Petition re. Chagos Islands/Diego Garcia. Please sign!

I've put this in M&M - it's hardly meaningless but it's non cycling related so flame me if you will.

Please get your MP to sign this petition:
This is the link: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=40580&SESSION=903

All you need to do is write them an email with the above link in it and ask them to sign :)

In a nutshell, in the '60s the Chagos Islands (and Diego Garcia in particular) were leased by the British to the in exchange for a discount on a nuclear submarine. The US constructed an enormous military and naval base there, from which they conduct regular strikes on the Middle East and Afghanistan. It is also alleged to be a CIA detention site.

The population of the islands was deported and have never been allowed to return to the islands, despite the fact that their ancestors had lived for several generations. This is a blatant denial of human rights. Some Chagossians have sought asylum in the UK and have been campaigning for their right to return home, and yet despite their winning such a right several years ago, the British Government has sought to exploit archaic legal loopholes in order to ensure that the Chagossians can't return, not even to the outlying islands many hundreds of miles away from the Diego Garcia military base. They've rewritten the history too many times to count, once refusing the right to resettlement on the basis that the islands were now home to a rare breed of turtle. The government has even succeeded in getting every legal victory for the Chagossians overturned.

More here: [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagos_islands[/ame]

It's a shameful episode in British foreign affairs, and yet it continues without any legal or moral justification. This history is often played-down by the media, hence the plight of the Chagossian people is not as well-known or voiced as should be the case.

Sorry if you're only here to read about bikes. I'll get down off my soap box now.

Many thanks,

Tom

Good Call Tom

Done and takes minutes, it should also be done to help preserve the Manta Rays, Hawks bill and coconut crab.

http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/

I got a v good note back from my minister (he is alright, pretty much every pro cycling movement we have he is on it!)

The UK made a small step towards compensation by offering British Citizenship to exiled islanders in 2002, and the question has become more about reinstating cultural heritage than about creating a practical mechanism for islanders to return - an option that might not actually be taken up by many.

...

Andy Slaughter

I am not, however, an expert on the issue, and have now written to Ivan Lewis at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for further clarification on the Government's position. I know that clamour is growing for action, and am confident that your contribution will add to this. I will of course write back to you as soon as I receive a response.

Nice one Pip.

Very sobering article on the situation here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/18/chagos-nature-reserve-greenwash

Pennyt in the comments section of the guardian site made a bit of a mistake:

OH NO!!!! I signed the petition to make it a park. I didnt know what was really going on. mea culpa... but how can I undo my signature.. or at least insist that those people can live in their own home ven while it is a nature reserve?
Advice please.

Is it still possible to put your signature down? The first link doesnt seem to offer a way to do this

Parliamentary debate:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmwhall/02.htm

or watch on:

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=5972

Big Win.