ABOUT 40 years ago, under the Labour Government of Harold Wilson, the residents of the British Colony of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean were forcibly moved, in secret, to exile and poverty in Mauritius.
They gave them no compensation. The reason was to lease the island to the USA as an Airbase. It is now one of the largest American bases in the world from where Afghanistan and Iraq were bombed. Parliament was never told of this action.
It was done by an "order in council" a device that can be used to circumvent democracy. The Prime Minister can simply ask the Monarch to sign the order - he or she cannot refuse.
The islanders took the matter to the High Court in London in 2000 and won the ruling that the expulsion was illegal and that they should be allowed back.
The Blair Government then went back, in secret, to the Queen and persuaded her to sign an "order in council" that decreed that the islanders were forbidden to return. This was to suit the Bush administration. Saddam could not have done it better.
The islanders are now going to the European Court of Human Rights and perhaps the International Criminal Court. When I hear our politicians spouting about democracy and decency I want to throw up. I am ashamed to be British.
TERRY JAMES,
Drakes Broughton,
Worcestershire.
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