Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands, was the homeland of the Chagossian people until the secret deal between the governments of the United States and Great Britain forced them to leave in the 1970s. Since that day, the people of Diego Garcia have been fighting for the right to return to their native land.

Jeremy Corbyn, an activist for this issue as well as a member of Britain’s Parliament, says, “It was a secret deal done between two governments, which resulted in islanders being hoodwinked out of their homes and from their islands. They have sought ever since their right of return.”

Before Diego Garcia was a military base, it was an isolated island where unique dogs actually retrieved fish from the waters and returned them to the islanders who used the fish as a main dietary source; it was also a time of harmony among the people of the land.

A resident of Diego Garcia until the age of ten, Louis Clifford Volfrin says, “Our dog would never catch the small fish, only the big ones.” Continuing in his native tongue of Chagossian Patois, Volfrin remembers, “He would catch two, and bring one for us.”

When the British government offered the American government the island as a military base, the dogs were gathered and then brutally gassed as the inhabitants were evacuated.

The governments viewed Diego Garcia as an ideal site for a military base because of its simple accessibility to Africa, Asia and the Middle East.  The island was also beneficial during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Today, it is difficult to find a person who still agrees with the government`s actions, yet the United States has said repeatedly that only 15 Chagossian elders are granted permission once a year to visit the island and that Diego Garcia natives cannot return to live.

Bernard Nourrice, upon arriving on the island of his birth, says he saw “so many foreigners — like Indonesian, Indian, Mauritian, working with the American base. And there were no Chagossians.  It’s heartbreaking,” he says. “I feel so ashamed to see there were no Chagossians gaining their living from the land of their birth, on which foreigners are living happily.”

Today, neither the United States government nor the British government have plans to shut down the base that took so much from the Chagossian people, but there are growing signs that the Chagossians might be able to live near the base just as others do around other bases.

“The agreement between the United States and United Kingdom on Diego Garcia remains in force until December 30, 2036, unless it is terminated by either party,” said a state department official. “The United States has no intention of terminating the Agreement, and we have no indication that the U.K. will pursue termination.”