Inside Diego Garcia: The Remote Island Serving as an American Military Base
Reporter
April 8, 2025 | 10:15 am
The United States (US) has sent six stealth B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia, a remote island in the Indian Ocean. The island is known as an American military base. As cited from Times of India, satellite images from Planet Labs on Tuesday, April 1, 2025 showed the B-2 aircraft, which account for 30 percent of the total American stealth bomber fleet, on the airbase runway. The images also revealed tanker aircraft, cargo aircraft, and hangars that likely conceal other aircraft.
As cited from the Britannica website, Diego Garcia is the southernmost island in the Chagos Archipelago, located in the middle of the Indian Ocean and part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The atoll has an area of approximately 44 square kilometers comprising small V-shaped islands surrounded by sand, with a length of about 24 kilometers and a maximum width of approximately 11 kilometers.
The island, which is approximately 3,862 kilometers from the southern coast of Iran, was first discovered by the Portuguese in the early 16th century. Diego Garcia became a territory dependent on Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean that was once a British colony. In 1965, Diego Garcia was separated from Mauritius and included in the newly formed British Indian Ocean Territory.
For years, the economic activity on the island was centered around copra production. In the early 1970s, all plantation workers and their families were relocated, mostly to Mauritius, and a small number to Seychelles, another small island nation in the Indian Ocean. This relocation was done to make space for the development of United States military facilities based on an agreement with Britain.
The military base began to develop in the late 1970s and 1980s as an air and naval support center. However, the construction triggered protests from surrounding countries in the Indian Ocean that wanted to keep the region free from military presence. Ultimately, Diego Garcia became a launch area for various air military operations, including during the Gulf War (1990-1991), the American-led attacks on Afghanistan (2001), and the early stages of the Iraq War in 2003.
In the late 1990s, the inhabitants of the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia, filed a lawsuit to regain the right to their homeland. In 2000, a British court ruled that the 1971 regulations prohibiting them from living on the islands were invalid. However, US and British officials opposed the repatriation plan, and until 2006, the court upheld its decision.
A year later, the British government lost in appellate court. Nevertheless, they stated that they would appeal to the House of Lords. The following year, the majority of the five judges on the Law Lords panel decided to reject the claim of the Chagos inhabitants, although the government expressed regret for the past expulsions.
In 2017, the UN General Assembly requested the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to review the decolonization process of Mauritius, especially the legal separation of the Chagos Archipelago from its territory, and the effects of British control over the islands.
The ICJ ruling in February 2019 stated that the decolonization process was invalid and recommended that Britain immediately return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius. Although non-binding, the decision still had an impact.
There are currently no permanent residents registered in Diego Garcia. However, approximately 4,000 military and civilian personnel from the United States and Britain are stationed on the island.
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