WikiLeaks: UK used Diego Garcia marine park
(The Guardian): The Foreign Office stands accused of misleading the public over the plight of thousands of islanders who were expelled from their Indian Ocean homeland to make way for a large US military base. More than 2,000 islanders – described privately by the Foreign Office as "Man Fridays" – were evicted from the British colony of Diego Garcia in the 1960s and 70s. The Foreign Office, backed by the US, has fought a long legal battle to prevent them returning home. The islanders’ quest to go back will be decided by a ruling, expected shortly, from the European court of human rights. A secret US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks suggests the Foreign Office has privately admitted its latest plan to declare the islands the world’s largest marine protection zone will end any chance of them being repatriated.
The admission is at odds with the public position of the Foreign Office that the proposed park does not prejudice or have any effect on the the islanders’ right to return. The islanders have claimed the marine park was a ploy to block their return, saying it would make it impossible for them to live there as it would ban fishing, their main livelihood.
Category: World News
Anon Fri 18:20: It’s an issue that brings to mind the biblical injunctions aboutcasting the first stone and mote and beam.
I hope the Cayman Islands are never judged by the statements of some of its own "Denis Greenhills/senior officials". For example, Saint Julianna describing Hindus as heathens. There are many others fom other "senior officials", particularly about expatriates and gays.
Cayman, we are all under the Foreign Office. They changed their names so many times. Now they called themselves the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and they are the ones in charge over the Governors of the colonies. Diego Garcia, like the Cayman Islands, a British colony, once was inhabited. However, the British kept the people frombearing arms, and one day outnumbering the inhabitants by military personnel, ordered them all evicted from their own home. They were warned to leave or else their fate would have been the same fate, which happened to all their dogs on the island. By order of the British rule, the pet dogs on the island were all gased to death. The people were told that they would be able to return, but since 1970’s they are still in Madagascar in poverty – and these are British citizens! The United States and the United Kingdom had their eyes on the beautiful island, Diego Garcia for a long time. Their plan for DG was to make one of the largest military air bases in the world to control the east and places like Iran, India, China, Pakistan. The eviction was all an act for obtaining power. Now, today the people of the DG have even went to the House of Commons and Lords, and have all fail to have them return back to their homes. It just shows you that for Her Majesty’s Interest, we Caymanians are nothing! We could have been like the Turks and Caicos! They have taken away their Constitution and their Democracy! Note the United States media is quiet on the whole matter. Just because of one man’s corruption, the FCO ordered the islands cabinet, elected by the people dissolved without their consent. The UN condemned the whole UK act of declaring British Rule on the Inhabitants. For their own pleasure, Cayman Islands remain in her favor because of our Financial Center.
See the documentary film on "Stealing a Nation." http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/stealing-a-nation/
I think it is very educational and should be taught in our schools. The truth should never be covered up and taken away from our children.
The Foreign Office was created in 1782 and changed its name to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1968. Wess it’s a shame if this "changing their name so many times" is causing you confusion.
Well it would cause confusion to the likes of Wess, Sat 17:17 wouldn’t it? We aren’t dealing with stellar brains here.
I wonder why CNS quickly moved this item off their main news page which is where I first saw it and commented on it. It was moved within 24 hours and I had a hard time finding it again. Comments, CNS?
CNS: It was a test for your stellar brain.
Touche, CNS (I can’t do the acute accent -brain not stellar enough). But at least I passed your test by finding it.
"Roberts, admitting the government was "under pressure" from the islanders, told the US of the plan to set up the marine park on 55 islands around Diego Garcia, known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). "Roberts stated that, according to [Her Majesty’s government’s] current thinking on a reserve, there would be ‘no human footprints’ or ‘Man Fridays’ on the BIOT uninhabited islands," according to the American account of the meeting. The language echoes that used in 1966 when Denis Greenhill – later the Foreign Office’s most senior official – described the inhabitants as "a few Tarzans and Man Fridays".
Oh no, we are assured by our Brit expats, that was back in the 1960s and could never happen today! Well it seems that not only is the contemptuous disregard of those they consider inferior unchanged, even the language used to describe them is unchanged.
Further, it is clear that they are not above cynically using environmentalists to do their dirty work for them.