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Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia
The American military base on the island of Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically important and secretive U.S. military installations outside the United States. Located near the remote center of the Indian Ocean and accessible only by military transport, the little-known base has been instrumental in American military operations from the Cold War to the war on terror and may house a top-secret CIA prison where terror suspects are interrogated and tortured. But Diego Garcia harbors another dirty secret, one that has been kept from most of the world--until now. Island of Shame is the first major book to reveal the shocking truth of how the United States conspired with Britain to forcibly expel Diego Garcia's indigenous people--the Chagossians--and deport them to slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where most live in dire poverty to this day. Drawing on interviews with Washington insiders, military strategists, and exiled islanders, as well as hundreds of declassified documents, David Vine exposes the secret history of Diego Garcia. He chronicles the Chagossians' dramatic, unfolding story as they struggle to survive in exile and fight to return to their homeland. Tracing U.S. foreign policy from the Cold War to the war on terror, Vine shows how the United States has forged a new and pervasive kind of empire that is quietly dominating the planet with hundreds of overseas military bases. Island of Shame is an unforgettable exposé of the human costs of empire and a must-read for anyone concerned about U.S. foreign policy and its consequences. The author will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Chagossians.Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2009
19 people are currently reading
519 people want to read
About the author
David Vine
4 books51 followersDavid Vine is Professor of Anthropology at American University in Washington, DC. David’s newest book, The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State, will launch in October. The United States of War is the third in a trilogy of books about U.S. wars and struggles to make the United States and the world less violent and more peaceful. The other books in the trilogy are Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia and Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World.
David’s other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Mother Jones, Boston Globe, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. With the Network for Concerned Anthropologists, David has helped write and compile The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society and Militarization: A Reader. David is honored to be a board member of the Costs of War Project, a co-founder of the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition (OBRACC) and the COVID-19 Global Solidarity Coalition, and a contributor to TomDispatch.com and Foreign Policy in Focus. As a believer in the importance of public education systems (apologies to American University), David is proud to have received his PhD and MA degrees from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. There, David developed an approach to a holistic anthropology that combines the best of anthropology, history, political science, economics, sociology, and psychology.
All royalties from David’s books and all speaker honoraria are donated to the exiled Chagossian people and to non-profit organizations serving victims of war. David feels at home in many places but has lived for much of his life in New York City, Oakland, and the Washington, DC area, where he was briefly a dancing waiter.
See davidvine.net and basenation.us for more information.
David’s other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Mother Jones, Boston Globe, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. With the Network for Concerned Anthropologists, David has helped write and compile The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society and Militarization: A Reader. David is honored to be a board member of the Costs of War Project, a co-founder of the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition (OBRACC) and the COVID-19 Global Solidarity Coalition, and a contributor to TomDispatch.com and Foreign Policy in Focus. As a believer in the importance of public education systems (apologies to American University), David is proud to have received his PhD and MA degrees from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. There, David developed an approach to a holistic anthropology that combines the best of anthropology, history, political science, economics, sociology, and psychology.
All royalties from David’s books and all speaker honoraria are donated to the exiled Chagossian people and to non-profit organizations serving victims of war. David feels at home in many places but has lived for much of his life in New York City, Oakland, and the Washington, DC area, where he was briefly a dancing waiter.
See davidvine.net and basenation.us for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
April 2, 2017
We often come across essays showing us how the present times we are living in is the best that mankind has ever seen in terms of material well-being, human rights, justice and freedom. The arguments for this contention are compelling and I do believe they are valid. However, if you belong to small minorities living in forgotten places on earth, without much power and clout, their reality can be quite different. Especially when big, powerful nations are arrayed against them, these minorities might as well be living in the past few centuries, in so far as the way they are treated and how their rights are trampled upon. This happens repeatedly in the world even as the rest of us enjoy the fruits of the 21st century benevolence. This book tells the story of one such tiny minority, the Chagossians, who were forced out of their idyllic homeland in the Indian Ocean so that the US can build a military base in Diego Garcia and project power over the Indian Ocean. They are the original inhabitants of the Chagos archipelago, halfway between India and Mauritius.
The book traces the history of the Chagos archipelago and its people briefly and then goes on to show how it became a strategic hub in the foreign policy machinations of the Cold War era during the 1960s. The islands belonged to Mauritius at that time. But Mauritius itself was still a British colony, looking for independence. UK arm-twisted Mauritius saying that independence can be granted only on condition that Chagos will be detached from Mauritius for a sum of £3 million. Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, who would eventually become prime-minister of Mauritius, accepted it. The tragedy was that the Chagossians had no idea what was going on.
Diego Garcia had a superb natural harbor and was strategically placed in the Indian Ocean to control the shipping lanes through which oil was transported. A major military base there would be ideal to project power across the Indian Ocean. But Britain was a declining world power and was in no position to play that role. Cold War-era geopolitics abhorred vacuums and so the US decided to step in. But how do you convert an island inhabited by native people into one which is a pure military base without any of them? This dirty job was outsourced to Britain and they executed it with all the experience gained in their long years of treacherous colonialism in India and Africa.
International law even in the 1960s mandated that the interests of the territory’s permanent residents must be deemed paramount. So, the US and UK decided to pretend that the Chagossians were not a traditional people of the islands with permanent roots and homes. Instead, they were deemed a floating group of people who came to work in these islands as transient population. Consequently, they did not come under the UN-mandated safeguards. This ruse was used to evict all the Chagossians from the islands through many devious methods. For example, people who were away from the islands to places like Mauritius for medical treatment, were not allowed to return home because the ‘island is now closed and they can’t go home’. British officials also restricted supplies to the islands. So, Chagossians remaining on the islands were forced to leave as supplies of food, medicines and other necessities dwindled. Towards 1973, US officials forced the remaining islanders to board overcrowded cargo ships and deposited them on the docks of Seychelles and Mauritius without compensation or assurance of a home or a livelihood. The islanders had many pet dogs. They were forced into sealed sheds and gassed and burned in front of their already-traumatized owners waiting to be deported.
The Chagossians were not really welcome in either Seychelles or Mauritius. They suffer discrimination and racism till today in both countries. In Mauritius, they found themselves at the bottom of the pile with the British-French descendants on top, the mixed and Indian races in the middle and the Afro-Mauritians at the bottom. The Chagossians are victims of racism and discrimination at the hands of the British, French and Indian races. In Seychelles, most people are of mixed African and European descent. Since most people have African ancestry, racism is somewhat less. Still , people of darkest skin are discriminated against. Till today, the Chagossians have not been able to return home and are forced to live in poverty and disease.
Why was it necessary to evict the Chagossians even though they lived a good 150 miles from the bases in Diego Garcia? The US has a total of 5300 bases, 1000 of which are overseas. Not everywhere the native population was totally evicted as it happened in Diego Garcia. What is the reason for doing so? Ideally, all imperial powers, who keep foreign bases, would like total control of their bases for the following reasons:
The most serious reason is the possibility that a host nation may make the base temporarily unavailable during a crisis. The other major risk is that posed by the people living outside the base - the native population - which could revolt against the base or press the UN for self-determination of the land where the base is situated. Other risks are espionage from the locals through sexual and romantic liaisons with the base personnel. This is why the base generally imports contract labor from outside the country to work on the base instead of hiring locals, which in itself can become a source of tension. A simple solution, if one can implement it, would then be to evict all natives from the land and possess total control. Surely, the US wouldn’t have been able to do that in their 287 bases in Germany or the 130 in Japan or the 106 in S.Korea. But the hapless natives of Diego Garcia and Chagos were easy pickings.
Can we justify these reasons for the eviction of the Chagossians? Stuart Barber, the civilian naval planner who dreamed up the “Strategic Island Concept” and identified Diego Garcia as a desirable base site, was himself shocked when he later learned about what happened to the Chagossians. In a letter to the ‘Washington Post’, in 1991, he called what the British and the US did to the Chagossians an ‘inexcusably inhuman wrong’. He said that there was no good reason to evict them and that the natives could be safely allowed to remain even in the east side of the Diego Garcia atoll. And certainly in North Chagos. He estimated that even if $100,000 is paid as compensation per family, the US is just looking at a cost of only $40-50 million, a fraction of the cost of the base itself. Barber, as the intellectual god-father of the Diego Garcia project, realized that the cost to secure the base as an asset, was met not by Americans, nor by Britons, but by the islanders, dispossessed without warning or compensation, their fate concealed in layer upon layer of officially sanctioned lies.
This book is much more than just an account of one military base. It is an assessment of modern-day post colonial empires, the US empire in this case. It incorporates ethnographic research as well as research on geopolitical issues. The author has engaged many of the displaced islanders and US military experts in conversation in writing this book. Above all, it is written with great compassion for the Chagossians.
David Vine, the author, poses a soul-searching question for all of us at the end. He asks us if most of us aren’t complicit in the Chagossians’ exile and suffering. It is our security concerns and way of life which contribute towards such militarization, war and death. He implores us to be conscious of our part in this story of empire and exile every time we pump gas, pay taxes and return to the safety and comfort of our homes.
A powerful book of deep research and humanitarian concern.
The book traces the history of the Chagos archipelago and its people briefly and then goes on to show how it became a strategic hub in the foreign policy machinations of the Cold War era during the 1960s. The islands belonged to Mauritius at that time. But Mauritius itself was still a British colony, looking for independence. UK arm-twisted Mauritius saying that independence can be granted only on condition that Chagos will be detached from Mauritius for a sum of £3 million. Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, who would eventually become prime-minister of Mauritius, accepted it. The tragedy was that the Chagossians had no idea what was going on.
Diego Garcia had a superb natural harbor and was strategically placed in the Indian Ocean to control the shipping lanes through which oil was transported. A major military base there would be ideal to project power across the Indian Ocean. But Britain was a declining world power and was in no position to play that role. Cold War-era geopolitics abhorred vacuums and so the US decided to step in. But how do you convert an island inhabited by native people into one which is a pure military base without any of them? This dirty job was outsourced to Britain and they executed it with all the experience gained in their long years of treacherous colonialism in India and Africa.
International law even in the 1960s mandated that the interests of the territory’s permanent residents must be deemed paramount. So, the US and UK decided to pretend that the Chagossians were not a traditional people of the islands with permanent roots and homes. Instead, they were deemed a floating group of people who came to work in these islands as transient population. Consequently, they did not come under the UN-mandated safeguards. This ruse was used to evict all the Chagossians from the islands through many devious methods. For example, people who were away from the islands to places like Mauritius for medical treatment, were not allowed to return home because the ‘island is now closed and they can’t go home’. British officials also restricted supplies to the islands. So, Chagossians remaining on the islands were forced to leave as supplies of food, medicines and other necessities dwindled. Towards 1973, US officials forced the remaining islanders to board overcrowded cargo ships and deposited them on the docks of Seychelles and Mauritius without compensation or assurance of a home or a livelihood. The islanders had many pet dogs. They were forced into sealed sheds and gassed and burned in front of their already-traumatized owners waiting to be deported.
The Chagossians were not really welcome in either Seychelles or Mauritius. They suffer discrimination and racism till today in both countries. In Mauritius, they found themselves at the bottom of the pile with the British-French descendants on top, the mixed and Indian races in the middle and the Afro-Mauritians at the bottom. The Chagossians are victims of racism and discrimination at the hands of the British, French and Indian races. In Seychelles, most people are of mixed African and European descent. Since most people have African ancestry, racism is somewhat less. Still , people of darkest skin are discriminated against. Till today, the Chagossians have not been able to return home and are forced to live in poverty and disease.
Why was it necessary to evict the Chagossians even though they lived a good 150 miles from the bases in Diego Garcia? The US has a total of 5300 bases, 1000 of which are overseas. Not everywhere the native population was totally evicted as it happened in Diego Garcia. What is the reason for doing so? Ideally, all imperial powers, who keep foreign bases, would like total control of their bases for the following reasons:
The most serious reason is the possibility that a host nation may make the base temporarily unavailable during a crisis. The other major risk is that posed by the people living outside the base - the native population - which could revolt against the base or press the UN for self-determination of the land where the base is situated. Other risks are espionage from the locals through sexual and romantic liaisons with the base personnel. This is why the base generally imports contract labor from outside the country to work on the base instead of hiring locals, which in itself can become a source of tension. A simple solution, if one can implement it, would then be to evict all natives from the land and possess total control. Surely, the US wouldn’t have been able to do that in their 287 bases in Germany or the 130 in Japan or the 106 in S.Korea. But the hapless natives of Diego Garcia and Chagos were easy pickings.
Can we justify these reasons for the eviction of the Chagossians? Stuart Barber, the civilian naval planner who dreamed up the “Strategic Island Concept” and identified Diego Garcia as a desirable base site, was himself shocked when he later learned about what happened to the Chagossians. In a letter to the ‘Washington Post’, in 1991, he called what the British and the US did to the Chagossians an ‘inexcusably inhuman wrong’. He said that there was no good reason to evict them and that the natives could be safely allowed to remain even in the east side of the Diego Garcia atoll. And certainly in North Chagos. He estimated that even if $100,000 is paid as compensation per family, the US is just looking at a cost of only $40-50 million, a fraction of the cost of the base itself. Barber, as the intellectual god-father of the Diego Garcia project, realized that the cost to secure the base as an asset, was met not by Americans, nor by Britons, but by the islanders, dispossessed without warning or compensation, their fate concealed in layer upon layer of officially sanctioned lies.
This book is much more than just an account of one military base. It is an assessment of modern-day post colonial empires, the US empire in this case. It incorporates ethnographic research as well as research on geopolitical issues. The author has engaged many of the displaced islanders and US military experts in conversation in writing this book. Above all, it is written with great compassion for the Chagossians.
David Vine, the author, poses a soul-searching question for all of us at the end. He asks us if most of us aren’t complicit in the Chagossians’ exile and suffering. It is our security concerns and way of life which contribute towards such militarization, war and death. He implores us to be conscious of our part in this story of empire and exile every time we pump gas, pay taxes and return to the safety and comfort of our homes.
A powerful book of deep research and humanitarian concern.
Read
February 3, 2024So well done! I loved all of the use of Kreol in this book, it was very interesting. Of course the book itself was depressing—but very necessary. I felt that the author did a good job balancing all of the timelines and counties involved with the deracination of the Chagos people. It was heartbreaking, as any narrative or account of the Chagossian struggle is. Even if you (my goodreads friends <3) don’t read this book, you MUST look up the Chagos Islands and briefly attempt to understand what the UK and US governments did to this group of people.
July 3, 2023
Extremely thorough and fascinating account of how the British government, at the behest of the US Government, evicted a whole people from their home islands. 50 odd years later the islands are still closed to non US military personnel. Justice is nowhere near this story.
“It is no coincidence that few know about these stories. Few in the United States know that the United States possesses some 1,000 military bases and installations outside the 50 states and Washington, DC, on the sovereign land of other nations. Let me repeat that number again, because it’s hard to take in: 1,000 bases. On other peoples sovereign territory. 1,000 bases.”
“Other scholars have pointed to the significance of military bases. Among them, Chalmers Johnson argues that, unlike older, European empires that relied on a series of colonies and direct rule over other peoples to exert their power, the United States has for the most part avoided colonial rule. Since World War II, the United States has instead used its bases to exert control, influence, and economic domination over weaker nations. Bases, he and others say, have become a primary means by which the United States keeps other nations within a global political-economic order, most favourable to United States, thus maintaining its global political and economic supremacy.”
If you are interested in history, geopolitics and abusive colonial power, which is very much in existence to this day, read this book.
“It is no coincidence that few know about these stories. Few in the United States know that the United States possesses some 1,000 military bases and installations outside the 50 states and Washington, DC, on the sovereign land of other nations. Let me repeat that number again, because it’s hard to take in: 1,000 bases. On other peoples sovereign territory. 1,000 bases.”
“Other scholars have pointed to the significance of military bases. Among them, Chalmers Johnson argues that, unlike older, European empires that relied on a series of colonies and direct rule over other peoples to exert their power, the United States has for the most part avoided colonial rule. Since World War II, the United States has instead used its bases to exert control, influence, and economic domination over weaker nations. Bases, he and others say, have become a primary means by which the United States keeps other nations within a global political-economic order, most favourable to United States, thus maintaining its global political and economic supremacy.”
If you are interested in history, geopolitics and abusive colonial power, which is very much in existence to this day, read this book.
February 7, 2024
Could only make it to 16%. Dry. Comprehensive but boring. Outrage is dulled by the telling.
September 28, 2022
I enjoyed reading this book and yet found it tedious and incomplete as well.
The author has a noble goal. There's no reason to not help the Chagossians. The writing is solid, the historic facts presented are very interesting and very well documented.
However the book has two streams. 1) Presenting the facts about what happened and how the Chagossians were effected and why they should be helped. 2) Railing against US foreign policy and involvement in the world and our overseas military bases.
The second stream is where the book is weak I think. The author throws many US servicemen/women under the bus and assumes they took their actions because they were evil or were part of an uncontrolled bureacracy. He starts with the assumption that nothing the US did was justified or necessary and that there could have been zero repercussions or negative impacts if the US had taken a different path and never built bases around the world. He may have logically thought these things through in coming to his opinions, but he does not present anything to justify his opinion in this book. He also makes assumptions that none of our allies are willing to tolerate our bases and the bases only exist because the allies are afraid of us.
The book would have been better if he had considered and gone through scenarios for:
- What would have happened if the British did nothing and the Diego Garcia plantations closed or went out of business? They were apparently not profitable by the time the base started to be considered because other regions had started to grow coconuts at lower cost.
- If the US had not expanded would Soviet influence have negatively impacted the region and hurt the Chagossians?
- Was the Chagossians lifestyle really as safe and secure as he makes it out to be? They had minimal available medical care and were dependent on the plantation owners to regularly deliver them supplies.
- In more recent years would Iran or another actor have caused great harm if the US wasn't in the region?
Essentially he considers the evil that did occur and balances that out on the assumption that no other evil was prevented. As we have already seen since the book was published Russia has invaded Ukraine and it is very likely China will invade Taiwan in future years. Given all this the ideological idea that the US should never have stepped forward in the world and should now step back in all regions is hard to understand. There are certainly many other people waiting to fill any power vacuum that the US creates by leaving bases, and they will not necessarily be nicer to local inhabitants than the US.
When it comes to this second stream of railing against the US the author repeats himself over and over, and the book would have been better if some of this had been edited out. The repetition feels like he thinks repeating something enough times makes it true or will make everyone agree with him even if the argument isn't strong enough to convince a reader on it's own merits.
The author has a noble goal. There's no reason to not help the Chagossians. The writing is solid, the historic facts presented are very interesting and very well documented.
However the book has two streams. 1) Presenting the facts about what happened and how the Chagossians were effected and why they should be helped. 2) Railing against US foreign policy and involvement in the world and our overseas military bases.
The second stream is where the book is weak I think. The author throws many US servicemen/women under the bus and assumes they took their actions because they were evil or were part of an uncontrolled bureacracy. He starts with the assumption that nothing the US did was justified or necessary and that there could have been zero repercussions or negative impacts if the US had taken a different path and never built bases around the world. He may have logically thought these things through in coming to his opinions, but he does not present anything to justify his opinion in this book. He also makes assumptions that none of our allies are willing to tolerate our bases and the bases only exist because the allies are afraid of us.
The book would have been better if he had considered and gone through scenarios for:
- What would have happened if the British did nothing and the Diego Garcia plantations closed or went out of business? They were apparently not profitable by the time the base started to be considered because other regions had started to grow coconuts at lower cost.
- If the US had not expanded would Soviet influence have negatively impacted the region and hurt the Chagossians?
- Was the Chagossians lifestyle really as safe and secure as he makes it out to be? They had minimal available medical care and were dependent on the plantation owners to regularly deliver them supplies.
- In more recent years would Iran or another actor have caused great harm if the US wasn't in the region?
Essentially he considers the evil that did occur and balances that out on the assumption that no other evil was prevented. As we have already seen since the book was published Russia has invaded Ukraine and it is very likely China will invade Taiwan in future years. Given all this the ideological idea that the US should never have stepped forward in the world and should now step back in all regions is hard to understand. There are certainly many other people waiting to fill any power vacuum that the US creates by leaving bases, and they will not necessarily be nicer to local inhabitants than the US.
When it comes to this second stream of railing against the US the author repeats himself over and over, and the book would have been better if some of this had been edited out. The repetition feels like he thinks repeating something enough times makes it true or will make everyone agree with him even if the argument isn't strong enough to convince a reader on it's own merits.
September 9, 2020
A very thoroughly researched book on an international crime. The author used often very diplomatic language but he was still very effective in delivering the message. A people have been made homeless. Worse, they were dumped without their consent, without means of subsistence in a foreign country, that was just as ill-prepared to deal with them.
The criminals, as so often in history, the almighty United Staes of North America using as a bullyboy the fading Empire that was called the UK. The result ? A first class botched job and a crime against humanity. Lying and denying for decades afterwards ( to this very day ! ) did not make it any better.
In much less diplomatic language than David Vine would employ and with a hefty dose of cynicism, all I can say is : Why would a country that was founded by robbing half a continent be concerned with the fate of a few thousand people living on a few island in the vast Indian Ocean?
We are living in different times though. This is the age of the " global village " and positive " newspeak ". This crime is less than 50 years old - time to rectify it. Surely, it is within the financial powers of the stated two criminals to compensate these victims, for once and for all.
If David Vine decides to write about other " touchy " subjects - on the basis of this book alone, I can warmly recommend him as either a writer and/or investigative journalist.
The criminals, as so often in history, the almighty United Staes of North America using as a bullyboy the fading Empire that was called the UK. The result ? A first class botched job and a crime against humanity. Lying and denying for decades afterwards ( to this very day ! ) did not make it any better.
In much less diplomatic language than David Vine would employ and with a hefty dose of cynicism, all I can say is : Why would a country that was founded by robbing half a continent be concerned with the fate of a few thousand people living on a few island in the vast Indian Ocean?
We are living in different times though. This is the age of the " global village " and positive " newspeak ". This crime is less than 50 years old - time to rectify it. Surely, it is within the financial powers of the stated two criminals to compensate these victims, for once and for all.
If David Vine decides to write about other " touchy " subjects - on the basis of this book alone, I can warmly recommend him as either a writer and/or investigative journalist.
January 19, 2021
There are two major issues raised in this book - US military expansion and the plight of the Chagossians. The latter of course, arose from the former.
The author writes passionately about the first issue. His arguments are well made but given the geopolitical realities, there is very little that will change in the near future. The US is not going to give up its military dominance.
The second issue is linked to the first by the US base at Diego Garcia. If the option was available, the base should pack up and go. But that's unlikely to happen and I have seen interviews online where even many of the the displaced Chagossians and their lawyers seem to accept this as fait accompli.
What then are the options available to make the best of a sad, and bad situation? As I watched in an Al Jazeera programme on this topic in which the author also participated, appropriate compensation and a right to return to other Chagos islands reasonably distant from Diego Garcia seem to be practical solutions. Employment at the base itself, whilst being a laudable objective, is unlikely to be agreed to by the US government due to if nothing else, fear that tends to arise from guilt.
The author writes passionately about the first issue. His arguments are well made but given the geopolitical realities, there is very little that will change in the near future. The US is not going to give up its military dominance.
The second issue is linked to the first by the US base at Diego Garcia. If the option was available, the base should pack up and go. But that's unlikely to happen and I have seen interviews online where even many of the the displaced Chagossians and their lawyers seem to accept this as fait accompli.
What then are the options available to make the best of a sad, and bad situation? As I watched in an Al Jazeera programme on this topic in which the author also participated, appropriate compensation and a right to return to other Chagos islands reasonably distant from Diego Garcia seem to be practical solutions. Employment at the base itself, whilst being a laudable objective, is unlikely to be agreed to by the US government due to if nothing else, fear that tends to arise from guilt.
August 29, 2018
Island of Shame presents in-depth research in two areas: how Diego Garcia came to be a U.S. military base, and the expulsion of the resident Chagossians and their subsequent fate. The story of the Chagossians focuses on the injustices and human rights violations perpetrated by the U.K. at the behest of the U.S. Vine compares what happened in Diego to other expulsions and expansion of military installations in several locations. The basic information is quite valuable, but unfortunately much of the discussion of the Chagossians' living situations and their resistance movement seems like filler, hence the 3 stars. If you are looking for a book about what types of activities have taken place in Diego Garcia in the past 45 years, Vine's book is not a recommended source. For that, Vine suggests https://www.globalsecurity.org/milita....
January 1, 2023
An excellent account of one of the most blatant but relatively unknown genocidal acts that the US and the UK committed in the late 20th century.
I just wish I could locate some of the works by the Chagossians referenced in the book
I just wish I could locate some of the works by the Chagossians referenced in the book
Read
September 8, 2025very interesting read for envs 186 (development, displacement, & environmental justice) but a bit long for what it's worth imo. probably didn't read the whole thing but wanted it out of my current reads section so bad.
Read
November 30, 2024Depressing as fuck!! Very informative!!
February 4, 2012
This book is an extensively researched book about the island of Diego Garcia, as well as the other islands in the Chagos archipelago, which came to the attention of the US in the sixties as a possible military base. How the US colluded with and paid the UK to take control of the islands, and to evict all the people living there, and what happened to the people.
The author says he tries to be balanced in his coverage, but there is little opportunity for balance. The natives were dumped in other island groups (Mauritius and the Sechelles), where unemployment was rampant, and they ended up in deep poverty, many dying from the conditions. The Chagosians are fighting in courts to regain their homes, but while the UK courts have ruled many times that their expulsion was illegal, and they they should be recompensed, they have seen little from the UK, while the US just turns their backs and say it has nothing to do with them. Race and colonial mindsets seem to make the plight of the Chagosians inconsequential to the people who could help them return home.
Sadly, their fight for the right to return home continues, while their opponents seem determined to just wait long enough for everyone who was born on the islands to die.
The book also addresses, at least in passing, the question of the number of military bases that the US maintains around the world (well over 1000), the problems they have, and the question of whether they really are needed, at least in those numbers. After all, it's been more than sixty years since the end of WWII, and the US still has more than a hundred military bases in Japan.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any change in attitude towards maintaining those bases, and I doubt that will change any time soon.
The author says he tries to be balanced in his coverage, but there is little opportunity for balance. The natives were dumped in other island groups (Mauritius and the Sechelles), where unemployment was rampant, and they ended up in deep poverty, many dying from the conditions. The Chagosians are fighting in courts to regain their homes, but while the UK courts have ruled many times that their expulsion was illegal, and they they should be recompensed, they have seen little from the UK, while the US just turns their backs and say it has nothing to do with them. Race and colonial mindsets seem to make the plight of the Chagosians inconsequential to the people who could help them return home.
Sadly, their fight for the right to return home continues, while their opponents seem determined to just wait long enough for everyone who was born on the islands to die.
The book also addresses, at least in passing, the question of the number of military bases that the US maintains around the world (well over 1000), the problems they have, and the question of whether they really are needed, at least in those numbers. After all, it's been more than sixty years since the end of WWII, and the US still has more than a hundred military bases in Japan.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any change in attitude towards maintaining those bases, and I doubt that will change any time soon.
August 27, 2009
This book details the history of how the United States with the help of the Brisih displaced the native Chagossians of Diego Garcia in order to develop a military base in the Indian Ocean which would prove to be a picvot point for projecting American military power into the Middle East and Asia.
This story is told in the First person so that a reader can get a ground level feeling for how the US and British (during the 1960's and 70's conspired to deprive the native Chagossians of Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in order to create a US military base which is now part of the British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT). It is a troubling story of how in a post-colonial world global empires are created and maintained as the balnce of power shifts.
The native Chagossians were lift in squalor in the Seychelles and Mauritius with little ability to feed , house or cloth, themselves after British and Americans Soldiers gassed to death their pets in Diego Garcia to compel them to leave and make way for the US base. it is really a good jumping off point to understand how in the modern world of the WTO indigenous people are forced to comply with the new world order.
This story is told in the First person so that a reader can get a ground level feeling for how the US and British (during the 1960's and 70's conspired to deprive the native Chagossians of Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in order to create a US military base which is now part of the British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT). It is a troubling story of how in a post-colonial world global empires are created and maintained as the balnce of power shifts.
The native Chagossians were lift in squalor in the Seychelles and Mauritius with little ability to feed , house or cloth, themselves after British and Americans Soldiers gassed to death their pets in Diego Garcia to compel them to leave and make way for the US base. it is really a good jumping off point to understand how in the modern world of the WTO indigenous people are forced to comply with the new world order.
April 6, 2016
This book was really enlightening. I didn't know anything about Diego Garcia before I read this book and now I want to research more to see what has happened to the Chagossians since the book was published. Vine did a great job of showing the personal side of this as well as the political side. Highly recommend.
November 17, 2013
A well written and exhaustively researched book. While allegedly the UK fought the Malvinas/Falklands War to free these islands at the same time they didn't care about the dispossessed islanders of the Chagos Archipielago. The difference was that the falklanders were the descendants of those who illegaly took the Malvinas from Argentina while the Chagossian people were descendants of slaves.
July 22, 2016
Brings it all out into the open as to how fucked up the uk government and U.S really are ... To displace islanders from a once peaceful paradise THEIR HOME !! And to be told they cannot return is beyond words .....
July 7, 2009
Fearless, accessible, terrifying and important. Thank you, David Vine.
BUY this book: all author's royalties go directly to the legal fight for this displaced population.
BUY this book: all author's royalties go directly to the legal fight for this displaced population.
August 5, 2009
This is a very enlightening read on the plight of the Chagosians and American imperialism. I'm glad that I read it.
October 24, 2009
truly an ethnography of empire. impressively comprehensive research.
Read
December 13, 2012Example of what not to do.
August 25, 2013
Really good book about a history of people that you usually wouldnt hear about.
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