M039 - Restore ownership of the Chagos archipelago to its native inhabitants

I will preface my opposition to this bill with the note that I do not have a problem with allowing the native inhabitants to return, only with giving up sovereignty over the largest marine reserve in the world.

The Chagossians are an admirable people but cannot be trusted to maintain the progress with regards to nature protection on the island. The UK is a large state actor who has a truly global perspective on international affairs, and has a significant interest in protecting the environment.

In particular I mark clause 5:

The British government will construct sufficient permanent housing for returning natives on Diego Garcia and provide tools and supplies necessary for the natives to cultivate the island.

"Cultivate the island". As in destroy all the progress we have made in regards to forestation, animal protection, and environmental preservation. Allowing a small group of people complete control over such a bountiful area is bound to lead to a destruction of the natural environment for both tourism and exploitation of the land.

I heartily agree with the fact the the seizure was unlawful. However, significant steps have been taken and can continue to be taken to compensate the natives for their losses. They should be able to return to the island, but with it under UK control.

As much as the Communists will try to make this a land rights and sovereignty issue, it isn't. Functionally, we could allow the Chagossians to return while continuing UK control, although the Chagossians would be able to continue their traditional activities freely. This is actually what they want, I would bring up, and is what they have campaigned for. The only possible change from that scenario that actual sovereignty brings is the ability of the natives to do with all the land as they choose. This would mean their ability to sell, rent out, and export land and resources to Western corporations, thereby destroying the island's ecosystem. We are actually protecting the sanctity of the lives they lived on the land before, by not allowing the island to become a commercial target for foreign investment.

I also would argue that the Chagossians do not have a legitimate claim to sovereignty, only a right to do any activities individually on the land. Sovereignty is an inherently Western framework - it exists through property rights and capitalist structures. Someone who has sovereignty over the land is someone who can sell it to who they see fit, and has the right to use violence to defend it. The rights the Chagossians had, and should have retained were the rights to live off the land themselves, without fear of foreign expropriation. What we are actually doing in this bill is importing a Western economic framework into a social structure that is different. What we should do is allow them to return, but restrain that sovereign structure from ever existing on the island. The only reason we have to be "sovereign" is to prevent other sovereign states from laying claim. If the UK defends the island, does not expropriate land, and does not impede the lives of the natives in any way they are within their legitimate scope of rights.

Think about it this way: the UK holds sovereignty over the island, and everybody but the natives is required to respect it. They may do as they please but may not hold sovereignty in a Western sense, because they have no historical claim to that. Them holding sovereignty in a Western sense would be antithetical to the culture that existed on the island, and push a Western private property structure on an incompatible civilization.

To recap my vision for a policy on this issue is this: the US and UK withdraw military forces that are considered to impede the rights of the natives to live off the land, the US is forced to stop dumping crap into the water in the island, the natives are allowed to return, the UK retains sovereign rights but the lands are entrusted to the crown and can never come under private control, the marine reserve is protected by international law, and the villagers may live off the land but not defend, sell, rent, or lease the land or control immigration to the island. However, in the case of immigration any natives or foreign relatives of natives would be allowed to enter.

Some of the intentions of this bill are admirable, but on the whole I hope the house rejects it, since their is a better way to make progress on this issue.

/r/MHOC Thread