LONDON â Indian Ocean islanders who were forced into exile to make way for a key U.S. military base lost a legal ruling Tuesday in their long-running campaign to return home.
The High Court in London ruled that the British government can establish the world's largest marine reserve around the Chagos Islands.
Britain forced thousands of people to leave the tropical archipelago, a British colony, in the 1960s and 1970s so that the U.S. military could build an air base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands.
The islanders, who have fought a long and unsuccessful legal battle for the right to return, claim the marine reserve is being created to block them.
But two High Court judges accepted the British government's argument that the reserve was being created for environmental and conservation purposes.
Lord Justice Stephen Richards said the circumstances needed to explain any other reason "would provide an unconvincing plot for a novel."
He and John Mitting, another justice, ruled that the reserve was compatible with European Union law.
Conservationists say the marine reserve, which covers almost 250,000 square miles (640,000 square kilometers) of ocean and islands, will allow scientific research and the preservation of coral reefs and an estimated 60 endangered species.
