Diego Garcia is an island in the Indian Ocean claimed by Mauritius, ‘owned’ by the United Kingdom and leased to the United States.
When the UK gave independence to Mauritius in 1968, Diego Garcia was not included in the group of islands that was granted that independence. However, worse than that, the formerly-inhabited, islands were purged of their people.
This is clearly morally wrong, but now that they have been allowed to reside in the UK, we’re refusing to treat them as British citizens! Surely, having committed such an atrocity, we should (as a caring, compassionate and just nation) be bending over backwards to make the rest of their lives better.
Wandering slightly off topic, it has long been my belief that victims of miscarriages of justice — those people who are not just found to have ‘unsafe’ convictions, but those people who are fully acquitted — should be given more than enough money to live on for the rest of their lives. If you have had your liberty taken, potentially other horrendous things happen to you, you should not then be required to return to the grindstone and continue to pay taxes to the state that wronged you so heinously.
Staggering back to the topic in hand, this is far more sinister than a miscarriage of justice; this is a meditated act by the State and should be resolved with humility, generousity and apology. Act Mr Brown, act like a liberal rather than a left-wing facist.
Instead, we are denying these people the basic rights a citizen is afforded by other taxpayers: benefits. See today’s BBC News article on the Diego Garcians.
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