La page Facebook Biot Citizen et le Conservative Post affirme qu’un bateau a débarqué sur l’archipel des Chagos, à Île du Coin (atoll de Peros Banhos), lundi matin.
Selon cette publication, la délégation serait menée par Misley Mandarin, autoprocalmé « First Minister », accompagné de trois autres personnes. Le groupe déclare vouloir établir une présence permanente sur l’île.
À ce stade, aucune confirmation indépendante (Royaume-Uni, Maurice, ONU) ne permet de vérifier ces affirmations. L’information provient exclusivement de leur propre communication en ligne.
Voici le texte qui accompagne la vidéo en ligne :
Urgent news release: Chagos islanders return
Chagos archipelago, Tuesday 17th February
Misley, First Minister of the Government in Exile, together with Michel Mandarin (indigenous, native‑born), Antoine Lemettre, and Guy Castel, landed on their homeland in the Chagos — Peros Banhos Islands, a British Overseas Territory🇬🇧🇮🇴🇺🇸
A group of Chagos islanders has landed on the archipelago to establish a permanent settlement — more than 50 years after the population was evicted from the British colony.
The landing party, four strong, defied a British government exclusion zone to set foot on Île du Coin, part of the coral atoll of Peros Banhos, on Monday at 08.52 local time (02.52 GMT). They were led by Misley Mandarin, First Minister of what was – until that moment — the Chagossian government in exile.
Standing on the beach and looking back out at the Indian Ocean, he said that hundreds more Chagossians would soon follow. “Time is critical for us,” he said. He wanted to make it possible for the 322 people who were born on the island and who are still living today to come home before they die.
Mandarin arrived on the island with his father, Michel, one of those born on Chagos. Now aged 72, Michel was 14 at the time of the déraciné, or uprooting, put on to boats by the British colonial authorities. He remembered his family having to sleep on a neighbour’s floor after they were dumped on the quayside in Mauritius. He called on “every Chagossian” to return home “and live the way we used to live before the exile”.
Another member of the landing party, Antoine LeMettre, now 67, said that to feed his family after they arrived in Mauritius, he had been forced to scavenge for rotten vegetables discarded by the local market. “It was not only me,” he said. “Everyone from the Chagos Islands was suffering the same pain.”
First Minister Mandarin said he wanted to make it impossible for the British government to implement its plan to hand the territory to Mauritius. If Sir Keir Starmer had the “audacity” to remove the islanders now, he did not deserve to call himself a human rights lawyer, or to be prime minister of a “great country” like Britain. “We are British Chagossians. We are from this island. And we are here to stay.”
Mandarin added that Mauritius was an ally of China and could help the Chinese government to undermine the operations of the US base on Diego Garcia. As long as the Chagossians had a say, he went on, the US would keep the base. “We are in our homeland. We are not visitors. We belong here. God save the king. God save the United States of America.”
Accompanying the islanders is Adam Holloway, a former Member of Parliament, who helped the Chagossians raise funds for their new settlement, and who devised the plan for their return and the permanent settlement. Holloway, a former Army officer and ITN reporter, remains on the island to help build the settlement.
He said the deal to surrender the islands was “completely crazy” – it was « insanity » to give billions “to corrupt politicians in Mauritius rather than paying for our own defence”. He hoped that the return of the Chagossians – which he had helped to bring about — would give the Starmer government pause.
“We’ve done this because Britain is about to make a catastrophically stupid mistake. We are now in a world of great power play. The base at Diego Garcia is absolutely critical to the security of the West.”
Mandarin was brought up in Mauritius and left to join the British Army as a cook. More recently, he has been working as a bus driving instructor at Transport for London. He was elected First Minister in an independent poll of Chagossians held in December.
