#british indian ocean territories

[thoughtlessarse]

Last month, the US blocked a British Indian Overseas Territory (BIOT) court from entering the British territory of Diego Garcia—part of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, and prevented a group of Tamil migrants—stranded on the island since 2021, from presenting their case that they were being unlawfully detained. This has left the Tamils living in what amounts to a concentration camp, locked in a legal limbo and held in virtual incommunicado 1,000 miles away from the nearest landmass in India. Tessa Gregory, a lawyer at Leigh Day solicitors representing the asylum seekers, said, “That the British Indian Ocean Territory supreme court has been prevented from sitting in its own territory on Crown land is an extraordinary affront to the rule of law.” She appealed to the incoming Labour government foreign secretary to do everything he could “to ensure that the hearing goes ahead as soon as possible.” In 2021, 89 Tamils, including 16 children, who had fled torture and racist persecution in Sri Lanka, had been trying to reach Canada when their fishing boat ran into trouble. They were rescued by Royal Navy ships and brought to Diego Garcia, part of the British Indian Ocean territories, where they have remained ever since, trying to seek asylum in Britain. In 2022, four more boats carrying asylum seekers reached the island, some of whom were allowed to leave and succeeded in reaching the French territory of Reunion. The conditions in the camp are so dire that a number returned. Others were deported back to Sri Lanka. While some of the migrants were sent to Rwanda for medical treatment, they were later returned to Diego Garcia. It is believed that there are at least 60 asylum seekers still on the island, awaiting decisions on their claims or appeals of earlier rulings that are being processed in the UK. Their plight is compounded by the fact that access to Diego Garcia is restricted to those with connections to the military or BIOT’s administration. There are no commercial flights to the island and access for yachts is only for safe passage through the outer Chagos Islands. They live in rat-infested, communal tents and are confined to a small fenced-in area, no bigger than a football pitch, under the watchful eyes of G4S, a security firm who “are treating us like prisoners,” according to anonymous statements by two of the asylum seekers. The BBC says there have been “multiple suicide attempts” and “reports of sexual harassment and assaults.” Lawyers say that there have been hunger strikes, including by children. In November last year, the UN’s High Commission for Refugees visited the island, and wrote a damning report about the camp. It concluded that “conditions there amounted to arbitrary detention” and called for the Tamils’ “immediate relocation.” Even the British Foreign Office, which administers the BIOT from its office in London, admitted the conditions were not suitable. Britain’s control over the BIOT has been deemed illegal. Britain’s Labour government separated Diego Garcia and the 60-plus Chagos Islands from Mauritius in 1965 before it became independent in 1968 and subsequently incorporated the Islands into the specially created British Indian Ocean Territories. This violated the 1960 United Nations Resolution 1514 banning the breakup of colonies before independence. It forcibly expelled Diego Garcia’s 2,000 indigenous people—the Chagossians—who were exiled to slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and eventually the UK, where, denied support and compensation and subject to racial discrimination at the hands of officialdom, they have lived in impoverished conditions ever since. The British government has repeatedly rejected their demands to return their homeland.

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Brexiteers on EU: Sovereignty blah blah blah control our borders blah blah blah our rules blah blah blah

Brexiteers on US presence in what they see as British territory: *crickets*

[timelessnewsnow]

The Chagos Islands to Mauritius represents a pivotal moment in a long-standing dispute, it also raises essential questions about justice, identity, and the role of affected communities in determining their own futures.

Know more 👆🏻

[smbhax]

"This image realeased by the U.S. Navy shows an aerial view of Diego Garcia. (U.S. Navy via AP)"

"Diego Garcia is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT)." "...an atoll occupying approximately 174 square kilometres (67 sq mi), of which 27.19 square kilometres (10 sq mi) is dry land.[92] The continuous portion of the atoll rim stretches 64 km (40 mi) from one end to the other, enclosing a lagoon 21 km (13 mi) long and up to 11 km (7 mi) wide, with a 6 km (4 mi) pass opening at the north. Three small islands are located in the pass.[93] The island consists of the largest continuous dryland rim of all atolls in the world. The dryland rim varies in width from a few hundred metres to 2.4 km. Typical of coral atolls, it has a maximum elevation on some dunes on the ocean side of the rim of 9 m (30 ft) above mean low water. The rim nearly encloses a lagoon about 19 km (12 mi) long and up to 8 km (5.0 mi) wide. The atoll forms a nearly complete rim of land around a lagoon, enclosing 90% of its perimeter, with an opening only in the north."

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia

[bacony-cakes]

this year's worst british overseas territory award has been split between the falkland islands (covered in landmines, no trees to speak of, pointless war fought over it by margaret thatcher), the pitcairn islands (a third of the population are pedophiles), and the british indian ocean territory (does not actually have a name, source of colonial exploitation via the ".io" domain name's revenue being funneled directly to the mainland). like it has been every year.

[streetviewpilgrim]

“And when you emerge from the sea of silence, you will be thunder...”

(from ‘Molchanie: The Silence of God’, by Catherine de Hueck Doherty)

[pluralzalpha]

Chagos islanders stunned as David Cameron rules out return | Global development | The Guardian

British imperialism still going strong. We kicked out the indigenous inhabitants of Diego Garcia in the 60s! It's not even a long time ago. And all so the Americans could build a base there. Now we've reneged on negotiations and stuck two fingers up at the UN so we can continue to deprive these people a home.

[maybeasunflower]

The British Indian Ocean Territory has no permanent population to benefit from the sale of .io names.

The reason for that is that all the inhabitants were forcibly relocated in the late 60s/early 70s, and the UK government has been preventing them (or their descendants) from returning.

remember .io games? that was 8 years ago

[witekspicsbanknotes]

Private issue, fantasy notes of British Indian Ocean Territory. One million pounds notes.

[artstamps]

Easter celebration. Printed in the British Indian Ocean Territory in 1973.

[talonabraxas]

Mount Shasta

There’s a well-known legend that says that somewhere deep beneath Northern California’s 14,179-foot-tall Mount Shasta is a complex of tunnels and a hidden city called Telos, the ancient “City of Light” for the Lemurians. They were the residents of the mythical lost continent of Lemuria, which met its demise under the waves of the Pacific (or the Indian Ocean, depending on who you ask) thousands of years ago. Lemurians believed to have survived the catastrophe are said to have settled in Telos, and over the years their offspring have been sporadically reported wandering around the area: seven-feet-tall, with long flowy hair, often clad in sandals and white robes.

Lemurians aren’t the only unusual figures said to inhabit this stand-alone stratovolcano, easily seen from Interstate 5, about 60 miles south of the Oregon border. Mount Shasta is believed to be a home base for the Lizard People, too, reptilian humanoids that also reside underground. The mountain is a hotbed of UFO sightings, one of the most recent of which occurred in February 2020. (It was a saucer-shaped lenticular cloud.) In fact, the mountain is associated with so many otherworldly, paranormal, and mythical beings—in addition to long-established Native American traditions—that it’s almost like a who’s who of metaphysics. It has attracted a legion of followers over the years, including “Poet of the Sierras” Joaquin Miller and naturalist John Muir, as well as fringe religious organizations such as the Ascended Masters, who believe that they’re enlightened beings existing in higher dimensions. What is it about this mountain in particular that inspires so much belief?

“There’s a lot about Mount Shasta, and volcanoes in general, that are difficult to explain,” says Andrew Calvert, scientist-in-charge at the California Volcano Observatory, “and when you’re having difficulty explaining something, you try and understand it.” Calvert has studied Shasta’s eruptive history since 2001. “It’s such a complicated and rich history,” he says, “and Shasta itself is also very visually powerful. These qualities build on each other to make it a profound place for a lot of people—geologists, spirituality seekers … even San Francisco tech folks, and hunters and gatherers from 10,000 years ago. It’s one that can have a really strong effect on your psyche.”

Mount Shasta is one of the most prominent of all the Cascade volcanoes, an arc that runs from southwestern British Columbia to Northern California, and includes Washington’s Mount Rainier and Oregon’s Mount Hood, among others. “It’s so steep and so tall that it even creates its own weather,” says Calvert. This includes the spaceship-looking lenticular clouds that tend to form around the mountain, created, he says, “by a humid air mass that hits the volcano, and then has to go up a little bit to cool off.” But they only contribute to Shasta’s supernatural allure, along with its ice-clad peak, steaming fumaroles, and shape-shifting surface that’s being constantly broken down and rebuilt by ice, water, wind, and debris. The mountain also sits about 15 miles or so west of the standard arc line of the other Cascade volcanoes—a move that took place about 700,000 years ago. “We don’t really have a good explanation for why it moved out there,” Calvert says, a statement that seems to make Mount Shasta’s mysteries appear more otherworldly by the minute.

The Mount Shasta spiritual legacy goes far deeper than contemporary myths and sightings. For Native Americans in particular, the mountain is a sacred place, straddling the territories of the Shasta, Wintu, Achumawi, Atsugewi, and Modoc tribes, which can date their lineages back to a time when eruptions actually took place there. (Its last eruption, says Calvert, was a little over 3,000 years ago.)

There’s Something About Mount Shasta

[secular-jew]

Colonialism is a disease

Imagine being an Arab Muslim and having the audacity to call someone else a colonizer. The illustration below is a snapshot of Islamic colonialism and occupation of other people's lands, from the 7th-9th centuries. Islam went on to attack, destroy, occupy and colonize vast swaths of Europe and southeast Asia, as well as what is now called Turkey.

The world has witnessed many colonial empires since the beginning of time. Most notably, the Mongols, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Egyptians, Islam/Ottomans, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Spanish, British, and American. The only empire that didn't take land, even after winning world wars, were the Americans. They actually gave back the Philippines. But I digress.

All of these empires were in large part, created by bloody conquest, and built on the backs of the newly subjugated. The Hebrews were, famously, slaves in Egypt. No one seems to teach this in the west, focusing more on the Romans, but of all the colonialists, one of the most deadly brutal and expansionist empires were the Muslims aka the Islamists. The Islamic empire expanded by sheer, from Medina (where Muhammad massacred and enslaved the 50% majority Jewish population) all the way into western North Africa, much of Europe, and large populations of Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, parts of India now called Pakistan, etc). As it expanded using violence and fear, Islam literally took 100 million slaves out of Africa, and was responsible for one of the greatest mass murders in history: killing 10 million (or more) on the forced march from their homelands to the Middle East.

Some examples of Islamic slavery include the Al-Andalus slave trade, the Trans-Saharan slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade, the Comoros slave trade, the Zanzibar slave trade, the Red Sea slave trade, the Barbary slave trade, the Ottoman slave trade, the Black Sea slave trade, the Bukhara (Uzbekistan) slave trade, and the Khivan slave trade from which Islam took millions of slaves out of Persia to the Islamic khanates. There are Arab/Islamic societies today (Libya, a well-known example) that still trade slaves.

Compare this to Israel. Israel/Judea was never colonial nor expansionist. The Hebrews (aka Jews) were often properties of and were subjugated by, colonial empires, including the Islamic colonial empire.

They Hebrews themselves, as noted above, were most famously slaves of the the colonial Egyptian empire, some 4,000 years ago, before being murdered and subjugated by Islam starting in the 7th century. Somehow able to escape Egyptian tyranny through their own efforts (some say, by the grace of Hashem), the Hebrews settled in their current indigenous homeland 3.600 years ago - a small area by global standards, smaller than Belize, Albania, or Montenegro. They were happy there, and even at their peak, did not attempt to force convert others or expand much beyond their lands.

As historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, Israel is “the only nation in the world that is governing itself in the same territory, under the same name, and with the same religion and same language as it did 3,000 years ago.” Despite all the occupations and forced exiles, the Jews/Hebrews/Israelites have maintained a continuous presence in Judea/Israel/Samaria for some 3,600+ years. And even though Israel was granted modern statehood in 1948, it is one of the oldest continuously maintained countries in the world. The 'modern' state of Israel came to fruition post WWII, in 1948; the redefinition of borders and modern statehood after the fall of the big colonials was in no way unusual to Israel. Many country's modern borders came to be defined in the post colonial period (post WWI & WWII). While Israel and Lebanon and Iraq and Iran and Syria and Egypt were all ancient civilizations, dating back thousands of years, modern statehood came in the 20th century: For example, statehood was granted to Egypt in 1922; Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 1932; Lebanon in 1943; Indonesia, South Korea & Vietnam in 1945; Syria & Jordan in 1946; India & Pakistan in 1947; Israel, & Myanmar in 1948; Laos, Libya & Bhutan in 1951; Cambodia in 1953; Morocco, Sudan & Tunisia in 1956; Ghana & Malaysia in 1957; and so on.

The problem is, the tribalism and supremacy of Islam, can't stand that it's once-conquered land is now in the hands of the original owners. Islam believes that once it puts a flag in the sand somewhere, it's theirs.

Oh, and by the way, Andalusia (Spain) is next in Islam's sights.

[humanrightsupdates]

UK Foreign Secretary Has Opportunity to End Ongoing Colonial Crimes

David Lammy, a descendant of enslaved people, has taken office as United Kingdom Foreign Secretary and said he wants to rebuild the UK’s relations with the Global South.

He has an immediate opportunity to meaningfully address the legacies of UK imperial atrocities, starting with an ongoing colonial crime that he could end immediately – the UK’s forced displacement of the Chagossian people.

The Chagos islands, in the Indian Ocean, were governed under UK colonial rule from the island of Mauritius. The Chagossians, an Indigenous people, are the descendants of enslaved people and contract workers.

Over 50 years ago, when nearly all of Britain’s colonies in Africa were achieving independence, the UK and US governments conspired in secret for the UK to hold onto Chagos and to expel its entire population so the US could build a military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

As records show, the expulsion of the Chagossians was based on lies and racism, leaving them in extreme poverty. To this day, the UK government refuses to allow the Chagossians to return to their homeland. This forced displacement, racial persecution, and prevention of their return amount to crimes against humanity under international law. Human Rights Watch argued in February 2023 that individuals should be put on trial for the expulsion of Chagossians and that the UK should pay full and unconditional reparations to generations affected by its forcible displacement.

The new UK Government has inherited these ongoing colonial crimes, but could end them tomorrow. UK governments have repeatedly acknowledged for the last 20 years that the treatment of the Chagossians was “shameful and wrong”, but the same successive British Governments have continued to prevent their return.

Tony Blair’s government used the monarchy to issue an ‘Order-in-Council’, bypassing parliament to prevent the Chagossians from returning.

The UK has treated Chagos – now its only remaining colony in Africa – as a law-free zone, claiming international human rights law and international criminal law do not apply there. The racism is clear: the UK applies human rights law in other overseas territories like the Falklands and on Cyprus, where the inhabitants are of European origin and live freely close to military bases.

[whencyclopedia]

George Washington in the French and Indian War

The life and career of George Washington (1732-1799) were largely impacted by the French and Indian War (1754-1763). An officer of the Virginia Regiment, Washington's actions at the Battle of Fort Necessity and the Braddock Expedition helped escalate hostilities between Britain and France. His exploits in the war would help lead to his appointment as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

Colonel George Washington in the Uniform of the Virginia Regiment

Charles Willson Peale (Public Domain)

Background

In the early 1750s, tensions between the colonial empires of Great Britain and France were once again on the rise. The Ohio River Valley, though under the nominal control of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, had been claimed by both empires; indeed, British and French traders had long been operating in the region, trying to establish commercial relations with local Native Americans. The British colony of Virginia, whose colonial charter asserted that its western border stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean, was particularly interested in the Ohio Country. Virginia's economy was heavily reliant on the production of tobacco, which tended to exhaust the soil; to maintain economic growth Virginia had to acquire new, fertile lands for farming, of which the Ohio Country had in abundance. As early as 1745, Virginia's House of Burgesses began issuing land grants in the Ohio Country to land speculation companies, including the Ohio Company, which represented the financial interests of prominent Virginian investors. This unnerved the French, who wanted control of the Ohio Country both to deny the westward expansion of the British colonies and to maintain a connection between their own colonies of New France (Canada) and Louisiana.

In response to Virginia's encroachments into the territory, the French constructed three forts at the forks of the Ohio River. To Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia, this was an unacceptable provocation; Dinwiddie was an investor in the Ohio Company, giving him a personal as well as a political incentive to want the French out of the Ohio territory as soon as possible. In 1753, he decided to send an envoy to demand that the French remove themselves from the Ohio. The man Dinwiddie decided to send for this crucial diplomatic mission may not have been the obvious choice – George Washington, a recently commissioned major in the Virginia militia, was only 21 years old, with little formal education and no knowledge of the French language. But what he lacked in experience, he made up for in ambition; Washington was hoping that a successful mission would advance his budding military career and earn him a commission in the regular army. Washington also had a connection to the Ohio Company – his recently deceased half-brother, Lawrence, was one of the first investors – which was likely another reason Dinwiddie chose him. On 1 November 1753, Washington left Virginia's capital of Williamsburg bearing a letter from the governor. It was a mission that would change his life and shape the history of North America.

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[workersolidarity]

🇾🇪⚔️🇺🇲🇬🇧🇮🇱

YEMENI ARMED FORCES STRIKE THREE VESSELS AND AMERICAN WARSHIPS OPERATING IN THE INDIAN OCEAN AND RED SEA

📹 The Armed Forces of Yemen announced today the targeting of three ships heading to port in the occupied Palestinian territories through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.

The announcement was made in a video statement issued by the spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier-General Yahya Sarea, belonging to the Ansar Allah movement.

According to the statement:

In the name of God the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. He said, "and Allah will surely support those who support Him."

"Indeed. Allah is Powerful and Exalted in Might."

Allah Almighty has spoken the truth.

In support of the oppressed Palestinian people, and in response to the American and British aggression on our country, the naval forces and missile force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out three joint operations as follows:

The first targeted the American ship "Largo di Sert" in the Indian Ocean.

The second targeted the Israeli ship "MSC Micale" in the Indian Ocean.

The third targeted the ship "Minerva Liza" in the Red Sea.

For violating the decision to prohibit entry to the ports of occupied Palestine.

With the help of God Almighty, the air forces targeted in two distinct operations, two American warships in the Red Sea.

The operations successfully achieved their objectives, thanks to God.

The Yemeni Armed Forces continue to support the oppressed Palestinian people until the aggression stops and the siege is lifted from the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

God is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs, the best supporter and the best helper.

Long live Yemen, free, honorable, and independent.

Victory to Yemen and all the free [people] of the nation.

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[streetviewpilgrim]

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

(Arundhati Roy)