There is no population on Diego Garcia to upset ... so no 'yankee go home' demonstrations... no billions in aid to the basket case island... just peace.Originally Posted by Ray
The yanks wouldn't be there it was not fit for purpose. Its the USian politicians that are the cretins... among the military there are some pretty smart guys.
Last edited by JMA; 04-18-2012 at 07:21 AM.
There was indigenous population who were evicted from the island.
I thought this was fairly well known.
The indigenous people of Diego Gracia are Chagossians.Diego Garcia: Exiles Still Barred
The Americans had asked the British, their long-time allies, who still had colonies in the region, to find an uninhabited island for their base.
There was just one problem -- there were inhabitants on Diego Garcia and they have been living there for more than 200 years. Correspondent Christiane Amanpour reports.
But the British didn't see that as a problem. They simply moved all the inhabitants 1,200 miles away to other tropical islands, Mauritius and the Seychelles.
Back then when the island was a British colony, Marcel Moulinie managed the coconut plantation. He was ordered to ship the people out.
"Total evacuation. They wanted no indigenous people there," says Moulinie.
"When the final time came and the ships were chartered, they weren't allowed to take anything with them except a suitcase of their clothes. The ships were small and they could take nothing else, no furniture, nothing."
The people of Diego Garcia say they left paradise and landed in hell when they were dumped here in the urban slums of Mauritius. They had brought no possessions and as islanders who had lived off fishing and farming they had no real professional skills.
No one helped them resettle or pay for the homes they lost. They were forced to become squatters in a foreign land.
Before the final evacuation, the British had cut off the ships carrying food and medicine to Diego Garcia.
More at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-558378.htm
They are illiterates and hardly the Yankee go home types.
No compensation has been paid either!
I wonder if to be ready for all contingencies would be a 'panic mode'. I am of the belief that the US is hardly a nation that goes into a panic mode. Whatever one has seen so far is that the US makes others go into a panic mode!Quote:
Seem like we have some time and don't need to go into the China panic mode...
If one goes back in time to the Cold War days and the creation of NATO, would the creation of NATO and creating US Bases in Europe and elsewhere be taken to have been a 'Soviet panic mode'.
It is being ready for all eventualities and nothing more. It is good for all that nothing happened to justify that readiness.
Would MAD be taken to be a 'panic mode'?
The Chinese are a patient people. They do not take hasty actions. Each action they take is well thought out and planned over the years.
Take their shift from Mao Communism to capitalism. It has been comparatively seamless. There was nothing knee jerk about it and it was contemplated even when Mao was alive!
Take the 'Peaceful Rise'. That put all off guard. They used that period to become reckonable economically and also militarily.
They are now ready to a great extent and so they are flexing their muscle and testing the waters to see the reaction. Having seen how the wind blows, they will take further actions to neutralise the effects that they have observed with a wee bit of muscle flexing.
What is happening in the South China Sea, reminds me of the Chinese game of 'Go' or weiqi. It is a "board game of surrounding."
Last edited by Ray; 04-18-2012 at 08:15 AM.
Yes there were a few thousand of them relocated to other islands by the Brits to make room for the yanks in 1968.
How many of the original population are left (after 45 years)?
45 years ago thoughts of compensation were probably not even considered.
I thought you had said quite categorically that Diego Gracia was uninhabited.
How come that you now claim that, yes a few thousands were there?
It was inhabited as anyone who knew about Diego Gracia would know and of that, there is no doubt. One should not be categorical to push a point! One should check and then comment.
Once again you are wrong. Compensation was considered. It must be remembered that it is not so far into history when this happened and there would have been a stink, if the 'i' s were not dotted and 't' s not crossed. Days of colonial requirement to unilaterally shift labour to other parts of the world was long over.
Mauritius was paid to accept the Deigo Gracians. Mauritius accepted them but did not consider that the payment was in anyway to rehabilitate them.
A case was filed in Britain and the British Government offered £1.25m to the surviving Chagossians. They were expected to withdraw the case and and sign a "full and final" document renouncing any right of return to the island.
Some signed and some amongst them who were totally illiterate claimed that they had been tricked into signing!
The issue will drag on and when all Diego Gracians are dead, people will forget that there were people who inhabited the island and that it was never inhabited!
Human memory is short!
Last edited by Ray; 04-18-2012 at 05:13 PM.
Bob,
It is not my article that I gave a link to. I am not Murdoch as yet!This Little rock you are talking about might make a good coast guard station, to handle a couple of small law enforcement vessels, a few helos and the occasional C-130; but is physically incapable of being what the author of your article is attempting to make it out to be.
Trust me, if there was a viable island in the Spratleys, it would have been occupied and developed long ago.
China feels CNN, BBC and the western media is nothing but propaganda, twisting the truth and mangling it to suit the western purpose. Perceptions!
When there is a requirement and when there is nothing available, even a little rock (as you put it) will do. Given the size of Diego Gracia, it too is a little rock or atoll. It is again perceptions.
And
Your perception!This is what Ray misses as well with his condemnation of our politicians and political structures.
And I have been batting all along for US and its actions!
Trust me, when strategic interests are at stake, even the impossible become possible. Or else, why should India be on the Siachen Glacier that is so expensive an operation and the environment claims lives, if not claimed by the weapons?!
C 130 cannot land and helicopters are few and far between! And yet India is there!
Pakistan just a few days back lost over 100 men, not at the mountain top, but at a Base!
If India does not sit on those impossible heights, then it will become the continuation of China into Pakistan! And other areas with India will become vulnerable to China's designs!
Last edited by Ray; 04-18-2012 at 05:16 PM.
Kwajalein Atoll
The island is about 1.2 square miles (3.1 km)
The U.S. Army has an installation at Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA).
Every atoll and every island has its value.
Iran dug into the mountain to build its reactors! Some would think that is crazy!
Necessity is the Mother of Invention!
Last edited by Ray; 04-18-2012 at 05:08 PM.
What exasctly do you want the US to do do prevent China from selling missile technology to North Korea? Of from buying oil from Iran? Or from selling arms to Iran?
There's a small observation station on Kwajalein, which exists to monitor ballistic missile tests. You could build suich a station on Pag-asa, but there wouldn't be much point, as there are no tests to monitor. As Bob's World says, you could build a small Coast Guard or weather station there. You could not relocate thousands of Marines from Okinawa or build a military facility large enough to have any impact on the balance of power in the SCS.
In any event, the US is not in fact building anything on Pag-asa. If they were, you could be sure the Chinese would be howling about it. The Philippine Government is repairing a badly eroded airstrip and a small wharf capable of docking shallow-draft vessels. Not a "seaport". That's all.
Will somebody with great strategic knowledge tell me why the US would need or want to rerun WW2, sail into areas where China has support from land-based aircraft and missiles, and fight there? China's great vulnerability is economic dependence on trade routes that extend far outside their naval reach. Why not exploit that vulnerability? Embargo Chinese imports to thje US, Set up in the Indian Ocean, cut off the oil coming in from the Middle East and Africa and the trade going out to those locations and Europe?
In the unlikely event that it's ever necessary to fight China, why would we fight them where they are strongest?
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
I did because it is ... now.
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