ISLAND OF SHAME
A BOOK BY DAVID VINE
The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia.
The U.S. military base on the island of Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically important and secretive U.S. military installations outside the United States. Located near the remote center of the Indian Ocean and accessible only by military transport, the little-known base has been instrumental in American military operations from the Cold War to the war on terror and may house a top-secret CIA prison where terror suspects are interrogated and tortured. But Diego Garcia harbors another dirty secret, one that has been kept from most of the world--until now.
Island of Shame is the first major book to reveal the shocking truth of how the United States conspired with Britain to forcibly expel Diego Garcia's indigenous people--the Chagossians--and deport them to slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where most live in dire poverty to this day. Drawing on interviews with Washington insiders, military strategists, and exiled islanders, as well as hundreds of declassified documents, David Vine exposes the secret history of Diego Garcia. He chronicles the Chagossians' dramatic, unfolding story as they struggle to survive in exile and fight to return to their homeland. Tracing U.S. foreign policy from the Cold War to the war on terror, Vine shows how the United States has forged a new and pervasive kind of empire that is quietly dominating the planet with hundreds of overseas military bases.
Chagos Islanders in Mauritius and the UK
BY LAURA JEFFERY
Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in Mauritius and Crawley (West Sussex), the six chapters explore Chagossians' challenging lives in Mauritius, the mobilisation of the community, reformulations of the homeland, the politics of culture in exile, onward migration to Crawley, and attempts to make a home in successive locations. Jeffery illuminates how displaced people romanticise their homeland through an exploration of changing representations of the Chagos Archipelago in song lyrics. Offering further ethnographic insights into the politics of culture, she shows how Chagossians in exile engage with contrasting conceptions of culture ranging from expectations of continuity and authenticity to enactments of change, loss and revival.
EVICTION FROM THE CHAGOS ISLANDS
Displacement and Struggle for Identity Against Two World Powers. This book examines the history and contemporary living conditions of Chagossians who were evicted from the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean to make way for a strategic U.S. military base. Initially part of colonial Mauritius, Chagos was integrated into a new colony named the British Indian Ocean Territory in 1965. In 1966, Great Britain transferred control of Diego Garcia, the largest Chagos island, to the Americans under a fifty year lease. The expulsions which followed were designed to satisfy the U.S. demand for an unpopulated territory. The Chagossians were thus forced to resettle in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where livelihoods are poor and marginalized. The Chagossians are currently engaged in a campaign seeking right of return to the archipelago and recognition as a people forced to live in diaspora.ext to add some text of your own or to change the font. Tell your visitors a bit about your services.
