belonger

For the most part, the Belongers are relieved.

As with stamp duty, land tax rates are considerably higher for foreigners than for Belongers.

Mr. Roof divides these into what he calls "believers, but not belongers" and "seekers."

The British Virgin Islands government has announced as policy that it will only naturalise 25 new belongers each year.

Belongers pay annually:

The Belongers hold Salt Cay to be their most precious island, because most of them have roots there.

People from the United Kingdom who have obtained Falkland Island status are known locally as 'belongers'.

Only Belongers (naturalized citizens) can work without a permit in the BVIs.

While belongers have an automatic right to work on the islands, non-belongers, as a rule, require work permits.

Persons born in the BVI before 2001 to parents who are Commonwealth citizens are considered belongers.

Even birth in the country is not sufficient to grant belongers status (unless the person is born to parents who are themselves belongers).

Instead, the rights normally associated with citizenship derive from what is called Belonger status and island natives or descendants from natives are said to be Belongers.

We would not wish it to become general knowledge that some of the inhabitants have lived on Diego Garcia for several generations and could, therefore, be regarded as 'belongers'.

For example, stamp duty on the purchase of land is 4% for belongers and 12% for non-belongers.

Other Belongers and foreigners had similar stories to tell but did not want to risk being identified, choosing to speak to The Sunday Telegraph in a series of secret rendezvous.

In a BIOT report made in June 1968, the British government estimated that only 354 Chagossians were third generation 'belongers' on the islands.

Persons born in the BVI in 2001 or later to parents who are not under Immigration Department control are belongers and BOTC.

All BVIslanders and Belongers can vote, but only BVIslanders can hold a British Virgin Islands passport.

As a result of affluence and increased contact with the outside world, there is now a growing need "to balance the inevitable tensions you find between belongers and newcomers in any small island," he said.

The solution proposed is to issue them with documents making it clear that they are 'belongers' of Mauritius and the Seychelles and only temporary residents of BIOT.

There are usually also some ways to pass belonger status to a child born outside the territory, but these are purposely limited, to minimize the number of belongers who will not live in the territory.

Much of the intrigue revolved around "Belongers", an arcane term for approximately 10,000 natives and residents who are allowed to vote and - all importantly - own, sell and develop lucrative Crown land.

I had been exploring the narrow sandy lanes bordered by the stone walls of cottages and wandered by chickens, loose cattle and feral donkeys whose forebears, like the Belongers', go back to plantation times.

Belongers and non-belongers enjoy unequal rights to employment and to the right to purchase property, and in certain cases non-belongers are made subject to higher rates of taxation.

Non-belonger women married to men who are belongers by birth, immediate descent, or naturalisation, or who received a belonger certificate between 1967 and 2001, also become belongers, unless they were divorced before 2001.