threatening world’ where instability, no matter how far removed from the United States, was seen as a threat to nation” , he writes.

This persecution complex, which is more alive than ever thanks to George W. Bush’s chimerical war on terror, was to yield the Strategic Island Concept ( SIC), military masterplan based on a global network of bases that would provide “ a line of defense against Soviet and Chinese expansion”. Perennially neglected by the US, the Indian Ocean theatre became an object of covetousness almost overnight: “‘ More significant’ in Stu’s [ Stu Barber, one of the masterminds behind the SIC] mind and the minds of other officials was the broader concern that ‘ Western nations cannot afford to be without means of exerting power and influence in so large a sector of the world’”, explains the author.

The long and the short of it is that Diego Garcia fit the SIC bill to a tee: it’s shape, size and, most, importantly, location were too good to be true. Only one obstacle remained in the form of the pesky natives.

The US authorities told their British counterparts in no uncertain terms that the locals would have to go. They went about this unsavoury task with little, if any, ambivalence about the ethical ramifications of their actions ( the book also reveals just how lop- sided the special relationship binding the two countries is).

Their main preoccupation was keeping it hidden from the international community, and even this was more of an afterthought afterthought than a genuine concern.

In other words, “ Given Chagos’s limited economic output, Britain would have an easy time convincing Mauritian leaders to give up the islands. People of Indian descent dominated Mauritius, and officials understood that the Indo- Mauritian leadership would probably care little about uprooting an isolated, mostly African population whose ties to Mauritius were historically tenuous. Given the general isolation and obscurity of Chagos and its people, the Navy realized that few elsewhere would notice, let alone object”. David Vine’s book contains sufficient hard facts to sate the curiosity of even the most hardened history wonk, but its true strength lies in its ability to get the full scope of the human tragedy across, without having recourse to histrionics or melodrama.

Indeed, although his research is impeccably presented, David Vine excels most when exploring the collective memory of the Chagossian elders and the unspeakable misery, or sagren, that has come to define their existences since being resettled.

“ The sweet life”

The geopolitical and legal implications of the saga have acquired such global dimensions that it’s easy to forget its most fundamental aspect, namely that it’s a heart wrenching human story.

The ghastly treatment meted out to the Chagossian population would have put a feudal lord to shame, never mind the self- declared leaders of the free world. More than a century after the events, the circumstances of their forced exile remain as tragic as ever.

In particular, Rita Bancoult’s account of the manner in which she was told that she would never be allowed to return to “ the sweet life”, after she had traveled to Mauritius in order to get medical attention for her daughter Noellie, who died shortly afterwards, symbolizes their plight. . “ There the steamship company representative told her, ‘ Your island has been sold. You will never go there again,’ leaving Rita to return to her family speechless and in tears. When Julien finally heard his wife’s news he collapsed backwards, his arms splayed wide, unable to utter a word.

Prevented from returning home, Rita, Julien, and their five surviving children found themselves in a foreign land, separated from their home , their land, their animals, their possessions, their jobs, their community, and the graves of their ancestors.” The fact that the Chagossians’ cherished homeland might have been used for the extra- judicial incarceration of terror suspects only makes the US and British governments’ actions harder to countenance.

No amount of legal proceedings or diplomatic fig leaves will ever be able to right one of the most momentous wrongs of the 20 th century.

David Vine’s in- depth account of this extraordinary saga is a chilling reminder of what governments can get away with if left unchecked.

More importantly, it is testament to the suffering and resilience of a small group of oppressed people who refuse to forget. If you read one book about the excision of the Chagos and the forced displacement of its people, let it be this one.

N. R