On this day, 8 November 1965, Harold Wilson, the “socialist” Labour prime minister, authorised the establishment of the British Indian Ocean Territory. This was the first act in the ethnic cleansing of the Chagos archipelago. Over the next few years every member of the Chagossian population was forcibly removed from their home, never to return. One foreign office official wrote to diplomat Dennis Greenhill, saying: “We must surely be very tough about this. The object of the exercise was to get some rocks which will remain ours. There will be no Indigenous population except seagulls.“ Greenhill replied: “Along with the birds go some few Tarzans or Men Fridays”. The Indigenous people were allowed to take just one suitcase each before being forcibly transferred to the Seychelles, and any pets were destroyed. The purpose of this ethnic cleansing was so that government could lease the largest island to the United States for $1 per year for them to establish a military base.
ThisPictured: a recent protest by Chagossians in London https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1849098445275297/?type=3
