This tells a story literally 'hidden from history'. In the 1960s and 70s, British governments, conspiring with American officials, tricked into leaving, then expelled the entire population of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean. The aim was to give the principal island of this Crown Colony, Diego Garcia, to the Americans who wanted it as a major military base. Indeed, from Diego Garcia US planes have since bombed Afghanistan and Iraq.

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'STEALING A NATION' WINS BRITAIN'S MOST PRESTIGIOUS DOCUMENTARY AWARD

John Pilger's 'Stealing a Nation', has won the Royal Television Society's top award as Britain's best documentary in 2004-5. The coveted RTS award, announced at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on 15 March, goes to a film, said the judges, "displaying refreshingly unfashionable passion and forensic skill". Stealing a Nation reveals the extraordinary story of the secret expulsion of the entire population of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean by successive British governments, so that the principal island, Diego Garcia, could be handed to the United States as a major military base. It is from this base that American aircraft have attacked Iraq and Afghanistan.

John Pilger and his co-director Chris Martin drew together official documents from the Public Record Office in London and the National Archives in Washington in order to recount, in the words of conspiring British and American officials, the harrowing story of a people tricked and finally forcibly removed from their homeland, and the refusal of the Blair government today to allow them to return home and to compensate them adequately. Since the film was broadcast on ITV in October 2004, the High Court has agreed to conduct a judicial review of the islanders' case.

www.johnpilger.com

Got to give it to you Coltane

You have consistently tried to keep this issue in our minds...

if i can manage to stay awake i will watch it

it has started....TUNE IN NOW

The british govt spent £2 billion protecting the rights of other BRITISH citizens in FALKLANDS while leaving the Chagos ones to dies and nothing because they are BLACK

Do you guys think these bombs happen for nothing? ANCESTORS are probably telling them something

I wish I could ask JACK STRAW same questions Pilger is asking now...I mean how can they just kick every one out of that country like that?

Absolutely terrible

Just watched the documentary and my heart is so heavy.

Is there no limit to the cruelty of the British and Americans. Will they start being human at some point????

i only managed to stay awake for 40 mins of it,

but so shocked and the little kids aswell as adults dying of Sadness. the destitution they brought them too.

it always boils down to race. as for america words can not express

dont you think there was an element of racism in the whole thing?

So its the queen who signed the docs to steal that nation

Thanks Coltrane, No one signed my petition [Garcia to be send to Downing street], so I see its difficult trying to get people involved...AMERICANS

yes I watched it

i mean

fingerprints for the people to sign their *rights* over.....................

*sighs*