Located in the Indian Ocean, British Indian Ocean Territory is an archipelago south of India, about halfway between Africa and Indonesia. This area includes the entire Chagos Archipelago of 55 islands. The combined area of these islands is 21,004 square miles, about one third the size of Washington D.C. Currently, there are no indigenous habitats on these islands. In the 1960s and ’70s, approximately 1,200 former agricultural workers in the Chagos Archipelago were relocated to Mauritius and Seychelles. In November 2000 they were granted the right of return by a British High Court ruling. However, this ruling was overturned in 2008, finding no right for the natives to return. By November 2004, approximately 4,000 United Kingdom and United States military personnel and civilian contractors were living on the island of Diego Garcia in a joint naval support facility.
In 2009, the British Foreign Office concocted a “marine reserve” around the Chagos archipelago. Then, as John Pilger recently noted:
“This touching concern for the environment was exposed as a fraud when WikiLeaks published a secret cable from the British Government reassuring the Americans that “the former inhabitants would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the entire Chagos Archipelago were a marine reserve.”
“[On February 25] the International Court of Justice ruled that the British Government had no legal powers over the Chagos Islanders, who in the 1960s and 70s, were expelled in secret from their homeland on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and sent into exile and poverty. Countless children died, many of them, from sadness. It was an epic crime few knew about.
“The truth of the conspiracy clearly influenced the momentous decision of the International Court of Justice.”
Read more here on Wikipedia.