Source : apnews.com
ROME — In an encounter with exiled refugees from Chagos, the disputed Indian Ocean archipelago that is home to the vital U.S.-U.K. military base, Diego Garcia, on Saturday, Pope Leo XIV firmly affirmed the rights of the weakest against the aims of the mighty.
The first American pope in history advocated for the Chagossian people’s right to return to their homeland and celebrated a recent deal between the United Kingdom and Mauritius about the future of the archipelago as a significant worldwide symbol.
Leo spoke with a group of Chagos refugees, some 2,000 of whom had been forced from their homes by Britain in the 1960s and 1970s so that the United States could establish a bomber and naval base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands.
