London - An apology was demanded from the British government yesterday after Indian Ocean islanders won a historic High Court ruling that they had been unlawfully exiled into poverty from their "paradise" home.
The decision was a stunning victory for islander Mr Louis Bancoult, who said he hoped compensation would be paid to his community, which was banished from the Chagos Islands some 30 years ago to clear the way for construction of the US military base on Diego Garcia.
Mr Bancoult criticised the Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, for "forgetting the Ilois". The case has been widely described as one of the shabbiest episodes in recent British colonial history. Lord Justice Laws described the secrecy surrounding government moves between the late 1960s and early 1970s to pack the islanders - the Ilois - off to Mauritius and the Seychelles.
