The 2000 residents of Diego Garcia were forcibly removed to make way for a giant US military base.

Will the same happen to the 593 Australian residents on the Cocos Islands that lies south of Sumatra in the Indian ocean? The Australian Government has committed over $600 million to the military upgrade of the run-way and support services on Cocos.

When Julia Gillard allowed US marines to be rotated/based in Darwin there was widespread speculation that Cocos was on the US shopping list and that Australia was a seller.

The pattern of US military colonisation of Northern Australia is clear:

Will the Cocos Islands be next?

The signs are ominous.

On 2 September 2023, the ABC carried a special report about major plans which Australian Defence have for the significant expansion of the airfield and associated facilities on Cocos Island. It explained the serious concerns of some islanders and other locals had about the adverse impact these projects would likely have on the community and its environment with the threat of climate change lurking in the future. It also pointed to the local anxieties about the elevation of the level of geostrategic threat this would impose on Cocos. Some even worried that the local community might be forced to move out of Cocos – much like what had happened to the locals having to give way to US defence interests in Diego Garcia – further west in the Indian Ocean.

The ABC reported on 15 April this year that “There is a theory doing the rounds at Cocos that Defence will eventually forcibly remove islanders like what happened at the militarised atoll Diego Garcia, which is west of Cocos in the middle of the Indian Ocean. In the late 1960s, locals were expelled from Diego Garcia by the UK government so a joint UK-US military base could be established there. Islanders fear the Commonwealth could........

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