British Indian Ocean Territory Proverbs (26)

“The UK decided to lease our motherland to the US to build a military base.”

A homeland can be signed away by distant powers without the consent of the people who belong to it.

“Since I was four years old, my people, the Chagossians, have lived in impoverished exile, while the US military has been enjoying the fruits of my homeland.”

A single act of dispossession can echo across an entire lifetime and an entire people.

“My life has been buried… It's as if I was pulled from my paradise to put me in hell.”

Losing one's home can feel like losing life itself, even while the body goes on living.

“I maintain justice must be done.”

However long a wrong is allowed to stand, the demand for justice does not fade.

“This battle has just begun.”

A single legal or moral victory is only a step, not the end, of a long struggle.

“We Chagossians will continue fighting for our fundamental rights to be respected.”

Dignity is defended by continuing to demand it, generation after generation.

“There is nothing, just structures of houses and of the church. There is nothing inside. Nothing. It's deserted. It was heartbreaking to see it with my own eyes.”

Seeing a lost home with one's own eyes can make an old grief suddenly, freshly real.

“The documents show clearly that the conspiracy to expel the population rested on a big lie.”

Injustice often depends on a story that does not survive contact with the true record.

“There are times when one tragedy, one crime, tells us how a whole system works behind its democratic façade and helps us understand how much of the world is run for the benefit of the powerful and how governments often justify their actions with lies.”

A single, well-documented injustice can reveal the true machinery behind a much larger system.

“One rule for you, another for us?”

A double standard, once named plainly, is very hard to defend.

“Britain's reputation as a guardian of the international rule of law is shattered.”

A nation's moral standing can be broken by the same laws it claims to uphold for others.

“We did not know about frozen food nor money.”

The abrupt move from a subsistence island life to a cash economy in exile stripped away everything familiar at once.

“I'll go even if I have to walk on my hands.”

The pull of home can override even old age and hardship.

“I had something that had been affecting me for a long time, since we were uprooted from Diego Garcia. This sagren, this shock… And it was this same problem that killed my child.”

Grief carried silently for years can resurface with devastating, even fatal, consequences.

“The United Kingdom's continued administration of the Chagos Archipelago constitutes a wrongful act entailing the international responsibility of that State.”

International law can formally name a decades-old occupation for what it is, even after the fact.

“The United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring an end to its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible.”

A ruling of law can set an urgent deadline on an injustice that political will alone had left open-ended.

“The base on Diego Garcia is critical to national and international security.”

Strategic necessity and historical injustice can sit side by side on the same piece of land.

“It is undeniable that the Republic of Mauritius is the sole State lawfully entitled to exercise sovereignty and sovereign rights in relation to the Chagos Archipelago and its maritime zones.”

A long-disputed claim can be stated as settled fact once the highest court has spoken.

“We are grateful to ITLOS for confirming the ICJ's determination that the Chagos Archipelago is an integral part of Mauritian territory, and that the United Kingdom has no territorial rights or claim in respect of the Archipelago.”

A second, independent tribunal confirming the same ruling turns a legal opinion into settled precedent.

“My mother cried and said to us, "Now we will live a very different life." And that's when the nightmare started.”

A child can sense the full weight of a coming catastrophe in a single sentence from a parent.

“The UK is today committing an appalling colonial crime, treating all Chagossians as a people without rights.”

An injustice does not end when the original act is over — it continues for as long as the wrong is not corrected.

“At the end, the U.K. and the U.S. got the most strategic base in the world. For the next 99 years none of us can go there. We were sacrificed for the defense purpose of the Western world.”

The people paying the human cost of a strategic decision are often the last to be consulted about it.

“I dream of going to the cemetery to see the graves of my ancestors and put a flower... I want to go back because I want to die where I am from, where I was born, near my family.”

Belonging to a place can be measured by the simple wish to be buried in it.

“This is the real issue that needs to be fixed—why don't we matter? We want to go home. Let us go. We are the custodians of the land.”

Belonging to land is a form of guardianship, not just a legal claim.

“We are in the UK, there is plenty of us. And if it means we have to camp out in front of Westminster, parliament, wherever it is, until you hear us, we will do it.”

A community that has lost its land can still make itself impossible to ignore.

“We have gained recognition of our sovereignty... which completes the process of decolonisation which began in 1968.”

A colonial process left unfinished for generations can finally be declared complete.