Message of Support from NPAR
08.11.2010
Reunion Island , 28th October 2010
Dear people of the Chagos Islands,
Dear Delegates,
We, from the NPAR, regret not to be among you for this conference. Our regional geographical position, our common past history and our views on how politics should be carried out in the Indian Ocean lead us to reaffirm with the greatest strength that :
- we consider that the Chagos Islands were acquired illegally by the United Kingdom (UK) with the complicity of the Mauritian Government in 1965.
- we denounce with the utmost force the agreement settled between the British government and the U.S government allowing the illegal occupation of the Chagos Islands by the U.S military forces.
- we denounce the deportation of the Chagossians and we consider it as a crime against humanity.
- we denounce the military use of the Chagos Islands allowing the U.S military forces to bomb Iraq or Afghanistan thus bringing death to thousand of innocent civilians from a peaceful land formerly populated by peaceful people.
- we denounce the ecological cost paid by the Chagossian Islands in order to set up U.S military infrastructures.
Considering all those facts, the NPAR once more reaffirms that the occupation is illegal, So we just have two words to tell the American forces : GO HOME ! ! ! (pause)
*********************
We solemnly ask General-Secretary of the UNO, Ban Ki-Moon to :
- firmly and officially condemn the illegal occupation of the Chagos Islands and to get really involved in resolving the problem of those territories in order to make the U.S soldiers pack up before December 2016.
- recognize the harm done to generations of Chagossians and their right to return to THEIR land and of course obtain the corresponding compensation even if we consider that there is no price for such a great tragedy ! ! !
- set up a calendar for the withdrawal of the U.S forces and the re-installation of the survivors of the past deportation, or their descendants, in December 2016, date corresponding to the end of the British lease of the Chagos Islands to American forces.
- start legal action to condemn both the UK and the USA in order to make them pay for the destruction done to the islands and to the environment.
We ask the Mauritian government to consider the Chagossian people with much more empathy and urgently improve their living conditions here.
We also ask the Mauritian authorities to put all its willingness and all its weight to back the Chagossian people in their fight to return to their land
We encourage the UNO and the so-called Western Democracies to abandon their traditional and old-fashioned colonial and political approaches to the region FOR THE SAKE OF JUSTICE FOR THE CHAGOSSIANS.
T.Appadoo
NPAR
