01.01.2006
This year saw the international petition on the three-fold Diego Garcia issue: close the base down, full reparations with the right to return for all Chagossians, and re-unification of Mauritius through complete de-colonization. The petition was sent to the elected members of Congress, Parliament and National Assembly of the State of the USA, UK and Mauritius.
It has been a year of major changes in the struggle: most important are the fact that the displaced Chagossian people are gradually being drawn, family by family, to emigrate to the UK since the winning of the right to a British passport; and the fact that there is now an international call for a major grass-roots conference to abolish all foreign military bases world wide (to which Lalit is a founder signatory - see web), including Diego Garcia. The conference will be in Equator in March 2007. At the same time, there are still two legal processes continuing, one in the UK and the other in the US, for reparations and the right to return.