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Labour Minister’s Statement on Chagossians Proven False by Decades of Historical and Legal Evidence

Labour peer Baroness Chapman insisted Chagossians were “not a permanent population" and had never self-governed despite extensive historical evidence to the contrary.

NEWS FROM THE OVERSEAS TERRITORIESBRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORYOPINION

Claire Bullivant

11/23/20255 min read

Archival records, court rulings and international findings all confirm the Chagossians were a permanent, self-organising population – directly contradicting the Government’s claim.

A central claim made in the House of Lords last week by Foreign Office Minister Baroness Chapman is facing intense scrutiny from historians, legal observers, and Chagossian families.

During the first day of Committee on the Diego Garcia Bill, the minister incorrectly asserted that “The Chagos Archipelago has no permanent population nor has ever been self governing. No question of self determination for its population can therefore arise.”

The statement, delivered as Government justification for excluding Chagossians from decisions about the future of their homeland, is contradicted by a substantial and well established historical record. Critics say the claim repeats the same falsehoods Britain relied on in the late 1960s and early 1970s to justify one of the most widely condemned expulsions of a British community in modern history.

A Permanent, Multigenerational Population

Documentary evidence confirms that a settled Chagossian population existed on the islands for more than a century before their deportation. Church registers and colonial era records show births, marriages, and burials occurring across generations on Peros Banhos, Salomon, and Diego Garcia. Families lived in established villages with homes, chapels, gardens, and community buildings.

The UK courts, the United Nations Human Rights bodies, and academic researchers have all recognised the Chagossians as a distinct, continuous, and permanent people. The islanders were not transient labourers as earlier British memos claimed, but a Creole speaking population with a cultural identity and family lines rooted in the archipelago.

For Baroness Chapman to state that the islands had “no permanent population” is, historians say, demonstrably false.

Evidence of Local Leadership and Self Organisation

Equally inaccurate is the minister’s assertion that the islands had “never been self governing.” While Britain maintained formal sovereignty, the archipelago was characterised for much of its history by a striking absence of resident British administrators. Local life was structured and overseen by community leaders from within the population.

Testimony from one of the oldest Chagossian families now strengthens this picture further. Members of the Mandarin family, originally from Peros Banhos, have provided detailed accounts of how their ancestor Jean Charles Mandarin, a blacksmith serving the whole island community, was nominated by fellow residents to act as a local leader because of the lack of British administrative presence. Family accounts describe him performing the functions of a chief or headman, maintaining social order and helping co ordinate island affairs long before removal.

His role is even noted in a footnote of the scholarly Brill volume Eviction from the Chagos Islands: Displacement and Struggle for Identity Against Two World Powers, which refers to Mandarin as a leader and “a thorn in the flesh” to the authorities.

Although colonial paperwork rarely recorded these internal structures, the Mandarin testimony is consistent with the broader historical understanding of island life, in which senior Chagossians organised labour, mediated disputes, and safeguarded community welfare.

Leadership Across Generations

Evidence of Chagossian self organisation does not end there. Jean Charles Mandarin’s descendants continued to play leading roles before and after exile. His grandson, Fernand Mandarin, born on Peros Banhos, later headed the Chagossian Social Committee, represented Chagossians at the United Nations, and provided one of the most comprehensive oral histories of life on the islands. Today, members of the Mandarin family remain central figures in the fight for Chagossian rights. They are key participants in the Judicial Review championed by the Great British PAC, which is currently awaiting judgment, and are actively challenging the lack of transparency in the ongoing negotiations between the United Kingdom and Mauritius.

This multigenerational record of community leadership further undermines any suggestion that the Chagossians lacked the societal structures essential to self determination.

A Disputed Narrative Resurfaces

Baroness Chapman’s statement echoes claims used during the Cold War era to justify mass deportation. At that time, the Foreign Office argued that the Chagossians were “contract labourers” without permanent rights, despite internally held evidence to the contrary. Those claims have since been widely discredited. Yet critics say the same narrative reappeared in the minister’s remarks.

The facts presented in parliamentary debate are now being questioned precisely because they contradict decades of documented evidence. Historians say the minister’s comments risk perpetuating an outdated and inaccurate colonial narrative, one that denies the existence of a people who lived, worked, worshipped, and raised families in the archipelago long before their forced removal.

A Question That Can No Longer Be Dismissed

As the Lords prepares to examine the Bill’s second day of Committee on Tuesday (25 November), peers from across the political spectrum are expected to challenge the Government’s stance. The historical record is clear. The Chagos Archipelago did have a permanent population, and that population did develop forms of community leadership and internal governance.

Whether or not Britain formally acknowledged these structures, they undeniably existed. To claim otherwise, critics argue, is to repeat the very errors that led to the original injustice. And with decisions now being made that will shape the future of the islands, the question of Chagossian self determination can no longer be dismissed.

Sources

1. Minister’s Statement (Primary Source)

Baroness Chapman, House of Lords — Diego Garcia Bill, Committee Stage
“The Chagos Archipelago has no permanent population and has never been self-governing. No question of self-determination therefore arises.”
Hansard record:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-11-04/debates/2CB886B6-0E96-411C-ABEB-A845111EB92B/DiegoGarciaMilitaryBaseAndBritishIndianOceanTerritoryBill

Written Question HL1864 (22 Oct 2024)
Baroness Chapman repeats the claim the territory has “no permanent population”.
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-10-22/HL1864/

2. Evidence of Permanent, Multigenerational Population

A. Academic and Historical Sources

Dr Laura Jeffery (University of Edinburgh)

Stephen Allen & Chris Monaghan — Chagos: A History — Exploration, Exploitation, Expulsion (2018)

  • Most comprehensive historical study of the archipelago.

  • Concludes Chagossians lived in established villages for roughly 170 years.
    Publisher reference (Springer / Palgrave): ISBN 978-3319785388

David Vine — Island of Shame (Princeton University Press, 2009)

B. International Legal Sources

International Court of Justice — Advisory Opinion on Chagos (2019)

  • Recognises that a permanent population existed in the Chagos Archipelago.

  • Confirms the Chagossians are a people entitled to self-determination.
    https://www.icj-cij.org/node/103150

UN General Assembly Resolution 73/295 (22 May 2019)

C. UK Courts

Bancoult Judgments (2000–2007)

3. Evidence of Local Leadership and Self-Organisation

A. Scholarly and Community Evidence

  • Academic accounts (Jeffery, Vine, Wenban-Smith & Carter, Allen & Monaghan) describe community structures including:

    • Senior local leaders

    • Church committees

    • Island elders

    • Labour overseers

    • Locally organised welfare and dispute resolution

  • This reflects sustained internal governance despite limited British administrative presence.

Background introduction to Chagossian community identity:
https://chagossianvoices.org/who-are-the-chagossians/

B. The Mandarin Family (oral and published sources)

Family Testimony
Members of the Mandarin family, one of the oldest recorded families from Peros Banhos, describe how their ancestor Jean Charles Mandarin, a blacksmith serving the community, was chosen by residents to act as a local leader during periods of absent British administration.

Fernand Mandarin

Bruno Mandarin

Brill Academic Reference (Contextual Evidence of Mandarin Family Leadership)

A Brill-published scholarly chapter on the Chagos removals contains a footnote that confirms Mandarin held a recognised community leadership role during the period of expulsion. https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004204416/Bej.9789004202603.i-293_001.xml

4. UK Government’s Own Documents Proving Misrepresentation

Foreign Office Papers (FO 371/136366, 1968)

Baroness Chapman, FCDO Minister

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