Stealing A Nation

Stealing A Nation uncovered a story that was 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, Diego Garcia, to the Americans who wanted it as a major military base, the largest outside America, and from where US planes have bombed Afghanistan and Iraq. The story is told by islanders who were dumped in the slums of Mauritius and in the words of the British officials who left a ‘paper trail’ of what the International Criminal Court now describes as ‘a crime against humanity’. After a legal fight lasting over thirty years, the Chagosians finally won their right to their homeland at the United nations in 2018. Stealing A Nation is credited as playing a major role in their campaign for justice.