UK Foreign Secretary Has Opportunity to End Ongoing Colonial Crimes
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.
