-The island’s value is its strategic location between East Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, making it a vital asset for supplying US naval forces and projecting air power into Asia and the Middle East.
-During the Cold War, Britain agreed to lease Diego Garcia to the American military for the construction of a naval base on the island.
-To make way for the base some 2,000 native Chagossians were forcibly removed from the island by the British government between 1968 and 1973. The islanders have since sued unsuccessfully for the right to return home.
-An estimated 3,000-5,000 military and civilian personnel now live on Diego Garcia, most of them American and British.
The US military base on the island of Diego Garcia (aka Camp Justice aka ) and owned by the UK is one of the most strategically located and secretive U.S. military installations outside the United States.
It is known as a top-secret CIA prison where terror suspects are interrogated and tortured. Diego Garcia’s history includes disclosures by Washington insiders, military strategists, and exiled islanders, as well as hundreds of declassified documents.
Investigators long suspected the island was a clandestine CIA “black site” for high-profile detainees, although actions of the US and UK Military have been so covert that proof is not so easy to find, until now. The official name of the base is British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Diego Garcia is thought to be the most environmentally pristine atolls in the world. The official name of the military base is Camp Thunder Cove.
“Today, the main island of Diego Garcia is America’s largest military base in the world, outside the US. There are more than 4,000 troops, two bomber runways, thirty warships and a satellite spy station. The Pentagon calls it an “indispensable platform” for policing the world. It was used as a launch pad for the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq”.
In 2007, the Pentagon granted a $32 million contract to add a submarine base to the island’s existing dock.
This small cluster of atolls was once home to some 2,000 Chagossians who had lived there for generations. The most populated island is Diego Garcia whose resident islanders lived by working the coconut plantations, farming on small plots of land, and fishing for lobster.
In 1966, the UK and the US implemented a joint military strategy and the archipelago was leased to the US for 50 years, until 2016. The purpose was to build a US military base on Diego Garcia. Although no money was ever received by the UK government, documents reveal that the US gave the UK a $14 million discount on the purchase of missiles.
However, the big problem with this plan was that the islands were already inhabited. The UK government expelled the islanders by force. The 50 year lease expires in 2016, which meant the exiled residents could now return to the island of Diego Garcia.
As if the story could not get any more evil, it took another sinister turn in 2010 when the UK government established a marine protected area (MPA) around the islands claiming that there would cease to be “”human footprints” or “Man Fridays” on the islands moving forward. This has also fostered a rare alliance between environmentalists and the U.S. military...<<<Read More>>>...