Chagos Islanders to return home to paradise - for one week

By mconnellan

DISPLACED islanders have been granted an opportunity to revisit their tropical paradise homeland.

Five Chagos Islanders, who settled in Crawley, will be granted the opportunity to visit the islands that they were forced from in the late 1960s.

The Chagos Island chain was sold by the UK to allow the US to use the main island of Diego Garcia as a military base.

The islanders have long protested their historic injustice but lost a High Court case on October 22 on their right to return.

The brief visit, organised for November 15, is thanks to the lobbying of Laura Moffatt MP and Chagos Islanders' community leader Allen Vincatassin.

Mrs Moffatt said: "They will visit for one week and will stay in a sail boat just off the shore. It will be a very moving trip for them."

The only previous return trip for islanders took place in 2006. A group was allowed to set foot on Diego Garcia for exactly one hour.

Speaking on his website, Mr Vincatassin said: "I am delighted that the Government has agreed to our request.

"It's high time that our people move forward and that we do not continuously dwell on the things of the past."

'The judgement of the House of Lords of the 22nd of October, I know, has been disappointing for some of our people who wanted to press for a resettlement on the outer islands of Chagos, but I still believe that the UK remains the best place for our people to resettle.

"Even if the right of return was going to be upheld by the Lords, the Diego Garcians were not going to be allowed back, simply because the UK needs to respect the treaty with the US.

"This visit to our homeland is vital, as it will give us a broader picture of whether it is more advantageous to live in the UK or in the islands. We are also being reconnected to our cultural and ancestral heritage."