TNAG-1117-FCO40-1391-Future-of-the-Dependent-Territories-1982 — Page 8

BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY

CAN THE RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION BE COMPARED TO THAT

OF THE ILOIS IN THE BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY?

5.

The honourable Member has raised what he sees as an

unfair comparison between the way the Falkland Islanders'

views on self-determination have been made paramount and the

apparent disregard of the views of the Ilois when the

decision was taken to create the British Indian Ocean Territory

for defence purposes in 1965.

6.

I would state quite clearly that, for the Ilois, the

issue of self-determination does not arise. The comparison

is misconceived, for the Ilois did not constitute a settled

and self-sustaining community with its own institutions and

civil administration such as were built up over many years

in the Falklands. The Ilois lived in the Chagos purely

because they had contracts to work on the plantations, which

provided the only employment on these remote islands. When the

plantations closed there was no alternative to resettlement.

7. In the Falkland Islands a self-sustaining society had

established itself, with its own civil administration, as

early as the 1840s. From this base the local inhabitants

gradually built up the economy and their institutions to

present levels.

4

/8.