Thought Portal

Between 1968 and 1973, the inhabitants were forcibly expelled from Diego Garcia by the UK Government so a joint US/UK military base could be established on the island.[5][6] Many were deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles, following which the United States built the large Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, which has been in continuous operation since then.[6] In 2019, this action and continued British administration of the archipelago were deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, a ruling the United Nations General Assembly supported. However, the British dismissed this ruling as not legally binding. As of August 2018, Diego Garcia is the only inhabited island of the BIOT; the population is composed of military personnel and supporting contractors. It is one of two critical US bomber bases in the Indo-Pacific region, along with Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.[7]

The Chagossians (also Îlois [il.wa][3] or Chagos Islanders) are an African ethnic group originating from French slaves brought to the Chagos Islands, specifically Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos, and the Salomon island chain, in the late 18th century. Most Chagossians now live in Mauritius and the United Kingdom after being forcibly removed by the British government in the late 1960s and early 1970s so that Diego Garcia, the island where most Chagossians lived, could serve as the location for a United States military base. Today, no Chagossians are allowed to live on the island of Diego Garcia, as it is now the site of the military base dubbed Camp Thunder Cove.

The Chagossian people's ancestry is mostly African, particularly from Madagascar, Mozambique and other African nations including Mauritius. There is also a significant proportion of Indian and Malay ancestry.[4] The French brought some to the Chagos Islands as slaves from Mauritius in 1786. Others arrived as fishermen, farmers, and coconut plantation workers during the 19th century.

The Chagossians speak Chagossian Creole, a French-based creole language whose vocabulary also incorporates words originating in various African and Asian languages and is part of the Bourbonnais Creole family. Chagossian Creole is still spoken by some of their descendants in Mauritius and the Seychelles. Chagossian people living in the UK speak English. Some settled in the town of Crawley in West Sussex, and the Chagossian community there numbered approximately 3,000 in 2016.[5] Manchester also has a Chagossian community, which has included artist Audrey Albert.[6]

In 2016, the British government rejected the right of the Chagossians to return to the islands after a 45-year legal dispute.[7][8] In 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that the United Kingdom did not have sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and that the administration of the archipelago should be handed over "as rapidly as possible" to Mauritius.[9]

The desperate scramble to evacuate the US embassy at the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, also the 1940s Indian radio station calling for independence. We'll look at life as a 'human shield' in Iraq under Saddam, the man who invented the term 'genocide' and why, and the messy diplomatic embarrassment of Nicolae Ceaușescu's visit to The Queen in 1978.

(Photo: A CIA employee helps Vietnamese evacuees onto an Air America helicopter from the top of 22 Gia Long Street, a half mile from the U.S. Embassy. April 1975. Getty Images.)

Julian Siggers, director of the Penn Museum, says it's especially meaningful to have docents from Iraq and Syria, given that his institution owes its entire existence to artifacts legally excavated from there in the 1800s.

"This is a part of the world where not only do you see the first cities, but you see the first writing, the first irrigation, the first astronomy," he says. "I mean, we all have this enormous debt to these cultures of the ancient Near East. And of course that's where [the docents] are from and they're very proud of that."

The Global Guides also come from Mexico, Guatemala and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Clay Katongo arrived  in North America 13 years ago after fleeing the DRC. He's a new Global Guide, whose tours concentrate on the spectacular Africa collection, replete with religious artifacts preceding the spread of Christianity and Islam.

But the upside for the museum is huge, Schott adds. The Global Guides have turned out to be invaluable when it comes to translating documents in Arabic, Spanish and other languages. They've helped curators on the ground doing research in Iraq. And at a moment when the tragedies of other countries can feel as remote as an artifact locked away in a glass case, hearing refugees' stories in tandem with artifacts from the past makes both feel more personal and present.

... The United States had consistently supported dictators in the Arab world and was not in the business of exporting democracy, irrespective of the Bush administration’s slogans. I recalled sitting in my family’s living room with my aunt when I was a teenager, watching Iraqi television and seeing Donald Rumsfeld visiting Baghdad as an emissary from Ronald Reagan and shaking hands with Saddam. That memory made Mr. Rumsfeld’s words in 2002 about freedom and democracy for Iraqis seem hollow. ...