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Abstract
This article examines victimhood as a strategy pursued by organizations representing displaced Chagos islanders living in Mauritius, the Seychelles and the UK. The Chagossian community is a small and marginalized community, and Chagossian organizations need to make strategic alliances with other interest groups in order to further their cause nationally and internationally. External support groups are, however, attracted to the Chagossian cause on the basis of differing conceptions of victimhood that imply different adversaries and collective identities and mutually exclusive imagined futures, some of which are also incompatible with the futures planned by Chagossians and their descendants. Thus whilst identification of the Chagossians as “victims” is ubiquitous, strategic alliances have resulted in diverse political strategies and mutually exclusive visions of the future. Portraying themselves as depoliticized victims is a pragmatic necessity that enables Chagossian representatives to justify the apparent ideological inconsistencies these alliances entail.
Acknowledgements
This article draws on doctoral research funded by an ESRC Postgraduate Training Award in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and was completed during an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. Thanks to Matei Candea, Andrew Clements, Tony Good, Patricia Jeffery, Roger Jeffery, James Laidlaw and Gwyn Williams.
Notes
[1] The excision of Chagos from colonial Mauritius violated UN resolutions on the “territorial integrity” of colonies during decolonization (United Nations Citation1960: Article 6; United Nations Citation1965: Article 4). The Seychelles government negotiated the return of its dependencies upon independence in 1976, so BIOT now comprises the Chagos Archipelago alone.
[2] Through separate secret agreements, the US government contributed a total of $14 million towards the costs to the UK of the detachment and depopulation of the territory (Bandjunis Citation2001: 26–7).
[3] There are several reasons for this: firstly, when Chagossians arrived in Mauritius in the 1960s and 1970s, Mauritius was already experiencing high unemployment; secondly, Chagossians (most of whom had worked in the copra plantations on Chagos) were unlikely to be attractive employees as they lacked experience of the sugarcane industry, which dominated the Mauritian economy at the time; and thirdly, in a economy dominated by Mauritians of European and Asian descent, preferential employment of one’s own family or ethnic group and negative racial stereotypes of Afro‐Creoles hampered Chagossians’ access to jobs.
[4] The 1982 agreement also included a controversial “renunciation form” by which Chagossian recipients were required to sign or thumb‐print a quittance protecting the UK government from further claims for compensation or the right to return.
[5] R (Bancoult) v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2000], Queens Bench Division, High Court of Justice, London, Case No.: CO/3775/98, 3 November 2000.
[6] The BOT Act 2002 reclassified the 14 former British Dependent Territories (BDTs) as British Overseas Territories (BOTs). BDT citizens had previously been entitled to special passports that gave holders the right to visit but not to settle in the UK. The BOT Act 2002 replaced these passports with full UK passports. Since the Chagossians were no longer resident in a British territory, the UK government had not intended to include them in the BOT Act or to offer them UK passports. Following a parliamentary debate, however, a special clause incorporated Chagossians into the Bill on the grounds that their current residency outwith a British territory was a result of their involuntary removal from the Chagos Archipelago by the UK government.
[7] At the time, this group was called the Diego Garcia Island Council (DGIC). After being awarded UK passports in 2002, most of the DGIC leaders migrated to the UK, where they renamed the group the BIOT Islanders’ Movement. For clarity, I use this new name throughout this article regardless of the period under discussion.
[8] In December 2001, Chagossian groups also filed a claim for damages in the US against representatives of the US government (including Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld) and US contractors (including the Halliburton Corporation and Brown & Root). In December 2004 Judge Urbina dismissed the case (Bancoult v. McNamara [2004], United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Washington DC, No.: 01‐CV‐2629, 21 December 2004). In April 2006 three Court of Appeal Circuit Judges (Tatel, Brown and Griffith) affirmed Judge Urbina’s decision (Bancoult v. McNamara [2006], United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Washington DC, No.: 05‐5049, 21 April 2006). In June 2006 the Chagossians’ legal team filed a petition to rehear the case.
[9] Chagos Islanders v. Attorney General and Her Majesty’s British Indian Ocean Territory Commissioner [2003], Queens Bench Division, High Court of Justice, London, Case No.: HQ02X01287, Neutral Citation No.: [2003] EWHC 2222 (QB), 9 October 2003.
[10] Chagos Islanders v. Attorney General and Her Majesty’s British Indian Ocean Territory Commissioner [2004], Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Judicature, London, Case No.: A2/2004/0224, Neutral Citation No.: [2004] EWCA (Civ) 997, 22 July 2004.
[11] R (Bancoult) v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (No.2) [2006], Divisional Court, High Court of Justice, London, Case No: CO/4093/2004, Neutral Citation No.: [2006] EWHC 1083 (Admin), 11 May 2006. On 30 June 2006, the UK government lodged an appeal against this decision.
[12] “Hindu” is an umbrella term that incorporates Hindus of north Indian ancestry as well as Tamils and Telugus of south Indian ancestry.
[13] The rather bizarre category “General Population” was introduced in the 1952 Census. It was conceived as a residual category of those who did not fit into the other groups (which were conceived in terms of Asian geographical origins or Asian religious background), amounting to those of European, African or mixed ancestry, and some Christian others (see Eriksen Citation1998: 15).
[14] In Mauritian Kreol, this group is called Mouvement Morisyen Kreol Africain (MMKA).
[15] The CRG has also been offered moral support by high profile representatives of black interest groups in mainland Africa including the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, and the President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, but I do not have the space here to detail these relationships.
[16] The close relationship between Bancoult and Bérenger is by no means uncontroversial among Chagossians, many of whom remarked to me that several politicians have manipulated Chagossians in the past and that Bérenger himself encouraged Chagossians to sign the controversial “renunciation forms” in return for compensation in 1982 (see note 4 above).
[17] Chagossians in the Seychelles have never yet received compensation. Their legal team subsequently considered whether to take a compensation case against the UK government independently from the Chagossian coalition.
[18] Subsequent generations born in the UK, however, are automatically eligible for UK passports.
[19] My doctoral fieldwork was primarily amongst Chagossians in Mauritius. My forthcoming postdoctoral research will focus on those Chagossians and their families who have migrated to the UK.
