Indian Ocean islands' decolonization dispute gets day in international court
In the memories of the elders, passed down over bowls of coconut and octopus stew in the shacks of the Mauritian capital, Port Louis, the Chagos Islands were paradise.
They spoke of palm trees bowing their fronds over white sand beaches, and Indian Ocean water so brightly turquoise it hurt your eyes. They spoke of their neat, thatched cottages and the Saturday evening sega dances, a blur of whirling skirts and beating drums.
What they didn’t speak of, because they hardly needed to, because everyone listening already knew, was how the story ended.
The Chagos were still paradise. It was just that now, that paradise belonged to someone else.
Between 1968 and 1973, the entire population of the Chagos Archipelago, a freckled spattering of islands equidistant from east Africa, India, and Malaysia, were forcibly removed to
A population problem'The chance to go home'