added to his childhood in paradise Olivier Bancoult a particularly intense memories. "I still hear the sound of Kolraba, our traditional drum that my father gave me when I was little." The instrument is still found in the hut on Peros Banhos Bancoult, one of the 65 Chagos islands, which lie between the Maldives and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. "My parents at that time, 1968, hastily broken up, because my sister urgently to hospital for treatment in Mauritius had, "says Bancoult today in Port Louis, the Mauritian capital. Olivier was there for only four years old." They have left everything behind, they thought so, we come back. "But neither Oliver nor his parents and siblings, their homes have seen again since then.
who lived on the Chagos Islands, has the recalls carefree days. waves beat into the gently curving bay of bright white sand, sparkling in the distance coral reefs. fish were in abundance, and on land donated coconut trees shade and fruit, which the inhabitants had to pick up only from the ground. But this paradise is lost. Its inhabitants were from the Chagos Islands distributed. This relates to a different island kingdom in the north-western Europe - the United Kingdom.
Olivier Bancoult fate that a few thousand other Chagossians have suffered similarly, is the story of a first denied and then repressed expulsion of an entire people. She begins to British colonial times in the early sixties, when the Chagos Islands have belonged to Mauritius. Who at that time on one of the more than sixty islands lived and had to go to the doctor or wanted to buy tools, sailed to Mauritius, for on the remote archipelago there were no such offers. The Chagossians were left for a few weeks in Mauritius, then drove back home.
But in the spring of 1968, Mauritius had become newly independent, suddenly everything was different. "When my parents wanted to book for the treatment of my sister's boat trip back, they told the purser that was impossible," says Bancoult. "Your islands have been sold, he said," to the U.S., the building as a military base. "
This military area of Diego Garcia, the largest Chagos island with a globally unique natural harbor, is one of the largest U.S. military bases world. From the strategically located island flew air strikes against Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Lindsey Collen, Mauritius on a living writer and feminist, has studied extensively the history of the military base. Documents for decades in dusty archives and personal interviews demonstrated how the United States and Britain forged in the early sixties, a plan that could come from a spy novel tells Collen. "The U.S. really wanted to have an uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean in order to be able to control from there to the Middle East, and oil routes."
The Americans were preparing their plans during the Cold War. Advance team of U.S. Army looked at several British colonial islands and decided to Diego Garcia was the best. "Since the British have said: No problem, we found just the new colony, we Mauritius not enter into the independence, "says the writer, the Mauritian government in waiting, the British put an ultimatum. Either come quickly independence without the Chagos Islands - or There is no independence. "This was not only illegal, but was clearly contrary to the UN Charter," says Lindsey Collen angry today. translated Ultimately, the British by.
1965 flew over the Chagos Islands for the first time the flag the "British Indian Ocean Territory." She still does. The island of Diego Garcia was leased shortly thereafter as agreed with the U.S., for an initial fifty years. In a letter to the Government of the United Kingdom in London called for the U.S. Army leadership, the island was to "vacate and clean up afterwards." Without further ado, cutting the British supply all trips to the Chagos islands. How many Olivier Bancoult family stranded in Mauritius unintentionally, others fled. "The stubborn heads that were still there in the end, they put a beacon," says Collen. "Dogs that were practically on Diego Garcia to the family, were rounded up and gassed before the eyes of the population." From now on, was the fear among the remaining Chagossians: If we stay, the same thing could happen to us. Meanwhile, British diplomats at the headquarters of the insured United Nations in New York, the islands are uninhabited. A lie that London maintained for decades.
experienced fact, the people of Chagos an expulsion: they took on board ships, and there the inhabitants of the paradise island they lived for weeks in the hold, where they had to sleep on a cargo of bird excrement, a fertilizer. Many died on the journey, in particular children. In Mauritius the survivors was not much better, recalls Olivier Bancoult: "I'm like most grown up in absolute poverty, it is a miracle that I got an education." Most of these people lived and still live in the poorest neighborhoods of Port Louis. The few Houses that the Mauritian government offered the islanders disoriented, had been destroyed in riots recently extensively and served as goat pens. There was no water, no electricity, no toilets. What remained were the newcomers, tiny apartments in the houses. Bancoult The 14-member family had only one bedroom. After a sophisticated shift schedule, they organized the sleeping times, because not available for all at the same place was.
"We came from an island where we all lived in peace and no one needy person," recalls Bancoult of his childhood. "In Mauritius there was no money, no houses and no jobs for us, no chance of a better to lead life. Instead, there was at one time drugs, alcohol and prostitution. "
In the first years after their arrival and the shock killed most Chagossians. Bancoult father suffered the same day in port a stroke, was where he will disclose the purser, he could not return home. For two years he dawned with a paralyzed upper body in front of him before he died. Two of Olivier Bancoult brothers drank themselves to death, and a third died of heart failure. Bancoult sister committed suicide, as well as other displaced persons. "They all died from the grief of having lost their homes. "
has one of the few Chagossians who can read and write; Bancoult to return to the Chagos islands made it his life's work. He has promised his mother Rita fighting in the early seventies, the first protest outside the British Embassy in Port Louis organized. "It was about our recognition," says Bancoult, still indignant. "The British claimed so, we would not know we were guest workers, even though my family lived in its fourth generation of Peros Banhos." When the pictures reached the violently suppressed protests in London, the British government gradually changed its policy. As inhabitants of an island group that reports directly to the British crown, the Chagossians finally got British passports. And thus also have access to British jurisdiction.
In 2000, Bancoult won his first victory against Britain's High Court, the Supreme Court. In dramatic terms, the judges, the applicants confirmed that the expulsion of the island population was illegal. But the Labour government under Tony Blair used the ancient law of the royal edict to ban the return yet. Parliament has been turned off in this way - a method that an appeals court in 2007 sentenced to as "abuse of power". It again demanded the return of the Chagossians. But the House of Lords, the last instance, disagreed with, ostensibly for financial reasons.
Despite these setbacks, Bancoult is not. "We have already submitted to the European Court of Human Rights," he says, and he sounds like he fought his mother. "And we are preparing a case before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, because what the British government has done to us, a crime against humanity."
Olivier Bancoult waiting for the day when he can show his children his home. "Even if they were born in Mauritius, its roots lie on Peros Banhos." The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says Bancoult, represented the universal right of everyone to return to his homeland. He wants no more but also no less.
(Copyright with the daily newspaper, 29/01/2009)
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