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Island
of shame : the secret history of the U.S. military base on
Diego
Garcia / David Vine ; foreword by Michael Tigar. - Princeton
(NJ) : Princeton universty press, 2009. -
XIX-259 p. :
ill., maps ; 24 cm.
ISBN
978-0-691-13869-5
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Sir
Paul Gore-Booth, Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign
Office :
« 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 who have not yet
got a Committee (the Status of Women Committee does not
cover the rights of Birds).
Below
Gore-Booth's note, one of his colleagues, D.A. Greenhill (later Baron
of Harrow), penned back, « Unfortunately along with
the
Birds go some few Tarzans or Men Fridays whose origins are obscure, and
who are being hopefully wished on to Mauritius etc. When this has been
done, I agree we must be very tough. »
☐ Chapter
Five, “ Maintaining
the Fiction ”, p. 91 |
L'île :
Diego Garcia et, plus largement, l'archipel des Chagos, au
cœur
de l'océan Indien, à plus de 1 000
kilomètres
de toute terre habitée. Là vivait depuis la fin
du XVIIIe
siècle une population descendant d'esclaves d'origine
africaine
et, dans une moindre mesure, de travailleurs forcés venus
des
Indes.
La honte, pour
la Grande Bretagne et les Etats-Unis qui, afin de rendre possible
l'établissement d'une base militaire à Diego
Garcia, ont
sciemment contourné les règles internationales en
expulsant de force toute la population de l'archipel
— près de 2 000
personnes — vers des
camps de misère sur l'île Maurice et aux
Seychelles
où ils survivent dans une extrême
précarité,
et dans l'indifférence du plus grand nombre, une quarantaine
d'années après leur déportation.
David Vine
a enquêté pendant sept ans, auprès des
réfugiés et dans les archives des puissances
impliquées ; son travail rigoureusement
documenté
allie la précision attendue d'une recherche universitaire
à une évidente compassion pour les victimes de ce
cynique
coup de force : « he combines the scholar's
rigor with
the student's sympathetic understanding » (Michael
Tigar, Foreword, p. XI).
L'ouvrage
s'achève sur une pâle note d'espoir. Les
Chagossiens en
effet n'ont jamais renoncé à faire valoir leur
droit ;
mais le chemin reste long, ardu, incertain. Et beaucoup
déjà sont morts en exil !
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NOTE
DE L'ÉDITEUR
: The American military base on the island of Diego Garcia
is one of
the most strategically important and secretive U.S. military
installations outside the United States. Located near the remote center
of the Indian Ocean and accessible only by military transport, the base
was a little-known launch pad for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and
may house a top-secret CIA prison where terror suspects are
interrogated and tortured. But Diego Garcia harbors another dirty
secret, one that has been kept from most of the world
— until now.
Island of Shame
is the first major book to reveal the shocking truth of how the United
States conspired with Britain to forcibly expel Diego Garcia's
indigenous people — the
Chagossians — and deport
them to slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where most live in dire
poverty to this day. Drawing on interviews with Washington insiders,
military strategists, and exiled islanders, as well as hundreds of
declassified documents, David Vine exposes the secret history of Diego
Garcia. He chronicles the Chagossians' dramatic, unfolding story as
they struggle to survive in exile and fight to return to their
homeland. Tracing U.S. foreign policy from the Cold War to the war on
terror, Vine shows how the United States has forged a new and pervasive
kind of empire that is quietly dominating the planet with hundreds of
overseas military bases.
Island of Shame
is an unforgettable exposé of the human costs of empire and
a
must-read for anyone concerned about U.S. foreign policy and its
consequences. | ❙ | David
Vine is assistant professor of anthropology at American University in
Washington, D.C. ; he will donate all royalties from the sale of
this book to the Chagossians. |
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| CONTENTS |
List of illustrations and tables
Foreword
by Michael Tigar
Abbreviations
and initialisms
A
note to the reader
Introduction
- The
Ilois, The Islanders
- The
Bases of Empire
- The
Strategic Island Concepts and a Changing of the Imperial Guard
- « Exclusive
Control »
- « Maintaining
the Fiction »
- « Absolutely
Must Go »
- « On
the Rack »
- Derasine :
The Impoverishment of Expulsion
- Death
and Double Discrimination
- Dying
of Sagren
- Daring
to Challenge
- The
Right to Return and a Humanpolitik
Epilogue
My
thanks
Further
ressources
Notes
Index |
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| COMPLÉMENT
BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE |
- Shenaz Patel,
« Le
silence des Chagos », Paris :
Éd. de l'Olivier, 2005
- Thierry
Ollivry, « Diego Garcia : enjeux
stratégiques,
diplomatiques et humanitaires », Paris :
L'Harmattan,
2008
- Caroline Laurent, « Rivage de la colère », Paris : Les Escales, 2020
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| mise-à-jour : 23 janvier 2020 |
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