Part II:
On January 4, 2007 on the way back from the cemetery Didier invited me to watch a poignant movie on the Chagos Islands (Diego Garcia – US Base) produced by John Pilger based on research by Henri Marimootoo! It depicts the long enduring plight of the Chagos population after it was expropriated without compensation from its ancestral home to accommodate the Diego Garcia US base. All Didier said was: “I know that you will identify with that true to life story!” Indeed, I did.
On January 5, 2007, with the full impact of the movie fresh in my mind, I began to draw parallels.
I concluded that in the 1800s the foreigners that settled America pretended that the native first Americans did not exist as human beings and that they did not own their valuable land. The ruthless settlers brutally chased them away at gun point and/or slaughtered them.
In the 1900s another First American government deputy coerced the British to conceal important facts about the existence of the Native Chagos Islands population from the British Parliament and the US Congress. The ploy was to pretend that the Chagos Islands inhabitants did not exist and/or own their land. Thus the third generation of islanders could be dispossessed without any compensation and in a sordid cruel fashion. The US base could take over and install itself with no liability towards the indigenous population.
In the early 2000s, the First American Corporation, represented by Jim Dufficy and Hagens Berman could also equally ruthlessly and brutally meet under the cover of darkness to pretend that I was not a party of record and coerce their stooge, Federal court judge Thomas Zilly to dispossess me, a mere foreigner in the US, at pen point without any compensation. Despite all recorded documents and compelling evidence to the contrary which had been timely disclosed by records examiners, First American pretended that I did not exist and instructed judge Zilly to lie blatantly and accordingly in his court ruling!!!
But the similarities in greed motivated land grabs perpetrated by Americans over the centuries do not end there. Just like under British law, ‘King can do no wrong’, in the case of the Chagossians, the Queen was summoned to evoke her royal prerogative using an ‘Order in Council’ to overrule the British High Court decision. Thus the British Government was cleared of any and all wrong doing as vassals of the US.
Likewise under a unique Washington State law, R.C.W. 48-29-010 - ‘Title Companies can do no wrong’ - That law I believe is now unique to Washington State. It is a law that was instigated by Title companies’ lobbyists only after First American had engaged in criminal action. Judge Thomas Zilly (acting under instructions from Hagens and Berman as the real vassals of First American) was summoned to evoke that rare Washington State statute in order to, as in the case of the British, clear First American of any and all wrongdoing. Thus First American was exonerated by Zilly of any and all liability for dispossessing me of my land without any compensation.
Over centuries, is stealing land of Natives and/or ‘foreigners’ just a way of life in America? Strangely enough are property rights of fellow Americans considered sacred? Are those fellow Americans more sacred than other human beings?
As I point out in my book: “There is no suffering easier to dismiss than that of others.” Especially, if and when, somehow, ‘foreigners’ are considered to be less equal than others.
“… human suffering has no concept as to where the dividing line lies between the suffering of individuals, of families and that of entire nations. Indeed, because suffering shares a common pain factor, human beings should never assume that there is a dividing line between the pain of one single individual and his family and the pain of an entire nation. For, when one creature suffers, all of creation suffers.”
“Thus no matter how big or small we perceive ourselves to be at the individual or national level, we must humbly recognize that while we can all fall, above all, we are all called to climb.”
Fortunately, courts in the US have over the recent past recognized the most despicable wrongs inflicted on the American Natives, the true First Americans. The courts and the US government is now offering various methods of reparation.
But the people dispossessed of their sacred property rights in the Chagos are still fighting for adequate compensation.
Indeed, I met with Olivier Bancoult, the leader of a delegation of Chagos Islanders before they left Mauritius today February 2, 2007 for London. They were on their way to Europe to meet with their attorneys in England. While there, they were also to meet with US Congress representatives and EU leaders to expose their case and seek appropriate reparation for this long enduring wrong.
I was thrilled to present Olivier with copies of my book ‘First American Title To Injustice’. We were glad to know that we are to some extent in the same boat destined to sink or to sail through the storms of generalized American hot air power.
Realizing what I had also been through at the hands of another despicable First American over the last decade, Olivier shared a Creole saying with me to encourage me on: ‘Le Ker dimoune kapave kasse ferraye’. (Being committed enough to your cause, enables your heart to demolish iron structures).
I will gladly add my voice and offer any advice I can to the cause of all those who have been dispossessed without fair compensation by any arrogant American. Might is not right. Concurrently I will continue to seek appropriate reparation in my own individual case against First American until justice is served.
Didier was right on! After reading my book he had concluded that I would be able to identify with the Chagossians. Having also suffered and been there I can share their plight intensely. I identify!
But my personal pain dims when I compare our family ordeal at the hands of the First American Corporation and its legal court vassals with the despicable acts of another First American and its British Royal court and queenly vassal!
I offered Olivier 3 basic ways to assess real estate value on the Chagos.
1). Replacement value.
2). Market value.
3). Income value.
How much would it cost to replace the Chagos?
How much did the US pay for the Chagos in the 60s & 70s?
How much is the principal amount worth today with compound statutory interest at 12%?
How much does the US propose paying the British for the extension of the US lease?
How much should be added for pain and suffering?
Excerpts from BBC report:
"A very sad and by no means creditable episode in British history."
“That was how Sir Sydney Kentridge QC, barrister for the Chagos islanders or Ilois, described their forced removal from their "paradise" homeland in the 1960s and 1970s.”
“A memo from then Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart to Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1969 admitted that the payment was kept secret from Parliament and the US Congress.”
“British politicians, diplomats and civil servants began a campaign - in their own words – ‘to maintain the pretence there were no permanent inhabitants’ on the islands.”
“This was vital, because proper residents would have to be recognized as people ‘whose democratic rights have to be safeguarded’”.
“The inhabitants therefore became non-people.”
Excerpts from Washington Post January 2, 2007
The U.S. Has a Moral Duty To the People of Diego Garcia
By David Vine
Tuesday, January 2, 2007; Page A17
“Forty years ago, on Dec. 30, 1966, at the U.S. Embassy in London, representatives of the U.S. and British governments met, as one participant later put it, "under the cover of darkness" to sign an "exchange of notes" giving the United States the right to create what was to become a major military base on Diego Garcia, an obscure British island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In doing so they made provision for "those administrative measures" necessary to forcibly deport the entire native population of the island and the surrounding Chagos Archipelago.”
“Lee Hamilton, then a member of Congress and now co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, asked a State Department representative if the government had any legal or moral responsibility for the people. The representative replied, ‘We have no legal responsibility. Moral responsibility is a term, sir, that I find difficult to assess.’"
Is this the generic American way? Did Jim Dufficy write: “The company has no duty to do the right thing…” Is the American way designed to ‘Let lies wipe out lives’!
“Forty years almost to the day after the signing of the initial Diego Garcia agreement, there should be no difficulty in assessing the responsibility of the United States:”
Likewise, there is no difficulty in assessing the full impact of First American’s participation in fraud while requesting and drafting an Indemnity agreement in its favor to facilitate a crime!
I recommend the links to the BBC and Washington Post articles below. Stay tuned for more reporting soon.
On January 4, 2007 on the way back from the cemetery Didier invited me to watch a poignant movie on the Chagos Islands (Diego Garcia – US Base) produced by John Pilger based on research by Henri Marimootoo! It depicts the long enduring plight of the Chagos population after it was expropriated without compensation from its ancestral home to accommodate the Diego Garcia US base. All Didier said was: “I know that you will identify with that true to life story!” Indeed, I did.
On January 5, 2007, with the full impact of the movie fresh in my mind, I began to draw parallels.
I concluded that in the 1800s the foreigners that settled America pretended that the native first Americans did not exist as human beings and that they did not own their valuable land. The ruthless settlers brutally chased them away at gun point and/or slaughtered them.
In the 1900s another First American government deputy coerced the British to conceal important facts about the existence of the Native Chagos Islands population from the British Parliament and the US Congress. The ploy was to pretend that the Chagos Islands inhabitants did not exist and/or own their land. Thus the third generation of islanders could be dispossessed without any compensation and in a sordid cruel fashion. The US base could take over and install itself with no liability towards the indigenous population.
In the early 2000s, the First American Corporation, represented by Jim Dufficy and Hagens Berman could also equally ruthlessly and brutally meet under the cover of darkness to pretend that I was not a party of record and coerce their stooge, Federal court judge Thomas Zilly to dispossess me, a mere foreigner in the US, at pen point without any compensation. Despite all recorded documents and compelling evidence to the contrary which had been timely disclosed by records examiners, First American pretended that I did not exist and instructed judge Zilly to lie blatantly and accordingly in his court ruling!!!
But the similarities in greed motivated land grabs perpetrated by Americans over the centuries do not end there. Just like under British law, ‘King can do no wrong’, in the case of the Chagossians, the Queen was summoned to evoke her royal prerogative using an ‘Order in Council’ to overrule the British High Court decision. Thus the British Government was cleared of any and all wrong doing as vassals of the US.
Likewise under a unique Washington State law, R.C.W. 48-29-010 - ‘Title Companies can do no wrong’ - That law I believe is now unique to Washington State. It is a law that was instigated by Title companies’ lobbyists only after First American had engaged in criminal action. Judge Thomas Zilly (acting under instructions from Hagens and Berman as the real vassals of First American) was summoned to evoke that rare Washington State statute in order to, as in the case of the British, clear First American of any and all wrongdoing. Thus First American was exonerated by Zilly of any and all liability for dispossessing me of my land without any compensation.
Over centuries, is stealing land of Natives and/or ‘foreigners’ just a way of life in America? Strangely enough are property rights of fellow Americans considered sacred? Are those fellow Americans more sacred than other human beings?
As I point out in my book: “There is no suffering easier to dismiss than that of others.” Especially, if and when, somehow, ‘foreigners’ are considered to be less equal than others.
“… human suffering has no concept as to where the dividing line lies between the suffering of individuals, of families and that of entire nations. Indeed, because suffering shares a common pain factor, human beings should never assume that there is a dividing line between the pain of one single individual and his family and the pain of an entire nation. For, when one creature suffers, all of creation suffers.”
“Thus no matter how big or small we perceive ourselves to be at the individual or national level, we must humbly recognize that while we can all fall, above all, we are all called to climb.”
Fortunately, courts in the US have over the recent past recognized the most despicable wrongs inflicted on the American Natives, the true First Americans. The courts and the US government is now offering various methods of reparation.
But the people dispossessed of their sacred property rights in the Chagos are still fighting for adequate compensation.
Indeed, I met with Olivier Bancoult, the leader of a delegation of Chagos Islanders before they left Mauritius today February 2, 2007 for London. They were on their way to Europe to meet with their attorneys in England. While there, they were also to meet with US Congress representatives and EU leaders to expose their case and seek appropriate reparation for this long enduring wrong.
I was thrilled to present Olivier with copies of my book ‘First American Title To Injustice’. We were glad to know that we are to some extent in the same boat destined to sink or to sail through the storms of generalized American hot air power.
Realizing what I had also been through at the hands of another despicable First American over the last decade, Olivier shared a Creole saying with me to encourage me on: ‘Le Ker dimoune kapave kasse ferraye’. (Being committed enough to your cause, enables your heart to demolish iron structures).
I will gladly add my voice and offer any advice I can to the cause of all those who have been dispossessed without fair compensation by any arrogant American. Might is not right. Concurrently I will continue to seek appropriate reparation in my own individual case against First American until justice is served.
Didier was right on! After reading my book he had concluded that I would be able to identify with the Chagossians. Having also suffered and been there I can share their plight intensely. I identify!
But my personal pain dims when I compare our family ordeal at the hands of the First American Corporation and its legal court vassals with the despicable acts of another First American and its British Royal court and queenly vassal!
I offered Olivier 3 basic ways to assess real estate value on the Chagos.
1). Replacement value.
2). Market value.
3). Income value.
How much would it cost to replace the Chagos?
How much did the US pay for the Chagos in the 60s & 70s?
How much is the principal amount worth today with compound statutory interest at 12%?
How much does the US propose paying the British for the extension of the US lease?
How much should be added for pain and suffering?
Excerpts from BBC report:
"A very sad and by no means creditable episode in British history."
“That was how Sir Sydney Kentridge QC, barrister for the Chagos islanders or Ilois, described their forced removal from their "paradise" homeland in the 1960s and 1970s.”
“A memo from then Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart to Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1969 admitted that the payment was kept secret from Parliament and the US Congress.”
“British politicians, diplomats and civil servants began a campaign - in their own words – ‘to maintain the pretence there were no permanent inhabitants’ on the islands.”
“This was vital, because proper residents would have to be recognized as people ‘whose democratic rights have to be safeguarded’”.
“The inhabitants therefore became non-people.”
Excerpts from Washington Post January 2, 2007
The U.S. Has a Moral Duty To the People of Diego Garcia
By David Vine
Tuesday, January 2, 2007; Page A17
“Forty years ago, on Dec. 30, 1966, at the U.S. Embassy in London, representatives of the U.S. and British governments met, as one participant later put it, "under the cover of darkness" to sign an "exchange of notes" giving the United States the right to create what was to become a major military base on Diego Garcia, an obscure British island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In doing so they made provision for "those administrative measures" necessary to forcibly deport the entire native population of the island and the surrounding Chagos Archipelago.”
“Lee Hamilton, then a member of Congress and now co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, asked a State Department representative if the government had any legal or moral responsibility for the people. The representative replied, ‘We have no legal responsibility. Moral responsibility is a term, sir, that I find difficult to assess.’"
Is this the generic American way? Did Jim Dufficy write: “The company has no duty to do the right thing…” Is the American way designed to ‘Let lies wipe out lives’!
“Forty years almost to the day after the signing of the initial Diego Garcia agreement, there should be no difficulty in assessing the responsibility of the United States:”
Likewise, there is no difficulty in assessing the full impact of First American’s participation in fraud while requesting and drafting an Indemnity agreement in its favor to facilitate a crime!
I recommend the links to the BBC and Washington Post articles below. Stay tuned for more reporting soon.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100698.html?nav=hcmodule
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1005064.stm
The wheels of justice grind slowly but they grind eternally!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1005064.stm
The wheels of justice grind slowly but they grind eternally!
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