David Vine on Diego Garcia and American Empire
Though Guantánamo Bay is often in the spotlight, David Vine’s Island of Shame chronicles the story of a lesser-known U.S. island military base. Diego Garcia sits in the distant Indian Ocean, and before it was home to a key American base and a top-secret CIA prison, it was home to indigenous people known as Chagossians, who were exiled to make way for the base. Today, the Chagossians still live in poverty, and are appealing to win the right of return and compensation from the European Court of Human Rights. “This …
