No Farewell for This Admiral:
Reflections on Diego Garcia
by Vijay Prashad On January 2, 2000, Admiral Elmo R Zumwalt Jr died. The New York Times reported the next day that Zumwalt left behind two principle legacies: his attempt to desegregate the US Navy in the 1970s and his order to spray Agent Orange in Vietnam (which led to the death of his son, Lt Elmo Zumwalt III, among countless others). I want to add a third legacy, one felt each day in the Indian Ocean: his statement, as Chief of Naval Operations, in 1974 that the creation of a denuclearised "zone of peace" in the Indian Ocean was a "very dangerous idea". Zumwalt's statement came in light of Afro-Asian pressure against such institutions as the US base at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago, smack dab in the centre of the Indian Ocean. Currently, the base is home to, at least, the following units: (1) The 630th Air Mobility Support Squadron (which maintains the Ground- based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance system). (2) The 18th Space Surveillance Squadron. (3) The 613th Air Support Squadron (it offered logistical support to 1991 Desert Storm, 1996 Desert Strike, 1997 Desert Thunder, and 1998 Desert Fox, as well as ongoing operations in Iraq). (4) The 22nd Space Operations Squadron (the Diego Garcia Tracking Station, to assist in the operation of US Department of Defence (DoD) satellites that "provide enhancement to conventional forces" (as the DoD reports). (5) Navy Support Facility (a liaison for the Japan Self Defence Force as well as coordinator of US Navy activities in the Indian Ocean). (6) The 7th Fleet (which is responsible for over 52 million miles of ocean, from San Diego to Diego Garcia, with a forward-deployed force at Yokusuka, Japan, and Diego Garcia). (7) The Naval Central Meteorology and Oceanography Detachment (to provide information to the US Navy). Most people in the US [or Australia] know little of the US Navy's role in the Indian Ocean. Few know that there was once a very real initiative to stop the entrenchment of the waters, the "zone of peace" concept. The Cairo Non-Aligned Summit (1964) recommended "the establishment of denuclearised zones" in those oceans of the world as yet without nuclear weapons. This followed the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and the 1963 Treaty of Tlatelelco (to keep Latin America free of nuclear weapons). By 1970, the Lusaka Non-Aligned Summit took a more forthright position and called upon all states to "respect the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace from which Great Power rivalries and competition, as well as bases" be excluded. The US Government ignored this declaration and signed a treaty with Britain in 1966 to make Diego Garcia available for a US base. The British pullout from the Indian Ocean, the Suez crisis and the Vietnam imbroglio drew the US toward this strategic island. By 1974, Admiral Zumwalt told the US Congress that the Indian Ocean has "become a focal point of US foreign and economic policies and has a growing impact on our security". Zumwalt noted that the USSR stood atop the "central part of the West's energy jugular down to the Persian Gulf" (this was a decisive exaggeration). The Indian Ocean Zone of Peace notion was an affront to Zumwalt, who told the US Congress that "a permanent presence is mandatory" since the USSR was trying to "Finlandise" the Afro-Asian littoral. He was in favour of an additional fleet, so that use of the Pacific Fleet in the region would not provide a "dangerous vacuum in US presence through the Western Pacific region". Indeed, this is the case today, as the US base at Diego Garcia offers logistical support to nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed military ships as well as aircraft — all of which allow the US to threaten and cajole the powers in the region into submission. To join the campaign against Diego Garcia send an email to: gherao@yahoo.com* * * ZNet Commentary (abridged)