Member

Since their expulsion, this civic identity has been kept alive in that the British Indian Ocean Territory has continued to exist. Though the Chagossians have shamefully been denied residency of their home jurisdiction, their home jurisdiction has endured. In this context, they have been able to aspire to return to their islands and become the populated, largely self-governing British overseas territory that they desire to be. To understand the force of this, we must always keep in mind the precedent of the UK Government’s conduct regarding the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and what it means today, applied specifically to the disastrous consequences for Chagossian civic identity of this Bill and the Mauritius treaty.