Letter to Professor Philippe Sands KC

Bertrice Pompe, a leading British Chagossian campaigner, writes to the international lawyer who appeared at the International Relations and Defence Committee, House of Lords, today

Dear Professor Sands,

You do not know me personally, and yet your name has been intimately connected to my story for so many years. I was born in Diego Garcia in 1971. This place, my birthplace, was stripped from official records, almost erased from existence. But for me, it remains a defining part of who I am, an invisible yet permanent mark that I carry proudly every day.

You are widely recognised as one of the leading advocates for the rights of the Chagossian people. A man of law, of principle, and of ethics. It is precisely because of this reputation that I feel compelled to address you today.

Professor Sands, I feel invisible. Unheard. Excluded from a process that is meant to redress the injustice that I, and so many others, have suffered for over fifty years.

Today, 11 June 2025, I listened carefully to your remarks at the British Parliament. I am not a lawyer. I do not speak the language of diplomacy or legal argument. But I, like many others, understood the essence of the International Court of Justice’s 2019 Advisory Opinion: that the decolonisation of Mauritius was not lawfully completed, and that the separation of the Chagos Archipelago in 1965 violated international law. Nothing in that opinion, however, extinguished my rights, our rights to return, to self-determination, and to participate in decisions that concern our future.

This is why I must ask: how can you support the agreement of 22 May 2025 in its current form, a treaty that excludes those most directly concerned? How can such an agreement, negotiated without our presence or consent, be considered a step forward, when it echoes the very structures of colonial injustice that we have fought for decades to overcome?

When will I see Diego Garcia again? When will I be able to set foot on that land?

I do not care about your nationalities or loyalties. What matters to me is what I have been told: that you are a man of ethics. But how can you not see that, through this treaty, the Mauritian government is not only complicit in but actively endorsing and perpetuating the very colonial injustice of which I am a victim?

The ethics for which you are known must surely include recognition of this truth. The Chagossian people are not footnotes in an inter-state dispute. We are not a symbolic presence. We are a people, with voices, with memories, with rights. Why are our rights denied? Are we invisible, left in the shadows because of the colour of our skin?

You helped amplify the voice of Liseby Elysé. Today, I ask you to hear mine.

This treaty cannot represent the culmination of a decolonisation process if it denies the rights of those who were displaced. It cannot mark the end of a historic injustice if it is built on the exclusion of its victims.

I was told you are a man of ethics. I would very much like to believe that.

Yours sincerely,

Bertrice Pompé

London 11 June 2025