Chagos Ou La Mémoire des Îles

01/01/2011

The Chagossians used to live in the Chagos Archipelago, under British rule, in the Indian Ocean. Between 1967 and 1973, the British government progressively evicted the islander population from their homelands to allow the United States to build a huge military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands. The base was strategically important to the US and British involvement in Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern fields of military operation. No consultation took place with the Chagossian people, and they were given no choice. As the film powerfully documents, the islanders were forced to survive in shanty towns in Mauritius and the Seychelles and were given no prospect of ever returning to their home. Many of them survive today in inadequate housing and poor living conditions, unwelcomed by their host communities. They can only dream of their archipelago and share one obsession: to return home.