Regina Mandarin

Another person died recently. Not one I knew this time. Actually, she was nobody I had even heard of. But I had heard of her cause – campaigning for the return of her people to the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Forty years ago, the two thousand islanders were told by the British to pack a suitcase and leave their homes so the Americans could build a launch base for B-52 bombers en route to bomb the crap out of Vietnam. Just like the Sahrawi, they have been homeless ever since.

Their story is a long and sad one. This woman named Regina Mandarin spend most of her life fighting for the rights of these poor peaceful people. British police, after breaking up one demonstration, reportedly joked to the press that they thought Diego Garcia played for Liverpool. Ignorant idiots.

Contrast the treatment of these people with the same number of Falkland islanders who were rescued from the horrible Argentineans in 1982. Of course, they were white and had last names like “Smythe” and “Pinkerton”. Not “Mandarin”, for heaven’s sake. Get a grip, old boy.