Friday, December 21, 2001; Page A05

A group of indigenous people who say they were forced from their archipelago when the United States assumed control of Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands in the 1960s sued the government in U.S. District Court yesterday, alleging genocide, torture and forced relocation.

The class action was filed by some of the more than 1,000 people who had lived in the isolated chain of islands in the Indian Ocean until the United States acquired control of the territory from British colonial rule in 1965. They are asking for millions of dollars of damages.

The United States uses the island -- more than 1,000 miles from India, Mauritius, Australia and the Gulf States -- as a communications post and refueling station. The Chagossians charge that the agreement with the British says "acquisition of Diego Garcia for defense purposes will imply displacement of the whole of the existing population of the island." The Chagossians say U.S. military and contract workers forced them from the island in the late '60s and early '70s. The last movement of people was accomplished by herding them onto boats loaded with horses and other animals for a six-day voyage to Mauritius.

-- Neely Tucker