A FEW MAN FRIDAYS
Public Debate 2
10/03/2012
Riverside Studios, London, UK

PANEL: 
Adrian Jackson (Writer & Director of A Few Man Fridays/Chair)
Laura Jeffery (University of Edinburgh)
David Snoxell (Co-ordinator, Chagos All Party Parliamentary Group)
Hengride Permal (Chagos Islands Community Association)
Bernadette Dugasse (UK Chagos Support Association)
Jeremy Corbin (Chagos All Party Parliamentary Group)

Adrian Jackson: Welcome. Thank you very much for coming. My name’s Adrian Jackson. I’m just a sort of nominal panel on this, really, just to make up the numbers, really. Our chair is Laura Jeffery here. I just need to say to you that this event is being filmed and recorded for archival purposes so if, for any reason, you wish to be incognito, you’d better say now or say at any point. Seriously, if you don’t wish to be recorded just let us know afterwards and we will remove you. 
[Laughter from audience] 

Jeremy Corbin: Not from the studio.

Adrian Jackson [to Jeremy Corbin]: Sorry?

Jeremy Corbin: Not from the studio; just from the recording. 

[Laughter from audience]

Adrian Jackson: Not physically. We won’t evict you. Enough eviction for one night. 

Laura Jeffery: Thanks very much Adrian and thank you for inviting me to chair this debate, which is on the topic of ‘Law and land: the future of the Chagos’. Now I’ve been working on the Chagossians in exile for the last decade and I’ve actually had the privilege of knowing most of the people on the panel for the vast majority of that time, so I should manage to introduce them without making too many mistakes but we’ll see; I’ve got papers just in case. What we’re going to do this evening is hear from each of them for about five minutes or so, and then once they’ve each had a chance to speak, we will—I’ll see if they want to respond to anything that the others have said, and if not we’ll open up to the floor for questions. We’ve got about an hour and then it’s going to be very tight at the end. 
So I will introduce them all very briefly at the beginning and then each in turn before they actually speak. So on my left is David Snoxell, then we have Hengride Permal then we have Bernadette Dugasse and then we have Jeremy Corbin. Our first presentation is going to be by David Snoxell, who has a very long history of involvement in Chagossian affairs. He was Deputy Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory from 1995 to 1997. He was then the British High Commissioner in Mauritius from 2000 to 2004 and he’s currently Co-ordinator of the Chagos All Parliamentary – All Party Parliamentary Group, and so he’s going to be our first speaker this evening. Hopefully he’ll set the scene for some of the things that other people are going to follow up. Okay, so over to you, David. 

David Snoxell: Thank you very much Laura. We were told we could have 8 minutes. Would I be allowed 8 minutes rather than just 5? Well it’s very nice to be here. I’m not going to comment on the play because I actually haven’t seen it. I’m going to see it after this debate. You will have had the whole historical background presented to you in the play so I’m not going to go into the historical detail otherwise we will be here until tomorrow evening. I want to try to set the scene, as Laura suggested, to try to discuss what would be a way forward for all the parties concerned. So I’m going to read a lot of what I’m going to say simply because it’s much quicker to read than to talk ad lib. 

So, since 2002 a resolution of the issues has been deadlocked and there’s been no progress. Indeed, further obstacles have been erected along the way, making it that much more difficult than it was, if we had brought about an overall settlement of these many intertwined issues following the 2004 High Court—2000 High Court judgement. The issues, to my mind, now, can be broken down into five interrelated areas. They are: human rights, defence and security, the feasibility of resettlement and the cost, conservation and the MPA, and the future sovereignty. That’s five separate areas.  I’m going to just briefly mention each area. Now all these areas need to be treated separately, as well as collectively, for an overall settlement to be reached. They involve four different Chagossian groups and three governments: that’s the UK, the US and Mauritius, the United Nations, the Commonwealth, conservation and human rights organisations and then, in addition, Seychelles and Maldives also have an interest in the outcome. Just over five years ago I had my first letter in the Times on this subject. I was already retirement, I had returned two years earlier, and I want to quote what I said in that letter because I think it still remains relevant. I said this: Is it not time that HMG brought together the Chagossian leaders, Mauritius and the US to sort out this relic of the Cold War and to rectify one of the worst violations of fundamental human rights perpetrated by the UK in the 20th century? Now, since I said that five years ago and repeated it in other fora, nobody has ever disagreed with that, not even the Foreign Office. In a meeting that the All Party Parliamentary Group had with the Foreign Secretary on the 15th of December, the Foreign Secretary said that he wanted to know the outcome of the case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg before deciding how to move forward. The case, as you probably know, was lodged with the court in 2005, but stayed, pending the judgement in the House of Lords in 2008. There is likely, though it isn’t certain, that we will have a result by this summer. And either the court will decide it does not have jurisdiction to hear the case and thus declare it inadmissible, or it will decide it is admissible and give judgement. If admissible, the overall judgement, in my view, is likely to be in favour of the Chagossians since it’s self-evident that the UK is in breach of one or more of the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court may then order compensation and the restoration of the right to return. It would be much better, of course, if the FCO had withdrawn, or indeed could still withdraw from the case and settle out of court. This would avoid any political rumpus from those who see Strasbourg judgements against the UK as an attack on the independence of our courts. If the court decides for the Chagossians, it is to be hoped that the Foreign Secretary will abide by the judgement and take the opportunity to restore the right to return and then go for a settlement. If the court decides the case is inadmissible, well, it’s really our judgement then as to whether or not we think that the UK is in breach of the Convention and I’ve a pretty good idea what most people think on that. However, the Foreign Secretary could still make amends; it doesn’t all depend on the result in Strasbourg because, of course, the UK is in breach of the UN Human Rights Covenants and the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. And he could restore the right to return, regardless of what is decided by the European Court. At the moment the UK, of course, stands guilty of double standards over HMG’s failure to restore a fundamental human right to the Chagossians who, after all, are British, and for whom the UK is responsible. So that’s it on human rights. [Checks watch]. I want to move forward. [To Laura] You’re going to tell me when to stop. [Laura nods]. Alright. To defence and security. 

It is now generally accepted that a well-planned and limited resettlement on two of the 54 outer islands, which are a hundred and forty miles to the north of the US base on Diego Garcia, would not prejudice the security of the base or interfere with military operations there. However, the security argument has been deployed by the FCO since 2002 as a reason for not allowing resettlement. The UK and US need to agree that there is, in fact, no longer a problem.  If necessary, the UK should personally talk to Hilary Clinton and convince her, if indeed she does need convincing, that the base, like other US bases around the globe, can safely co-exist with neighbours, in this case a small group of British people 140 miles away. Clearly, security was not a problem in 2000 when the then-Secretary Robin Cook restored the right to return following the High Court judgement. The Ministry of Defence, which has never said publically that there was a defence concern, could help by discussing the matter with the Pentagon. In any case, the UK-US agreement of 1966 which made BIOT (British Indian Ocean Territory) available to the US for defence purposes, provides in 2014 for the agreement to be terminated after 2016, or continued for a further 20 years. This provides the opportunity for the UK to re-negotiate that agreement and to make provision for resettlement and the future management of the islands, which have never been used for defence purposes (i.e. the outer islands). There is nothing to stop the Foreign Secretary raising these issues with the US in advance and 2012, this year, would not be too early to do so. In terms of our special relationship with the US, it is likely that the US, I would have thought, would be likely to be content to discuss these issues before 2014. Indeed, the US may well welcome the opportunity to resolve the issues earlier. Incidentally, the US have never said publically that resettlement is a problem. [Looks at Laura] Perhaps I should jump to feasibility and the cost of resettlement. [Laura responds (inaudible)]. Is it going to be okay? Alright. 

Now since 2004, feasibility and cost have also been deployed by the FCO as reasons against resettlement. These arguments were based on the 2002 feasibility study but a decade later, that study is regarded by most experts as out of date, some of it incorrect, unnecessarily pessimistic and lacking independence and objectivity. For example, the study predicted sea level rise which would, within a few decades, make the islands uninhabitable. But the latest research shows that there has been no detectable rise over the past 22 years and that there appears to be no other climatic factors which indicate that life on the islands would now be more precarious than when they were last inhabited. Parliamentarians – that’s the All Party Parliamentary Group – have since 2008 urged the FCO to commission a truly independent study into the practicalities of resettlement and the number of those who would wish to live in Chagos permanently, given that many, of course, will only want to visit without restriction, the land of their birth and their homeland. Such a study could draw upon earlier studies and report quickly following the restoration of the right to return. The experts would, this time, of course, take account of the experience and views of the Chagossian people, who were not consulted in 2002. 

Now, the inordinate costs, which we hear a lot about, to the taxpayer, has also been deployed as a reason against resettlement. Huge sums have been suggested. But until it is known how many the settlement is to cater for, what facilities and communications are to be provided, what work will be available and how durable it will be, nobody really knows. Funding does not need to fall entirely on the British taxpayer. The EU Commission has already indicated that if asked, they would consider sympathetically a request for funding. Also the US, international development agencies, NGOs and private sector could also contribute. And the UK contribution could actually be shared between the FCO, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development. 

Now, my third area is conservation and the MPA. Now I know that was discussed last week so I won’t go into any detail. It is really only in very recent years – I would say only the last three or four – that conservation has been used as a factor…has been deployed as a factor against resettlement. If carefully controlled, there is no reason why a settlement should have much of an environmental impact. The Chagossians have said that they wish to take on the responsibility for protecting their own environment. With suitable training they could easily be employed in a conservation role. It is well known that for Marine Protected Areas to be effective, throughout the world, local people have to be involved and take on monitoring and guardianship roles. A proposal was actually put forward by a conference in May 2011 at the Royal Geographical Society last year, for the creation of a research and monitoring station for visiting scientists, which would be supported by Chagossians living in an eco-village nearby. This was rejected by a number of scientists opposing resettlement and the FCO also rejected it. Although an excellent initiative, the MPA was declared in haste, nearly two years ago on the 1st of April 2010, in the face of mounting concern amongst many Chagossians and Mauritius. Protection was clearly not its only motive; the MPA lacks international legitimacy and after 22 months, remains still a paper park without the necessary management structure. It cannot be properly implemented and enforced until two legal cases are concluded: a judicial review brought by the Chagossians and a case brought by Mauritius under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Instead of fighting it out in court, the FCO should, in my view, consider a settlement with both parties, allowing the MPA to be modified to take account of the traditional fishing rights of Mauritius and of the Chagossians, and to make it compliant with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Also the management- implementation and management of the MPA should involve the Chagossians. 

Now let me get to the - almost the end - the most difficult issue, which is future sovereignty and management of the Archipelago. Since the creation of BIOT in 1965, HMG has remained committed to returning the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius when no longer needed for defence purposes. In the absence of any requirement to use the outer islands for defence over the last forty-five years, it is obvious that they are not all needed for defence purposes. There is no reason why the two governments should not negotiate a new status for Chagos which could be implemented in 2016. That status could, for example, be a joint management arrangement of the outer islands, such as France and Mauritius have agreed of a neighbouring Indian Ocean Island called Tramner, followed by a timetable for the return of sovereignty. Mauritius has said that under Mauritian sovereignty, Chagossians who return to Chagos would be given autonomous status with a local assembly as is the case in one of their islands, Cor Adris. The FCO really needs to agree with Mauritius the conditions in which talks could be resumed, which, of course, would include discussions on the future of the MPA and sovereignty. 
2010, this year, is the Queen’s diamond jubilee, and the Parliamentary Group have urged the government to consider bringing the issues together during the celebrations, to permit resettlement, which of course would be joyfully received by the Queen’s Chagossian subjects. It would be a fitting way to mark the Queen’s long reign, which has since the transition of the British Empire to a Commonwealth of Nations, has seen so much development in this area. Chagos is, in fact, the last relic of the British Empire in the Indian Ocean. 

Now finally, the first steps to be taken: if the FCO is to accomplish this demanding schedule, it really needs to have started by now. The All Party Parliamentary Group has suggested to the Foreign Secretary the establishment of a cross cutting unit independent of the Overseas Territories Department which is currently responsible for the islands, and dedicated to bringing about an overall settlement. A debate in the Commons – and Jeremy Corbin will no doubt speak more about the parliamentary side – has been asked for. That debate would provide an opportunity for the Foreign Secretary, who before the election promised, may I remind you, quote “to ensure a fair settlement of this long-standing dispute”. This would provide him to tell parliament about the progress he’s making towards that goal. Thank you, and sorry I exceeded my eight minutes.

[Applause]

Laura Jeffery: Okay, so we’ll progress straight on to the first of our two Chagossian speakers this evening. The first we’re going to hear from is Hengride Permal, who is Chair of the Chagos Islands Community Association, based in the UK.

[The microphone is positioned beside Hengride Permal. A glass of water is knocked off the table in front of her]

David Snoxell [to cameraman]: That will look good on the…

Jeremy Corbin [to cameraman]: Did you film it?

[Laughter from audience]

Adrian Jackson: Is anybody damaged?

Hengride Permal: It’s water. Yeah, I’m okay. Hi everybody, my name is Hengride Permal and I’m Chair of Chagos Island Community Association and we are based on Crawley where most of the Chagossians are settled. Myself, I was born from two Chagos parents; my mother is from Diego Garcia and my father is from Peros Banhos. And I was born during exiled time, in about 1968, in Mauritius, and I have seen the struggles of my parents ever since, the discrimination that we were facing when we were in exile in Mauritius. And we the Chagossian people, we have fight ever since to have the rights to go back to our islands. And like everybody know, in 2002 when we were granted the British citizenship and the court has recognised the Chagossian people are British citizens and we have started coming and settled in the UK, and…which is not really what we were looking for but we were thinking ‘okay, they have recognised us as a British citizen, okay let’s come to the UK and try to make a life for our children’. And even so, our family have been divided ever since; some of the Chagossian people get the British passport and some doesn’t. So our children and we have been fighting this ever since. Even our children, our brothers, when they try to come here they get deported from the airport, and this is a big issue that we are facing, we the Chagossian people, so our struggle has not finished yet. We were deported from our island unfairly, and now when we are in the Britain we are facing another problem where they are dividing our family, which is a big issue for us because we the Chagossian people, we are very family-type person and this is very heart-breaking for us. 

And I know today this issue is about sovereignty that we are talking in this debate, and for us, the Chagossians, what we want is to have our island back, like even the Mauritian government also has not treated the Chagossian people fairly and of course the British government took our island away from us, but both governments, they are responsible for our problems today. And even the American government. And this is a big issue, like we say, everybody has to take responsibility for their actions, what they did to us. And we the Chagossian people, we are praying and hoping that one day, and especially with your help - and by the way I would like to thank Adrian Jackson for making this play because I know lots of people in the UK are not aware of our struggles and it’s very important for us for people to know, you know, what has happened to us and what we are facing today. And we have been waiting for the court case, humanitarian court, and it’s still, like, they are like playing with us I should say, because they are delaying it, postponing it. It has been two years ago that we should have a judgement and we are still waiting and we have been saying that it’s not a priority for us, I mean we are not the priority, we are not getting killed like Iraq or other country, but we are suffering in silence. Doesn’t matter if you have a gun behind your head, but - behind our head - but we are suffering. Our native people, they are dying, they are getting old. And we pray and ask, you know, your support, that, you know, this government will take…will take a stand and do something for the Chagossian people because we deserve , you know, to have a positive outcome for what was done for us. It was an injustice. And I pray and hope that, you know, we will get what we have been praying for and that this government will stop dividing our family. And we have other supporters like the APPG group that are also fighting for our cause, and Jeremy Corbin also as an MP has been also on our side. But we need more people, like, to support us so that we can get justice. And I, myself, for the sovereignty: I don’t want any of these two governments to get sovereignty over this country. What we want is the Chagos to come back to the Chagossian people. This is our island and that’s what we want. 

Audience member: Renoue Diego!

Hengride Permal: Renoue Diego, that’s right!

[Cheering and applause from audience]

Laura Jeffery: Thank you Hengride. Okay, so now we’ll move onto the second of our two Chagossian speakers for this evening, who is Bernadette Dugasse, who is currently Assistant Secretary of the UK Chagos Support Association. She’s also based in the UK now, but unlike Hengride, she came from the Seychelles rather than via Mauritius.

Bernadette Dugasse: Hi, my name is Bernadette Dugasse, born Nourrice. I was born on Diego Garcia and when I was two and a half year old – this is what my Mum said – we were deported to the Seychelles. My mother was fully pregnant. We arrived in Seychelles in May and in July my mother gave birth. Life in Seychelles was not easy. It’s the same like in Mauritius but, I don’t know why, we in Seychelles, we always undercover, nobody come forward to rescue us. I don’t know why. To me, the British law is a joke. Cats have more priority than human beings. They keep telling the Chagossians that if they do something for us, others will fight it. I don’t know that there is any other countries or islands who is facing the same problem like us Chagossians. We can’t go back to Chagos because the Americans said so. And the Americans say the British said so, so we don’t know which is true. They can’t give us – they can’t give our spouse our passport because the others will fight it. If we were in Chagos, we will marry Chagossians but we weren’t, sadly we were deported so we had to marry anybody where we are. If we were in English, we will marry English men, if we were in America, we marry American men, but I was in Seychelles, I had to marry somebody from Seychelles and this is dividing our family again. My children have passport; my husband, no. And it’s getting difficult for them. Everything is getting higher, the prices are going up, and now we have been told that if you want – in Seychelles or Mauritius – if you want a visa you have to apply it online. Seychelles, where people doesn’t have credit cards and how are they going to apply it? They don’t have computers. What will they do? Us, wife or husband who is Chagossian, we are in UK and our husband or wife are back in Seychelles or Mauritius. This is dividing. We were used to being community. Okay, I know that we— 

[A few minutes of recording missing while tape is being changed]

Richard Gifford:…Umm, it’s the icing on the cake after what has been about fifteen years of litigating and trying to fight the David and Goliath battle that you have to undertake when you set out to overturn legislation, particularly when you’ve got such powerful interests as the British and the Americans supposedly pursuing defence policies. So that is absolutely marvellous. Can I just say one other small thing, taking up the point of action that Jeremy has mentioned, and that is that if you log on to the Whitehouse website, the Whitehouse in the United States of America, there is presently a petition pending where you can sign that petition which asks for justice for the Chagossian people and this is an initiative of the Mauritian legal team and the United States legal team, and they have to collect twenty-five thousand signatures by the end of April I think it is. 

Laura Jeffery: End of March. 

Richard Gifford: End of March, is it? Thank you very much. We’ve started – and I think we’re into the first thousand – but there’s an awful long way to go, so if anybody’s got an internet and an email account, that’s all you need. You don’t have to be a U.S. citizen or a U.S. resident. So that’s one practical step that it would be marvellous if you could take. I really only want to say one other thing and that is that the litigation has been long and gruelling, and it’s taken in large numbers of the Chagossian community. Olivier Bancoult has been the steadfast leader who’s taken all the difficult decisions and won all the battles that he’s won – there have been several court case victories - and taken all the defeats and the knocks when they’ve come as well. So he’s a stalwart. But ultimately it’s a question of policy. We are, however, fighting everything we can legally. At the moment there’s a judicial review pending against the Marine Protected Area. It is quite possible that come the summer, the judges may decide that it’s unlawful, partly because it didn’t consider the interests of Chagossians when they set it up in haste, and partly because of the demonstrated link; there are still a few Chagossian fishermen who are able to fish in Chagos waters on licenced vessels that leave from Mauritius and go fishing there. Of course that’s all stopped now, and we were able to show that the consultation document actually mis-described the effect on the population when they said there would be no effect on the population by the pronunciation of a Marine Protected Area. But you have to sort of scrape around for small points to win in litigation and it’s not good enough to say ‘it just isn’t fair’. That doesn’t get you very far. However, we did have the enormous advantage that the gentleman who signed the Marine Protected Area into law, the Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory, was actually caught red-handed talking to the Americans and saying what he thought would be the purpose and effect of the Marine Protected Area. And the Americans dutifully recorded it in a cable back to Washington and he was recorded as saying that they wouldn’t let Man Fridays back onto the islands, it was the most effective way of circumventing the Chagossian lobby groups. So that is an issue that will be raised in the Marine Protected Area as being an improper motive. And it’s really quite satisfying because we’ve been saying all along ‘but isn’t this just a device to keep the population out, this no-take, no-population Marine Protected Area?’.  And they’ve been writing letters saying ‘oh, you seem to think it’s a device to keep the population out’. And now we’ve got them. So that’s one satisfactory development. And the legal battle will go on, I assure you. [A few second of recording missing as tape is being changed]…British Indian Ocean Territory website, you can apply for a yacht licence. 

Bernadette Dugasse: Okay, they do fish!

Richard Gifford: And it costs…[In response to Bernadette] Well, they’re not supposed to. Whether they do or they don’t, I don’t know. I’ll tell you a funny story. In 2000, Olivier Bancoult and two compatriots and I were allowed a visit to the islands and I arranged with the administrator that we would not be allowed to do any sport fishing but we would be allowed to take photographs. So some of the Chagossians brought hand lines with them, because that’s what they used to do. All fishing in Chagos was by rod and line, basically, not by nets. And this elderly gentleman brought a beautiful hand line with a few hooks on it and I went in the galley on the boat and asked the cook if we could have little scraps of food for bait, and he looked a bit doubtful and a few minutes later, the administrator, the official, came scurrying down the galley and said ‘Mr Gifford,’ she said, ‘I thought we said no fishing!’. And I said ‘but this isn’t sport fishing; this is what Chagossians have always done. Surely you’re not going to stop them catching a few fish over the side of the boat’. And unfortunately, the official was also the fisheries management officer, under a formal instrument, and she took it very seriously and there was not going to be any fishing. But, you’re absolutely right Bernadette. The yachts go there and they still can, there’s nothing in the Marine Protected Area that stops them going there. It costs them $30 a night and they get their rubbish collected by the commission. 

Hengride Permal: I just want to add also, see that’s the injustice things that’s going on. People are going to fish on our islands and they are paying a big sum of money and the government is getting all this money and we the Chagossian people, we are living in misery, you know, in poverty and we are struggling with our children. And this is so unfair. So we the Chagossian people, what we are saying enough is enough now. Like the play say, you know, if we kill the queen’s corgi and then that will make something, that will do something. So I think we the Chagossian people, if nothing is done this year I think we will have to do something more. Like, we are quiet people, we are people like with dignity, you know. We say ‘okay, let’s take this case to court’. We are not like the Iraq people, we take our guns and go and fight the government. But the government is taking us for granted. I think enough is enough right now for the Chagossian people. 

[Cheers and applause from audience]

Laura Jeffery: Now we’ll open up for questions from the floor. We have about ten - fifteen minutes with which to do that. 

Adrian Jackson: It would probably be good if we took a few.

Laura Jeffery: Okay. 

Audience member 1: Can I? I’m a fisheries expert who’s been involved in setting up the Marine Conservation Areas around Britain. There seems to be a misunderstanding about exactly what you mean by MPA because, of course, MPAs can take lots and lots of forms. They can just be about conservation; they can be no-take zone for fisheries; you can have certain species not allowed to fish; you can allow subsistence fishing. The actual zones themselves vary enormously in size. They can be mobile zones, so you declare one area for five years and then you move it on to another area once that area has rebounded with the fish. So surely you can negotiate for the Chagos or you can set into train a negotiation so that you can say that this is a no-take area in specific areas but subsistence fishing can be allowed.

Laura Jeffery: I can deal with that one quite quickly. The consultation that the FCO did before the MPA did offer three different suggested options on that continuum that you were suggesting, but in fact, after the consultation, they ignored the feedback that they got from the Chagossians and also from the fishing interests and went for the most strict version, which does not include..

Audience member 1: Full no-take…

Laura Jeffery: So it’s a full no-take zone at the moment, as planned. 

Audience member 1: It’s just ridiculous. Subsistence fishing does no harm whatsoever, absolutely….

Laura Jeffery: Okay. Next question from the row behind.

Audience member 2: Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate the efforts that people like Mr Gifford have made with these judicial reviews, Marine Protection Areas, Mr Corbin, I know you’re really engaged with this issue about the Chagossian people. I do feel, however, that in a sense, all these legalistic initiatives, be it debates that Mr Snoxell mentioned in the Royal Geographical Society, initiatives at the UN – what’s it? Court of Human Rights – and all these things, I just think, in a sense, it’s putting the cart before the horse because at the end of the day, even this issue about ‘oh, her majesty the queen is celebrating her diamond jubilee and to mark the occasion we’ll ask the American government if they can see the way to freeing up a couple of peripheral little islands out there’. I mean all these things are just, as far as I can see, are just red herrings. As I see it, the real issue is Uncle Sam’s occupation of Diego Garcia and that hasn’t really been given enough of a mention. It starts and ends with that American military presence on Diego Garcia. But moving on from there, Bernadette touched on these issues of exploitation of marginalised communities, in her case obviously it was the Chagossian people in Mauritius but extrapolating on from there we can see that those issues are global, they happen all across the globe, and they even happen in our own country. And I feel…I don’t want to be too self-righteous here but I feel that, in a sense, it’s easy for us to criticise other people’s behaviour and not reflect on our own, because we can see marginalisation going on right across the globe, we can see it in our own country, with the powers that be up in parliament – and I don’t mean any disrespect for you Mr Corbin – but the powers that be in the parliament, exporting their own accounts, and generally the people running the country presenting this point of view that everything’s all hunky-dory and everything is as it should be, all things bright and beautiful. Well we know that isn’t the case. All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all those toiling in this land are at the rulers’ beckoned call. We fool ourselves if we believe that workers here are free and that the Labour party still maintains integrity. Even our own Prime Minister is a puppet and a stooge. You think he’s not Dave Cameron, but Ebenezer Scrooge. Okay, basically we’re all getting ripped off here and moving on from there I would say...

Laura Jeffery: I think that’s…

Audience member 2: Okay, I’ll leave it there. 

Laura Jeffery: I think that’s enough, thank you. No, we don’t have time for…

[Applause from audience]

Adrian Jackson: All future contributions need to be in poetic form. Short haikus. 

Laura Jeffery: So the question kind of came in two parts: one was about strategy and one was about marginalisation in general. So I was wondering if Bernadette or Hengride would like to respond to the second part and then we can hear from David, perhaps, on the first. 

Hengride Permal: You know, you were right when you said all the governments, they all, everybody has their own strategies and everything. Because what I see is the government are playing games with us. You know when the Labour was in power, the opposition Conservatives, they told us ‘yeah, the Chagossian people, we are going to work with you. I don’t understand why they didn’t give you what you are asking for. But when we come in power, we will help you, get your island back, we will do whatever the Labour government was not doing for you.’ So now they are in power. Now this is another story now. So it’s like they are playing, taking us like balls, like throwing us here and there and really, this is like a politics game that they are playing and we like working citizens, we are paying the consequences like you said. You know, it’s everywhere we are facing this situation like not only us the Chagossian people but also in England or everywhere around the world, which is true. The government, it’s the government’s problem. They are the one that have the problem. So if us working citizens, you know we come together and fight this then we will be able to do it. 

[Applause from audience]

David Snoxell: Well thank you. I wanted to agree with the speaker, who suggested that all the cases that have been taken out through the various law channels are really a side issue: they are. This is basically a political issue and it’s the responsibility of government and parliament to bring about a resolution. And the resolution is very simple: it is simply to restore the right to return and to make resettlement possible. It costs money. But unfortunately, the previous government have used the law as a means of moving away from that goal, kicking the ball into the legal long grass and that is what has happened. Now that means that the Chagossians have to fight it through the law courts. Nobody particularly wants to go to the law courts to get a resolution because the resolution should be a political one. And once Strasbourg and all the legal issues have been exhausted, the responsibility goes straight back to parliament and to the government. Could I just also comment on something Hengride said about the coalition government? Now Hengride is absolutely right: in opposition, on many occasions members of the Lib Dem Party and the Conservative Party, both front benches, committed support to the Chagossian cause and said that when they, if they, became the next government, they would set about bringing a fair and just settlement to these issues. Now it’s only two years since they’ve been in government and we’re waiting to see when they’re going to bring about that settlement. 

Laura Jeffery: Well, in fact, it’s even worse than that because haven’t they said somewhere that they have no intention of deviating from the previous government on any of the main issues? 

David Snoxell: I don’t think they’ve said it quite as strongly as that, really Laura, no, because I can quote you many things they have said since. And I think the attitude of, actually, ministers today, and that came over very clearly when William Hague was talking to the parliamentarians, was one of considerable sympathy and wanting to bring about a settlement. They are held back by the officials and I think ministers make that fairly clear in their body language if nothing else, that it is officials who are stopping them moving forward because officials want to get through the European Court of Human rights and they hope, of course, the court will decide in their favour and that they will be justified. But I think, really, the current administration or government really would like to make progress on the issues. What does our member of parliament and Chairman of the group think on that?

Jeremy Corbin: Well I’ve met every minister that’s ever been involved in the Chagos Islands for the past ten-fifteen years. Before they’re ministers, you say to any rational…Sorry [Reaches for microphone]. [To audience] Could you hear me or not? [Audience responds affirmatively]. [Adrian hands Jeremy a microphone]. Okay. I was just saying I’ve met virtually every minister for the past ten or fifteen years who have ever been involved in the Chagos Islands, and if you speak to them before they become ministers, any rational human being told of the treatment of the Chagos Islanders, told of all the chicanery, dishonesty, deception, lies and all the rest of it that went with the original decision for the US base, went with the depopulation of the islands, went with the poverty of the Islanders, went with the dishonesty about the compensation and so on and so on and so on. They say ‘well that’s terrible, that’s shocking’. And in every debate, the ministers always start off with this narrative ‘this was a shameful period in British history, we’re very sorry about it, we’re very sad about it’ and so on and so on, and you almost start crying when they say ‘BUT..’ - and there’s always a ‘but’, isn’t there? – ‘BUT we are where we are’. And then they go on with all the sort of gobbled-gook about how there can’t be any return and why it costs so much money. Indeed, one minister kind of outbid himself during a debate in which he gave me a great long narrative about how the rising sea levels were a problem and they couldn’t possibly go back to the islands because the rising sea levels would swamp the islands in - probably by the end of the debate, never mind a few years later – it was all rising very, very fast. And I kind of intervened and said ‘I’m really disturbed to hear about all these rising sea levels. If that’s the case, I would have thought the US would have pulled its base out of Diego Garcia by now because that would be flooded as well’. He said ‘no, no, it’s not having the same effect on Diego Garcia’. Well, you know, to my mind if a sea level is rising, water kind of finds its own level, it’s going to be rising just about everywhere else. And the point our friend made, the fisheries expert, is absolutely correct: you can have a no-take zone, you can have a take zone, you can have a stock zone, you can have all kinds of things. But the one thing you don’t do is have a no-take zone in opposition to what all the genuinely interested people and the Chagos Islanders want, in which case you can then preserve what is a wonderful environment, and that is exactly what we want to preserve. And we have to keep on with that. The last point is…[video ends]. [Next video begins] …parliamentary debates. We’ve had some. I’ve applied for the last three opportunities for Foreign Office supplementary debates, is what they’re called, or adjournment debates, and the next application will go in in a couple of days’ time for the week after that, so we’ll keep trying until we get one. But I do feel the need for much more public pressure so every one of you, please, get on the email tonight and email your own MP and ask what they’re doing about it. Okay?

Laura Jeffery: Thanks Jeremy. We’ve got time for one last question. The one I saw first is right in the back row I’m afraid. 

Audience member 3 [In faint voice]: I’m just wondering…It seems that…

Jeremy Corbin [To audience member]: Wait for the microphone.

Adrian Jackson: There’s a microphone coming to you.

Laura Jeffery: Apologies to everyone else who had their hand up just now.

Audience member 3: It seems to me like there’s tonnes being thrown up against the Chagossian case at every level. And it seems as though you’re constantly, that the whole process is begin stalled. I’m just wondering to what extent you might think that that’s due to the financial gain that Britian might be getting out of renting the islands themselves.

David Snoxell: They’re not rented. They’re not rented at all.

Audience member 3: Oh, okay. So what is…I don’t see how Britain is gaining from…

Audience member 4: Britain is acting like a (inaudible) of the United States.

David Snoxell: Not at all! It’s quite the reverse!

Audience member 4: What we need to do is give the Chagos the choice of whether they want the huge death machine on their island or not. It’s not up to anyone else. It’s not up to the United States or Britain but them.

[Applause from audience]

Audience member 4: That island and that base is being used to terrorise half the globe. (inaudible) but there’s rendition flights going through there, part of the American gulag which is terrorising the whole lot of us at the moment. And that’s an extremely important issue. It needs to be closed down, the whole military complex. 

[Applause, cheering from audience]

Laura Jeffery: What we’ll just do to finish is to hear from Bernadette or Hengride a response to the final points raised there. 

Hengride Permal: Bernadette is a bit emotional because this is a big issue for us, this is a suffering that we are enduring. So what I want to say: I know everybody here, you are behind us and you are supporting us, keep on supporting us. Like Jeremy I think before told you there is this website, go on the website, tell your family, your friends about this, because this is, this has been going on for so long now. It’s about time. Look at how the gurkas got their judgement. So what about us, the Chagossians? What’s wrong with us? So it’s about time to do something for us, this government, because this is going too long. My Dad, today he is 77 and he’s getting old. He was in the hospital the last two weeks I have been coming here for this play and this is so heart-breaking, to see somebody like that and until now so many people like Mrs Talat passed away this year, and you know, they have not seen justice being done. So it’s about time that something is done to us, to the Chagossian people, like we say again ‘Renoue Diego’. 

[Applause and cheering from audience]

Laura Jeffery: I know this debate could go on and on and on and I know that there are far more questions in the audience that we haven’t been able to hear but I have been told that there is a very strict time limit and it’s time: 6:45. So sorry everybody. 

-END OF TRANSCRIPT-