Government desperate to please Bush at expense of dispossessed Chagossians

2.29.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 30th Jun 2008

The present Labour government is going to the House of Lords today to seek to overturn an Appeal Court ruling which said the Chagos islanders, turfed off their land 40 years ago by a previous Labour government in order to give Diego Garcia to the US as a military base, have a right to return. There have been 3 court decisions in total in favour of the Chagossians' right to go home. They and their descendants live mainly in Mauritius though some are in the UK and elsewhere, and often in very difficult conditions of poverty and unemployment.

Liberal Democrat MEP for London Baroness Sarah Ludford, the party's European justice and human rights spokeswoman, has expressed full support for the picket by Chagos supporters outside the House of Lords today:

"When Gordon Brown talks about Britishness, he needs to remember that most people traditionally associate fairness and decency with the British people. Thus it is matter of deep shame to many ordinary Britons that the government in our name is refusing to accept defeat and do the decent thing. Instead of standing up to the Bush regime, this government is prepared to betray vulnerable people who are supposed to enjoy the 'protection' of the UK."

"Adding human rights insult to injury, Foreign Secretary David Miliband was forced to admit in February after copious denials that 2 flights carrying American victims of 'extraordinary rendition' - whose later fate is unknown - were refuelled in Diego Garcia. So the Chagossians were displaced in order for the UK to be complicit in disappearance and torture, how disgracefully ironic."

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Sarah Ludford has been a consistent supporter of the Chagos islanders.

Chagos court ruling.

Treatment of Chagos islanders.