Stealing a Nation

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STEALING A NATION is an extraordinary film about the plight of people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean - secretly and brutally expelled from their homeland by British governments in the late 1960s and early 1970s, to make way for an American military base. The base, on the main island of Diego Garcia, was a launch pad for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

A remarkable dossier of evidence has been put together by Pilger and producer Chris Martin, all from official files, charting one of the most shocking conspiracies of modern times, which continues today.

Diego Garcia is America's largest military base in the world, outside the US. There are more than 4,000 troops, two bomber runways, thirty warships and a satellite spy station. The Pentagon calls it an 'indispensable platform' for policing the world.
Before the Americans came, more than 2,000 people lived on the islands, many with roots back to the late 18th century. There were thriving villages, a school, a hospital, a church, a railway and an undisturbed way of life. The islands were, and still are, a British crown colony. In the 1960s, the government of Harold Wilson struck a secret deal with the United States to hand over Diego Garcia. The Americans demanded that the islands be 'swept' and 'sanitized'. Unknown to Parliament and to the US Congress, the British government plotted with Washington to expel the entire population - in secrecy and in breach of the United Nations Charter.

'Pilger skilfully contrasts the desperate lives of those in exile with British and American government chiefs shamelessly spinning their side...Watch and be angry.' Daily Mirror

'Stealing a Nation provides an effective indictment of First World power politics. It is an expose well-supported by vintage film footage shot by missionaries as well as the British government... Pilger also justifies his claims with incriminating excerpts from de-classified British and U.S. government documents. Throughout the film, he puts a human face on the victims of this policy with personal testimonies and appalling photos of those who endured the ordeal... Highly recommended for ethics, political science, and contemporary issues courses.' Douglas Reed, Department of Political Science, Ouachita Baptist University, Educational Media Reviews Online

'A well-documented and shocking expose... Beginning with Pilger's onscreen position statement, the film makes no attempt to be evenhanded, but it doesn't have to be: reams and reams of secret government documents he digs up demonstrate an appalling disregard for humanity dating back to the 1960's... Recommended.' Video Librarian

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Main credits

Pilger, John (film director)
Pilger, John (screenwriter)
Pilger, John (reporter)
Martin, Christopher (film director)
Martin, Christopher (film producer)

Other credits

Composer, Nick Russell-Pavier; cinematographer, Preston Clothier; editor, Joe Frost.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

John Pilger, British Government, Diego Garcia, US military base, Chagos Islands, Indian Ocean, Afghanistan, Iraq, British colony, Harold Wilson, United Nations Charter; "Stealing a Nation"; Bullfrog Films

S T E A L I N G A N A T I O N

A Special Report by John Pilger

B/W STILL: MS R. BANCOULT HOLDS PASSPORT, Z/I TO CU (SOURCE: J. PILGER)	00:00	(TRAD SONG, DUR:39”)
B/W STILL: MS TALATE HOLDS PASSPORT, Z/I TO CU (SOURCE: J. PILGER)	00:08
	00:11	SONG SUBTITLES: ’We are an exiled people’
B/W STILL: MS ALEXIS HOLDS PASSPORT (SOURCE: J. PILGER)	00:15	‘From over there on the other side’
B/W STILL: WS BANCOULT GRANPARENTS & FAMILY GROUP (SOURCE: R. BANCOULT)	00:18	‘From the Chagos archipelago’
B/W STILL: CU ONEZINE, Z/I TO BCU (SOURCE: J. PILGER)	00:21
	00:22	‘We are an uprooted people living in abject poverty’
B/W STILL: WS/3S CHILDREN HOLD DEMONSTRATION PLACARD (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP)	00:28	‘We have no identity’
FREEZE FRAME: WS MAN SITS IN BACK GARDEN, Z/I TO MS	00:31	‘We are an uprooted people living in abject poverty’
EXT. DAY MS PILGER ON BEACH, TO CAMERA Z/I TO MCU	00:38	JOHN PILGER: There are times when one tragedy, one crime, tell us how a whole system works behind its democratic façade and helps us understand how much of the world is run for the benefit of the powerful and how governments often justify their actions with lies. The film you are about to see is a shocking, almost incredible story. A government calling itself civilised, tricked and expelled its most vulnerable citizens so that it could give their homeland to a foreign power for a military base. This was all done in high secrecy, and this same government and its successors then watched its citizens starve to death. It watched them despair and take their own lives while, at the same time, ministers and their officials, mounted a campaign of deception that went all the way up to the Prime Minister. That government was a British government whose policies are continued today. This report is about a far away people most of you will have never heard of. And yet the lies covering the injustice done to them will be all too familiar.
	01:48	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 3’20”)
MCU WAVES BREAK ON BEACH	01:49
TITLE ON SCREEN: ’STEALING A NATION’	01:51
CAPTION SUPERED: ’A SPECIAL REPORT BY JOHN PILGER’ FADE TO	02:00
ARCHIVE: AERIAL TRACKS OVER DIEGO GARCIA, WAVE AT SEA, TRACK	02:06
THROUGH TREES & BEACHLINE (SOURCE: US DEPT OF DEFENSE, DUR: 16”) FADE TO	02:11	COMM: This is Diego Garcia, the main island of the Chagos group in the Indian Ocean. It was once a phenomenon of natural beauty and peace. A paradise.
STILL: CU CAMP JUSTICE SIGN (SOURCE: US DEPT OF DEFENSE)
ARCHIVE: WHEEL OF FIGHTER, Z/O TO COCKPIT, TROOPS MARCH PAST	02:25	COMM: Today it is one of America’s biggest military bases in the world.
CAMERA L, F-111 TAKES OFF & SATELLITE BUILDING (SOURCE: US DEPT OF DEFENSE, DUR 13”)	02:32	COMM: There are more than 2,000 troops. Two bomber runways. Thirty warships and a satellite spy station.
ARCHIVE: WS B52 TAKES OFF (SOURCE: PUBLIC DOMAIN, VIA FOOTAGE FARM, DUR: 6”)	02:41
ARCHIVE: MCU PILOT (SOURCE: US DEPT OF DEFENSE, DUR 2”)	02:42 02:47	ARCHIVE COMM: B1 and B52 long range bombers extended their reach from the British base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. (SOURCE: ITN, DUR: 5”)

ARCHIVE: AMERICAN JETS, AFGHAN WARRIORS, BOMBS DROPPED & EXPLOSIONS, DEAD CHILDREN &	02:49	COMM: From here, the United States has attacked Afghanistan and Iraq.
GRIEVING MOTHER (SOURCE: ITN, DUR 13”)	02:58	COMM: The Pentagon calls it ‘an indispensable platform for policing the world.’
ARCHIVE: MS B52 IN FLIGHT (SOURCE: PUBLIC DOMAIN, VIA FOOTAGE FARM, DUR: 1”)	03:03
ARCHIVE: CU PILOT (SOURCE: US DEPT OF DEFENSE, DUR: 1”)	03:04	PILOT: Missile launched right three o’clock.
ARCHIVE: ‘SHOCK & AWE’ CAMPAIGN BOMB EXPLOSIONS INTERCUT WITH IRAQI INJURED CAPTION SUPERED: ’BAGHDAD March 2003’ (SOURCE: ITN, DUR: 16”)	03:06
MAP: INDIAN OCEAN, Z/I ON HIGHLIGHTED CHAGOS ISLANDS	03:22
FADE TO	03:23	COMM: Diego Garcia is a British colony. It lies midway between Africa and Asia, one of a group of unique coral islands.
MAP: CHAGOS ISLANDS & DIEGO GARCIA	03:33
INSET ARCHIVE: HOME FOOTAGE OF BEACH, PEOPLE AT DOCK & IN	03:35
VILLAGE, PEOPLE OUTSIDE CHURCH & CHILDREN POSE FOR CAMERA (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP, DUR: 33”)	03:38	COMM: This is rare film taken by missionaries before the Americans came in the 1960s. 2,000 people lived in the Chagos Islands, a gentle Creole population originally from Africa and India, whose communities dated back to the late 18^th Century. There were thriving villages, a school a hospital, a jail, a church, a railway and, above all, a benign, undisturbed way of life.
INT. DAY MS TALATE INTERVIEW SYNC	04:08
	04:09	TALATE SUBTITLES: ’My great-grandmother was born in Diego Garcia’
CAPTION SUPERED: ’MARIE LISETTE TALATE	04:13
	04:15	‘and my grandmother was born there, my mother was born there’
	04:19	‘and I was born there’
	04:20	‘I have had six children in Diego’
	04:24	‘There were people older than my great grandmother who had children there.’
MS ALEXIS INTERVIEW SYNC	04:29	ALEXIS SUBTITLES: ‘What are my fondest memories of Diego?’
CAPTION SUPERED: ‘CHARLESIA ALEXIS’	04:32
	04:33	‘We could eat and drink everything, we never lacked for anything’
	04:39	‘And we never bought anything, except for the clothes we wore’
	04:44	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 2’21”)
INSET ARCHIVE: CHILDREN PLAY WITH PIG & BOY HOLDS GULL (SOURCE:	04:45
CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP, DUR: 8”)	04:47	R. BANCOULT V/O SUBTITLE: ‘There were chickens, ducks, cocks and all that.’
MS R. BANCOULT INTERVIEW SYNC	04:53
CAPTION SUPERED: ’RITA BANCOULT’	04:54	R. BANCOULT SUBTITLE: ‘I had dogs which I brought to the beach with me’
INSET ARCHIVE: WS DOG PLAYS IN SEA (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP, 4”)	04:57	R. BANCOULT V/O SUBTITLE: ‘At low tide they would go and catch fish and bring them in’
MS R. BANCOULT A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	05:02	R. BANCOULT SUBTITLE: ‘and lay them at my feet.’
INSET ARCHIVE: BOATS AT JETTY & SLO-MO ARCHIVE: GRANTHAM	05:05
WALKS ALONG JETTY (SOURCE: ALAIN TALBOT, DUR: 38”)	05:07	COMM: Unknown to the islanders, all this was about to end. A conspiracy was underway between the governments of Britain and the United States.

	05:21	COMM: The year is 1961. In this film, never seen before, the man on the right is Rear Admiral Grantham of the US Navy. His visit to Diego Garcia marked the beginning of a top secret Anglo-American survey of the island for a military base so vast that it would cost over a billion dollars.
MAP: INDIAN OCEAN, CHAGOS ISLANDS & MAURITIUS HIGLIGHTED	05:43
	05:44	COMM: The Chagos Islands were then governed from Mauritius a thousand miles away.
ARCHIVE: QUEEN & PRINCE PHILIP IN MOTORCADE, GUARD OF HONOUR &	05:50
QUEEN MEETS DIGNITARIES (SOURCE: ITN, DUR: 14”)	05:52	COMM: When Mauritius got its independence from Britain in 1968, it was on condition that it would lay no claim to the Chagos Islands.
ARCHIVE: UNION FLAG & STARS & STRIPES FLYING & AERIAL VIEW OF	06:04
DIEGO GARCIA (SOURCE: US DEPT OF DEFENSE, DUR: 11”)	06:05	COMM: Hidden from parliament and the US Congress, the deal was this: the Americans wanted the island – in their words – swept and sanitised.
	06:12	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 12”)
INSET ARCHIVE: MOTHERS HOLDING CHILDREN STAND OUTSIDE CHURCH	06:15
(SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP, DUR: 9”)	06:16	COMM: An entire population was declared expendable. All of them were to be deported.

MS MARDEMOOTOO INTERVIEW SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ’ROBIN MARDEMOOTOO Lawyer for Chagos Islanders’	06:24	ROBIN MARDEMOOTOO: The British and American authorities implemented a policy decision that was aimed at depriving that community in the Chagos from –
	06:36	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 55”)
INSET ARCHIVE: PAN OVER CHILDREN IN OUTDOORS SCHOOL CLASS, MAN WALKS PAST HUT, MEN AT WORK ON JETTY & WOMEN STAND OUTSIDE	06:36	ROBIN MARDEMOOTOO V/O: - basic supplies. No milk, no dairy products, no oil, no sugar, no salt. No medication, no more of the things you use in life.

CHURCH, (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP, DUR: 26”)	06:50	COMM: The effect of the policy was to terrify many of them into leaving. They were also told their islands might be bombed.

B/W STILL: TITLE AT BOTTOM OF STILL, TILT UP TO BCU GREATBATCH (SOURCE: SEYCHELLES NATIONAL LIBRARY) INSET ARCHIVE: GROUP OF DOGS &	07:00 07:02 07:11	COMM: In the spring of 1971, Sir Bruce Greatbatch, KCVO, CMG, MBE, Governor of the Seychelles, gave the order that all the dogs on Diego Garcia were to be killed.
DOG SWIMS IN SEA (SOURCE: CHAGOS
REFUGEE GROUP, DUR: 13”) B/W STILL: WS FAMILY WITH DOGS AT FEET, TILT DOWN & Z/I ON DOGS (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP)	07:15 07:25	COMM: These were much loved pets and the horror of their killing was taken as a warning by the islanders. Almost a thousand pets were rounded up and gassed, using the exhaust fumes from American military vehicles.
CU TALATE INTERVIEW SYNC	07:31
	07:32	TALATE SUBTITLES: ’The children loved their dogs’
	07:34	‘and when their dogs were taken away in front of them’
	07:37	‘They screamed and cried.’

MS MARDEMOOTOO INTERVIEW SYNC	07:39	ROBIN MARDEMOOTOO: I mean the relationship with our pets should be the same whether you are Chagossian or whether you are British. And they were absolutely destroyed by the fate reserved to their dogs and many of them told me, in no uncertain words, they were told that any objection to the depopulation, that they would suffer the same fate.
ARCHIVE: WAKE OF SHIP, SUPERSTRUCTURE & PAN OVER	08:11
PEOPLE ON DECK (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP, DUR: 13”)	08:15	COMM: Perhaps the lowest trick was that those islanders needing to go to Mauritius were prevented from returning home.

MS R. BANCOULT INTERVIEW SYNC	08:24	R. BANCOULT SUBTITLES: ’I left everything and came here to treat my baby and then return home.’
	08:29	‘Afterwards the administrator tapped me on the shoulder and told me’
INSET ARCHIVE: WS PAN L OVER BEACH (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP, DUR: 4”)	08:34	R. BANCOULT V/O SUBTITLES: ‘‘Very sorry for you Rita! Your island has been sold.’
	08:38	‘‘You will never return there again.’’
MS R. BANCOULT A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	08:39	R. BANCOULT SUBTITLES: ‘My husband was sitting in a chair looking at my face’
	08:44	‘His two arms fell like this and he suffered a stroke’
	08:53	‘His arms and mouth were paralysed.’
	08:56	‘They picked him up and took him to the hospital’
	08:59	‘where he died.’
B/W STILL: WS PAN L OVER GROUP OUTSIDE OFFICE, Z/O TO WS OFFICE	09:01	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 29”)
(SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP) B/W STILL: MS TODD, Z/O TO WS CHAGOSSIANS OUTSIDE OFFICE	09:04 09:12	COMM: The remaining population were summoned to the Administrator’s Office and told that their homeland had been sold and that those who remained would be loaded onto ships and expelled.
(SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP)
B/W STILL: LS CHAGOSSIAN CROWD, PAN R (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP)	09:19
	09:20	COMM: In this photograph, people are standing in silence, stunned.
CU TALATE INTERVIEW SYNC	09:29
	09:30	TALATE SUBTITLE: ’We had a meeting at one pm at the office with Magistrate Todd.’
B/W STILL: LS CHAGOSSIAN CROWD OUTSIDE OFFICE BUILDINGS	09:34
(SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP)	09:35	TALATE V/O SUBTITLE: ‘We were obliged to leave, but we knew what was going on there.’
CU TALATE A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	09:39	TALATE SUBTITLES: ‘What they did to our dogs they were going to do to us.’
	09:43	‘They are without pity.
B/W ARCHIVE: Z/I ON NORDVAER NAME, STILL OF CHAGOSSIANS &	09:46	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 29”)
DECK FITTINGS SEMI-SUPERED (SOURCE: GRANADA: WORLD IN ACTION, DUR: 27”)	09:48	COMM: They were forced onto this vessel: the SS Nordvaer. They were allowed to take only one suitcase. Sir Bruce Greatbatch insisted that the horses took pride of place on deck. The women and children were made to sleep in the hold on a cargo of bird fertilizer – bird shit.
CU TALATE INTERVIEW SYNC	10:13
	10:14	TALATE SUBTITLE: ’On the ship no matter how many children you had’
B/W STILL: WS PEOPLE ON DECK OF NORDVAER (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP)	10:18	TALATE V/O SUBTITLES: ‘you were only given one mattress.’
	10:21	‘All of us Chagossians, women, children,’
CU TALATE INTERVIEW SYNC	10:24	TALATE SUBTITLE: ‘it was ourselves who were the animals on the Nordvaer.’
MAP: INDIAN OCEAN, Z/I ON ROUTE TO SEYCHELLES SUPERED	10:29
	10:30	COMM: The first port of call was the Seychelles, where they were herded from the boat.
EXT. DAY L/A MS MAST	10:35
CU BOWSPRIT	10:37
WS RUSTING PROW OF NORDVAER	10:38
INT. DAY WS PORTHOLE, Z/O & TILT UP TO L/A MS RUSTED CABIN CEILING FADE TO	10:40	COMM: This is a rusting monument to their agony.
EXT. DAY MS GANGPLANK REMAINS, TILT DOWN FADE TO	10:47
MS P.O.V. TRACK UP STEPS TO WS PRISON BUILDING FOUNDATIONS	10:50
FADE TO	10:51	COMM: From here they were marched up the hill to a prison that has since been demolished. They were kept in cells until they were transported to Mauritius.
ARCHIVE: CU SHIP’S WAKE (SOURCE: CHAGOS REFUGEE GROUP, DUR: 3”) FADE TO	11:04
LS PORT LOUIS CITYSCAPE, PAN R	11:09
	11:13	COMM: This is Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius. Here they were dumped on the docks, bewildered and terrified.
VLS CONTAINER SHIP AT SEA, SEEN OVER DOCK BUILDINGS	11:20
LS CONTAINER SHIP AT QUAY	11:22
MS CONTAINER SHIPS LINED UP AT QUAY	11:24	CASSAM UTEEM V/O: Some of them stayed on the docks -
INT. DAY MS UTEEM INTERVIEW SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ’CASSAM UTEEM former President of Mauritius’	11:27	CASSAM UTEEM: - waiting for the next ship to take them back home, you see. And there was never to be a ship to take them back home.
EXT. DAY MONTAGE: PANS & TRACKS THROUGH SLUM FLATS IN BEAU MARCHAND HOUSING ESTATE	11:35	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 17”)
	11:38	COMM: They were taken to this housing estate, which was then derelict, and had been taken over by animals.

	11:51	TALATE V/O SUBTITLES: ’The houses on the Estate Beau Marchand had no water and no electricity’
INT. DAY MS TALATE INTERVIEW SYNC	11:54
EXT. DAY WS RUBBISH OUTSIDE SLUM FLAT, PAN R FADE TO	11:58	‘and there was rubbish everywhere.’
BCU BARRED WINDOW FRAME, TILT UP	12:01	‘There were no doors, no windows.’
	12:06	MARCEL MOULINIE V/O: It was hell. I went to see them.
MCU MOULINIE INTERVIEW SYNC	12:08	MARCEL MOULINIE: Literally.
CAPTION SUPERED: ’MARCEL MOULINIE Chagos Islands plantation manager’	12:09	JOHN PILGER: What way was it hell, do you think?
	12:14	MARCEL MOULINIE: It was the filth. No water in those houses. And no sanitation. It was really – the children, they had no clothes, they were absolutely as if they had been rolled over in ash and earth and then when it rained it was water everywhere.
SLO-MO WS TRACK L THROUGH HOUSING ESTATE COURTYARD	12:38	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 18”)
	12:43	COMM: The islanders began to die. Not only from poverty, but from what they call sadness. Lisette, now in her 60s, lost two children.

INT. DAY MS TALATE INTERVIEW SYNC	12:56	TALATE SUBTITLES: ’The children died of sadness. When I received the news’
	13:01	‘I was breast feeding my child: I thought he was fed the milk of sadness.’
	13:07	‘The other child was 8 years old,’
	13:09	‘he knew from all the talking what was going on.’
	13:13	‘He knew he was leaving his country.’
	13:17	‘That saddened him, and doctors cannot treat sadness.’
CU UTEEM INTERVIEW	13:23	CASSAM UTEEM: They would sing their way through life. Here they wept their way through life, and they’re still weeping, you see? And there were, as you mentioned, so many cases of suicide. There were so many cases of children, you know, not receiving proper care and dying in hospital. I know the case of one lady who lost two children within two or three months. And she wasn’t able even to perform the funeral of her child because she didn’t have the money necessary for that and it was the state who took care of it. From the hospital, the child was taken to the cemetery, you see. You realise what sort of a trauma, what sort of experience this is for an old lady? And this old lady is still weeping to be able to go back home.

EXT. DAY MS PILGER IN GRAVEYARD, TO CAMERA Z/I TO MCU	14:15	JOHN PILGER: By the end of 1975, the secret expulsion of the people of the Chagos Islands was complete. A survey of their conditions in exile told of 26 families that had died together in poverty, of 9 suicides, of young girls forced into prostitution in order to survive. The report gave these examples: Helene and Michelle Musa, mother and child, committed suicide. Leone Rangasami, prevented from going back, drowned herself. Tureen Chateau, no job, no roof, committed suicide. This was a glimpse of the suffering inflicted by the British government and yet, in a letter dated 16^th of August 1976, a Foreign Office official wrote – and I quote – ‘although we have no information about deaths, some deaths are bound to have occurred in the normal course of events.’
EXT. EVE L/A LS CLOUDS SEEN OVER GRAVESTONES FADE TO	15:15
MONTAGE: YACHTS IN HARBOUR & TOURISTS EATING MEALS & ENJOYING WATERSPORTS	15:19	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 23”)
	15:30	COMM: This is how most British people know Mauritius: as an exotic holiday destination, especially for honeymooners.

WS TRACK L PAST SLUM SHACK WALLS, FADE OUT COLOUR	15:41	COMM: They almost never see the slums of the exiled people of the Chagos, who are also British citizens.
FADE TO	15:43	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 31”)
B/W ARCHIVE: FAMILY OUTSIDE SLUM, FAMILY SLEEPING IN ONE	15:54
ROOM & BABY IN BOX (SOURCE: GRANADA: WORLD IN ACTION, DUR: 19”)	15:55	COMM: This is film taken in 1982 of a family of Chagos islanders in exile in Mauritius. Here all 25 of them sleep in shifts in one squalid room with the baby in a cardboard box.
B/W INT. DAY MS MAN SLEEPS ON FLOOR, FADE IN COLOUR	16:12
R/A MS MAN SLEEPS ON FOAM, SEEN THROUGH DOORWAY WS SHACK INTERIOR, TRACK UP TO TABLE FADE TO	16:14	COMM: We found the same family living in the same shack in the same terrible conditions. They still sleep on the floor, the rain still pours in, the toilet is still a hole in the ground. They are still so poor that they often go hungry.
MS WINDOW, PAN L OVER MATTRESSES IN ROOM	16:31
FADE TO WS MAN IN SHACK, TRACK R TOWARDS BEDROOM DOORWAY	16:34	COMM: What was done to these people is today defined in international law as a crime against humanity.

EXT. DAY WS FAMILY IN SHACK DOORWAY C/AWAY: CU DAUGHTER IN DOORWAY	16:43	JOHN PILGER V/O: What has changed since they were last filmed twenty two years ago?

WS FAMILY IN DOORWAY A/B, I/V SYNC	16:49	ONEZINE SUBTITLE: ’Nothing has changed, everything is still the same.’
MS ONEZINE IN DOORWAY, I/V SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ’LOUIS ONEZINE’	16:52	JOHN PILGER: Your wife, she died? Is that right?
		TRANSLATOR: Yes, she died.
	16:58	ONEZINE SUBTITLE: ’Yes, she had a heart attack, she died of sadness as well.’
WS SHACK	17:04
	17:06	CASSAM UTEEN V/O: It’s not nostalgia, it’s more than that. It’s like –
INT. DAY MCU UTEEN INTERVIEW SYNC	17:09	CASSAM UTEEN: - missing even the air that you breathe, missing the environment that we’re used to. Missing your home. Missing your cats and your dogs. And your pets, which were all destroyed.
EXT. DAY WS ALEXIS FAMILY ON BEACH	17:21
	17:25	ALEXIS SONG SUBTITLES: ’When I was living on Diego’
LS ALEXIS FAMILY WALK ALONG BEACH, SEEN OVER BOAT	17:30	‘I was like a beautiful bird in the sky’
	17:38	‘Since I’ve been in Mauritius’
MS SHADOW OF ALEXIS FAMILY PASS OVER PROW OF BOAT	17:40
FADE TO	17:43	‘We are living a worthless life’
LS ALEXIS FAMILY SIT WITH BACKS TO CAMERA, LOOKING OUT TO SEA	17:46
CU/2S ALEXIS & SON SING	17:49
	17:51	‘Help me my friend, help me to sing’
	17:56	‘To send our message to the world’
EXT. EVE LS SUNSET	17:58
EXT. DAY LS/2S O. BANCOULT & PILGER WALK THROUGH CEMETERY	18:03	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 29”)
	18:05	COMM: This is Olivier Bancoult, leader of the Chagos islanders in exile. When he was a boy he promised his mother, Rita, that he would lead the fight for justice for his people. Olivier knows all to well their suffering.

	18:23	JOHN PILGER: So you’ve lost a sister and four brothers?
		OLIVIER BANCOULT: Four brothers, yes.
		JOHN PILGER: Tell me what happened to them.
		OLIVIER BANCOULT V/O: I have one –
MS O. BANCOULT IN CEMETERY, I/V SYNC. CAPTION SUPERED: ’OLIVIER BANCOULT Leader, Chagos Refugees Group’	18:32	OLIVIER BANCOULT: - brother what die with hard drugs. I have two other brothers what died with -
C/AWAY: MS HEADSTONE, TILT DOWN TO H/A MS OVERGROWN GRAVE	18:40	OLIVIER BANCOULT V/O: - alcohol. My sister just put fire on her, she had been very discouraged –
MS O. BANCOULT A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	18:47	OLIVIER BANCOULT: - with the life.
		JOHN PILGER: She committed suicide.
		OLIVIER BANCOULT: Yeah, yeah. Suicide, yeah.
	18:50	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 31”)
L/A WS CLOUDS SEEN OVER HEADSTONE SILHOUETTES	18:51
FADE TO B/W STILL: CU PLACARD IN HAND, Z/O TO O/S WS PROTESTORS (SOURCE: LA SENTINELLE LTD) WS GOVERNOR’S BUILDING, Z/I TO MS WS UNION FLAG SLOW FADE TO ROSTRUM: CU TEXT OF LEGAL DOCUMENT FADE TO	18:53 18:56	COMM: In 1982, the Chagos islanders, now desperate, demonstrated in the streets of Mauritius. This embarrassed the British government into giving them a derisory compensation which came to less than £3,000 per person. This didn’t even pay their debts and to get this money, many believed they were tricked into signing away their right to return home.
CU THUMBPRINT ON DOCUMENT	19:19
MS R. BANCOULT INTERVIEW SYNC	19:21
CAPTION SUPERED: ’RITA BANCOULT’	19:22	BANCOULT SUBTITLE: ‘We had to give our thumbprints to get the money.’
EXT. DAY MCU ALEXIS INTERVIEW SYNC	19:26
CAPTION SUPERED: ’CHARLESIA ALEXIS’	19:27	ALEXIS SUBTITLES: ’Those who could sign did and those who couldn’t’
	19:31	‘gave their thumbprint.’
	19:33	‘They added it down the page,’
	19:35	‘I never renounced my rights!’
	19:37	‘Until I die, neither I nor my children will ever renounce our rights.’
INT. DAY MS R. BANCOULT I/V SYNC	19:39
	19:41	R. BANCOULT SUBTITLES: ’if he had told me that I was signing to give up my Island,’
	19:45	‘I would never have taken that money, I’d have continued with my difficult life.’
	19:48	‘I would never have given up m rights.’
MCU MARDEMOOTOO INTERVIEW SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ’ROBIN MARDEMOOTOO Lawyer for Chagos Islanders’	19:51	ROBIN MARDEOMOOTOO: It was entirely improper. Unethical. Dictatorial. To -
ROSTRUM: CU LEGAL DOCUMENT, TILT DOWN TEXT & Z/I ON THUMBPRINT	19:59	ROBIN MARDEMOOTOO V/O: - have the Chagossians put their thumbprint on an English legal drafted document where the Chagossian, who doesn’t read nor speak any English,
MCU MARDEMOOTOO A/B, I/V SYNC	20:14	ROBIN MARDEMOOTOO: - let alone legal English, is made to renounce basically all his rights as a human being.
EXT. DAY LS MOUNTAIN PEAK, Z/O TO INCLUDE CHARAGOSSIAN CHILDREN	20:23
OUTSIDE SHACK IN F/G	20:24	COMM: Renouncing their rights was precisely what the British government wanted them to do.
WS MAN SITS IN BACK GARDEN	20:30
	20:31	COMM: They could then be forgotten.
MS/4S CHILDREN LEAN AGAINST WALL	20:34
BCU BOY STANDS IN DOORWAY WS FAMILY SIT OUTSIDE SHACK	20:36	COMM: That same year, the government spent £2 billion defending the rights of the Falkland Islanders who are white.
LS/2S CHILDREN STAND BY GAP IN IRON FENCING	20:44
		MARCEL MOULINIE V/O: My people, the Queen –
MCU MOULINIE INTERVIEW SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ’MARCEL MOULINIE Chagos Islands plantation manager’	20:48	MARCEL MOULINIE: - would say in her Christmas broadcast. So you send them 2,000 inhabitants of the Falklands and you’ve got 2,000 people in Chagos. One out, the other one we come to your rescue, come on. Come on, you are all English, you are all British.
		JOHN PILGER: What’s the difference?
		MARCEL MOULINIE: Where is your sense of fair play, tell us? Where is your sense of fair play?
WS/2S PILGER & O. BANCOULT ON STREET, BACK TRACK & PAN R TO	21:19
CHAGOS REFUGEES GROUP SIGN AS THEY ENTER LOCK UP	21:22	COMM: From a tiny lock up in the poorer section of Port Louis, Mauritius, Olivier Bancoult, an electrician, has taken the struggle across the world.

INT. DAY MS/2S O. BANCOULT & PILGER LOOK AT PHOTOS ON WALL	21:33	JOHN PILGER: And here you’re with Nelson Mandela.
		OLIVIER BANCOULT: Yeah. I am with –
BCU PHOTO OF MANDELA & O. BANCOULT ON WALL	21:37	OLIVIER BANCOULT V/O: - Nelson Mandela. An example of human rights fighter, you see?
MS/2S O. BANCOULT & PILGER A/B, Z/I TO WS PHOTO ON WALL	21:43	OLIVIER BANCOULT: We compare our struggle to the struggle of Nelson Mandela who had been…

TILT DOWN TO MCU O. BANCOULT FADE TO H/A WS DOCUMENTS ON TABLE, PAN R TO O/A WS DOCUMENT FILE FLIPPED	21:49	COMM: In the 1990s, the islanders’ struggle took a dramatic turn. With the discovery of these documents in the Public Record Office in London.
THROUGH
R/A MS PILGER LOOKS THROUGH FILE CU DOCUMENT TEXT, TILT UP PAGE	22:01	COMM: Here was the evidence that they and their supporters were looking for. These long forgotten secret official files reveal the full scale of the conspiracy and the cynicism that drove it.
RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE: WS FOREIGN OFFICE DOORS OPEN	22:18	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 40”)
CAPTION SUPERED: ’FOREIGN OFFICE London 1965’
MS TYPEWRITER, TILT UP TO MS SECRETARY CAPTION SUPERED: ‘Reconstruction’	22:25 22:32	COMM: The conspiracy got underway with the creation of a fake colony called the British Indian Ocean Territory, or BIOT.
WS SECRETARY TYPES DICTATED LETTER, TRACK L AROUND DESK CU HANDS TYPING	22:38	COMM: The sole purpose of creating this colony was to kick the people out. And to do it the Foreign Office invented a fiction. They said the islanders didn’t really belong to the Chagos, but were merely temporary contract workers.

BCU TEXT BEING TYPED ON PAPER	22:58	COMM: Foreign Office memorandum July 1965:

INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER SEMI-SUPERED	23:03 23:07	VOICE OVER: People were born there and, in some cases, their parents were born there too. The intention is, however, that none of them should be regarded as being permanent inhabitants of the islands.

WS FOREIGN OFFICE INTERIOR	23:15	COMM: So how would they be regarded?
WS REPORT HANDED OVER AT DESK, TILT DOWN TO H/A O/S WS REPORT BEING READ INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER SEMI-SUPERED END RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE FADE TO BLACK	23:18 23:26	VOICE OVER: The legal position of the inhabitants would be greatly simplified from our point of view – though not necessarily from theirs – ...if we decided to treat them as a floating population.
ARCHIVE: COLONIAL FILM UNIT PRODUCTION DOCUMENTARY SHOWS	23:33	(ARCHIVE MUSIC DUR: 42”)
VILLAGE LIFE IN DIEGO GARCIA (SOURCE: FILM IMAGES, DUR: 42”)	23:41	COMM: This long forgotten British government film shot in 1957 reveals the duplicity. Clearly the Foreign Office knew the people of the Chagos were anything but temporary workers.

	23:57	ARCHIVE COMM: Out of a total of 100 or more little islands, only some half a dozen are permanently inhabited – partly by people from Mauritius and the Seychelles, but mostly by men and women who have been born and brought up on these fragments of land. It is the story of their lives which this film tells.
MCU R. BANCOULT INTERVIEW SYNC	24:15
	24:16	JOHN PILGER: The British tried to claim, and I just quote one of the documents, that the Chagos had no indigenous or settled population.

	24:26	R. BANCOULT SUBTITLES: ’That’s all lies. Never!’
	24:30	‘My father was born there, my grandfather was born there,’
B/W STILL: WS BANCOULT FAMILY (SOURCE: R. BANCOULT)	24:32	R. BANCOULT V/O SUBTITLE: ‘my grandmother was born there, and my mother was born there.’
	23:35	‘They lie!’
MS R. BANCOULT A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	24:37
	24:38	‘Our whole generation was born there.’
RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE: BCU OFFICIAL IN CONVERSATION, TILT	24:40	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 31”)
DOWN TO BCU REPORT IN HAND	24:43	COMM: Back in London, some officials began to worry about being caught out.

LS/2S OFFICIALS SEEN THROUGH DOORWAY	24:49	COMM: Foreign Office memo, November 1965:

CU PLATE OF BISCUITS ON TABLE, PULL FOCUS TO MEMO BEING WRITTEN IN B/G INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER SEMI-SUPERED. PAN L AS MEMO IS HANDED OVER. INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER FROM ‘IN OTHER WORDS’ SEMI-SUPERED	24:53 24:57 25:02	VOICE OVER: There is a civilian population. In practice, however, I would advise a policy of ‘quiet disregard’ - in other words, let’s forget about this one until the United Nations challenge us on it.

TILT UP TO BCU OFFICIAL READS REPORT END RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE	25:10	RICHARD GIFFORD V/O: One can only say that they were looking at another prize and this was considered a price that was worth paying because, in reality, there would be no objections –
CU GIFFORD INTERVIEW SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ’RICHARD GIFFORD Lawyer for Chagos Islanders’	25:22	RICHARD GIFFORD: - and they would get away with it. And all they were concerned about – the documents show this quite clearly – all they were concerned about was whether they’d be found out.
RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE: TRACK L TO VLS/2S OFFICERS SEEN THROUGH	25:32
DOORWAY	25:33	COMM: In that same month, the British representative at the United Nations – F W D Brown – was instructed to lie to the General Assembly that the Chagos Island were ‘uninhabited when the United Kingdom first acquired them.’
END RECONSTRUCTION
MS UTEEM INTERVIEW SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ‘CASSAM UTEEM former President of Mauritius’	25:50	CASSAM UTEEM: I must remind you that this has been done in violation of the United Nations Charter. This is why it was done in absolute discretion and using lies. I am not mincing my words, they were lies, damned lies.
RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE: L/A WS ORNATE CEILING, TILT DOWN TO LS	26:09
	26:10	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 51”)
OFFICIAL AT DESK	26:11	COMM: What the official documents show is not just a trail of lies, but an imperious attitude of brutality and contempt. In August of 1966, Sir Paul Gore-Booth wrote:

INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER SEMI-SUPERED INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER SEMI-SUPERED	26:26 26:28 26:34	VOICE OVER: We must surely be very tough about this. The object of the exercise was to get some rocks which will remain ours; there will be no indigenous population except seagulls...
MS OFFICIAL SMOKES CIGARETTE AT DESK	26:40
T/S MS MEMORANDUM BEING SIGNED	26:41	COMM: At the end of this is a note handwritten by Dennis Greenhill – later Baron Greenhill of Harrow.

INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER SEMI-SUPERED	26:50 26:52	VOICE OVER: Unfortunately, …along with the birds go some few Tarzans or Men Fridays... whose origins are obscure and who are being hopefully wished on to Mauritius et cetera.

END RECONSTRUCTION		JOHN PILGER V/O: When you look at the documents,
MCU STUART INTERVIEW SYNC CAPTION SUPERED: ’ANDREW STUART Foreign Office 1965-1983’	27:05	JOHN PILGER: - here you’ve got some of your former colleagues talking about, well, we just need some rocks because and all that’s on it are a bunch of Tarzans and a few Janes and all that.
	27:19	ANDREW STUART: Well yes, I mean I know the person that you’re referring to in the minute that you are referring to.
		JOHN PILGER: Yeah.
	27:26	ANDREW STUART: And I have the greatest respect for him. He’s dead now. And I’m sure that if he had any clue that his throwaway remarks would have become public, he would never have written that. Because I don’t believe he’s that sort of person, frankly. You know, people put things in minutes on official papers that they don’t really mean.
	27:51	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 1’00”)
RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE: VLS/2S OFFICIAL & SECRETARY AT DESK	27:52
T/S CU WHO’S WHO LEAFED THROUGH, TILT DOWN TO T/S CU LETTER BEING WRITTEN	27:56	COMM: The conspirators now began to get the wind up. A senior official wrote:

INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER SEMI-SUPERED BCU PEN IN HAND	28:03 28:10	VOICE OVER: This is really all fairly unsatisfactory. We propose to certify up to 240 islanders, …more or less fraudulently, as belonging somewhere else. This all seems difficult to reconcile with the sacred trust of the United Nations Charter.

VLS OFFICIAL SITS AT DESK MS OFFICIAL ANSWERS PHONE	28:23	COMM: The ‘sacred trust’ he refers to obliges Britain to safeguard the human rights of its citizens in a dependent territory. His warning counted for little. One official offered a way round the problem. He wrote:

		OFFICIAL: Yes, yes, I’ve got it right in front of me.
CU PAPERS ON DESK, PAN R TO BCU DOCUMENT INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER SEMI-SUPERED	28:40 28:46	VOICE OVER: We do not regard the United Kingdom as bound by such a rule. In this respect, we are able to make up the rules as we go along and treat the inhabitants of BIOT as not “belonging” to it in any sense.
BCU TYPEWRITER CARRIAGE	28:59
CU MEMO BEING TYPED INSET: TYPED TEXT OF ITALICISED VOICE OVER SEMI-SUPERED FADE TO	29:00 29:06	COMM: This same official summed up the whole charade in the subtitle of one of his reports ‘Maintaining the Fiction’.
WS PAINTING OF CHURCHILL ON WALL FADE OUT INSET TEXT, Z/O TO WS OFFICE DOORS AS THEY CLOSE	29:12
END RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE	29:14	JOHN PILGER V/O: Do you think they were aware of what they were doing to the people? That the trauma that was about to descend on the Chagossians?
EXT. DAY MCU MOULINIE INTERVIEW SYNC	29:23	MARCEL MOULINIE: These boys in the Colonial Office, did they really care very much about? Come on. No. You know. Yeah, your standard of living, you kept to it. Your pigeon at lunchtime.
		JOHN PILGER: They were just the natives.
		MARCEL MOULINIE: The natives, yes. Unfortunately.
B/W WS 10 DOWNING STREET, TILT DOWN TO WS DOORWAY	29:43	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 30”)
SLO-MO B/W ARCHIVE: WS STEWART WAVES OUTSIDE 10 DOWNING STREET, PAN L AS HE ENTERS (SOURCE: ITN, DUR: 14”) SLOW FADE TO ROSTRUM: BCU DOCUMENT HEADER, Z/I ON ‘DIEGO GARCIA’ TITLE INSET: ‘…second generation inhabitants’ TEXT SEMI-SUPERED INSET: TYPED TEXT OF ITALICISED COMM SEMI-SUPERED	29:47 29:52 30:10 30:16	COMM: The cover up went right to the top of government. It was drawn up by the Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, in the form of a secret minute sent to the Prime Minister on July 25^th 1968. In this document, Stewart reveals that he is fully aware that Diego Garcia has a population going back at least two generations. He proposes that the government lie to the world that there is ‘no indigenous population’.
B/W ARCHIVE: MS WILSON WAVES FROM DOORWAY OF 10 DOWNING	30:20
STREET (SOURCE: ITN, DUR: 7”) FADE TO ROSTRUM: CU PM’S LOGO ON LETTER, TILT DOWN & Z/O TO CU TEXT OF LETTER INSET: ‘…has indicated his agreement’ TEXT SEMI-SUPERED	30:23 30:31	COMM: On April 26^th 1969, Wilson’s Private Secretary wrote to Stewart, saying that the Prime Minister approved the plan.
B/W ARCHIVE: MS WILSON WAVES FROM DOORWAY OF 10 DOWNING STREET (SOURCE: ITN, DUR: 5”)	30:34 30:35	RICHARD GIFFORD V/O: The documents show that it was decided at the highest level, by the Prime Minister. Most particularly Harold Wilson.
CU GIFFORD INTERVIEW SYNC	30:40	RICHARD GIFFORD: He knew very well that there was a population and they were going to be removed. The problem is that this is policy made almost on the back of an envelope. There’s no democratic input. Nobody was asking questions, nobody was knocking on the door, nobody was there to represent the interest of the islanders. They just didn’t exist as a political factor to take into account.
SLO-MO B/W ARCHIVE: MS HEALY ENTERS 10 DOWNING STREET, PAN L	31:02	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 15”)
(SOURCE: ITN, DUR: 16”) FREEZE FRAME & INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED COMM SEMI-SUPERED	31:03 31:11	COMM: Denis Healy was Defence Secretary in the same government. When we asked Mr Healy for an interview he replied ‘I fear I have no memories of the Chagos archipelago. Sorry.’
		JOHN PILGER V/O: Lord Healy’s –
MS STODDARD INTERVIEW SYNC CAPTION SUPERED: ’PROFESSOR DAVID STODDARD Berkeley University, California’	31:18 31:22	JOHN PILGER: - letter about not remembering the Chagos archipelago. DAVID STODDARD: Bollocks. Absolutely. Mmm. He is an acute and intelligent man.
B/W ARCHIVE: SLO-MO WS HEALY GETS OUT OF LIMO IN DOWNING	31:32	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 18”)
STREET, Z/I TO CU & FREEZE FRAME (SOURCE: ITN, DUR: 6”) FADE TO ROSTRUM: CU RECEIVED STAMP, TILT DOWN TEXT OF LETTER FREEZE FRAME & INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED COMM SEMI-SUPERED	31:33 31:45	COMM: On May 6^th 1969, Healy’s Private Secretary wrote this letter to 10 Downing Street. It confirmed that the Defence Secretary had read Stewart’s plan and …agrees with its recommendations.
LS WHITE HOUSE SEEN THROUGH CAR WINDSCREEN	31:49
FADE TO SLO-MO EXT. DAY L/A WS STARS & STRIPES	31:51	COMM: In Washington, a parallel conspiracy was taking place, also in high secrecy. The object was to keep the expulsion of the islanders from Congress. So payment for the lease of the islands was disguised as a $14 million discount on a Polaris nuclear missile about to be supplied to the Royal Navy.
INT. DAY CU SCHLESINGER I/V SYNC	32:14
CAPTION SUPERED: ’JAMES SCHLESINGER US Secretary of Defence 1973-75’	32:15	JOHN PILGER V/O: Is there ever a time when people in power consider the consequences -
C/AWAY: CU PILGER	32:23	JOHN PILGER: - of the imposition of that power? Because the consequences for the population of Diego Garcia -
CU SCHLESINGER A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	32:29	JOHN PILGER V/O: - were disastrous.
		JAMES SCHLESINGER: The circumstances involved –
CU PILGER A/B	32:38	JAMES SCHLESINGER: - how many…
		JOHN PILGER: Two thousand people.
		JAMES SCHLESINGER: Two thousand people.
		JOHN PILGER: Who’d been living there –
CU SCHLESINGER A/B	32:43	JOHN PILGER V/O: - since the end of the 18^th Century.
		JAMES SCHLESINGER: Well, a fair number of them, if I remember, were external labourers.
		JOHN PILGER: Well that’s been shown to be untrue.
CU PILGER A/B	32:54	JOHN PILGER: The British government tried to represent them as that.
CU SCHLESINGER A/B	32:57	JOHN PILGER: They were an indigenous six - three, four generations.

	33:01	JAMES SCHLESINGER: As I said, I went through this record some years ago and, at that time, it was said that these were imported labourers to some degree.
ARCHIVE: LS PEOPLE ON DIEGO GARCIA STREET, Z/I (SOURCE: CHAGOS	33:14	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 19”)
REFUGEE GROUP, DUR: 5”) FADE TO ROSTRUM: CU EMBASSY LETTERHEAD, TILT DOWN TO NAME AT TOP OF LETTER & THEN OVER TEXT OF LETTER INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED COMM SEMI-SUPERED INSET: TEXT OF ITALICISED COMM SEMI-SUPERED	33:17 33:34 33:39	COMM: We found in the National Archives in Washington this letter from the American Ambassador in Mauritius. February 1^st 1972, Ambassador Brewer to Washington: ‘It is, of course, absurd to imply that Diego Garcia had no fixed population. There is no question that the island has been …inhabited since the 18^th century.’

CU GIFFORD INTERVIEW SYNC	33:43	RICHARD GIFFORD: I don’t think there’s any doubt at all that the Americans who visited the islands -
ARCHIVE: AMERICANS CROSS DIEGO GARCIA STREET & WALK AWAY FROM CAMERA(SOURCE: ALAIN TALBOT, DUR: 12”)	33:47	RICHARD GIFFORD V/O: - to reconnoitre as to whether this was a suitable base area, they saw that there was a functioning civilisation on the island.
		DAVID STODDARD V/O: They could not have been unaware -
MCU STODDARD INTERVIEW SYNC	33:59	DAVID STODDARD: - of the settled human communities that they found.
		JOHN PILGER: So when Schlesinger said they didn’t know, they’d looked into it. That just…
		DAVID STODDARD: No. Amnesia at best. That’s all you can say to that, it was not true. They knew.
		JOHN PILGER: There’s another…
	34:19	DAVID STODDARD: And they collaborated together on how do we get rid of these people? How do we lie that they’re simply contract labourers? When many of them, their fathers, their grandfathers, perhaps even father back, were in the cemetery.
CU SCHLESINGER	34:33	JOHN PILGER V/O: If you take a decision in Washington and London -
CU PILGER	34:36 34:37	JOHN PILGER: - and it devastates the lives of several thousand people on the other side of the world, isn’t that something that should be called to account?
CU SCHLESINGER A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	34:46	JOHN PILGER: No matter how long?
	34:51	JAMES SCHLESINGER: Amongst the various activities of the British and the American government in the 20^th Century, not to mention the 19^th Century, this was a relatively small matter. If one goes back to British behaviour, for example, in World War Two. The attack on Dresden, the attack on the French fleet, all under Winston Churchill whom we so much admire – and rightly so – this is a very small matter. It is being pinpointed now for reasons that I cannot ascribe to anything other than the quest for a certain publicity.
CU PILGER	35:40	JOHN PILGER: Well I think it’s from their point of view. For one thing, the Chagossian islanders are not the Nazis and, from their point of view, it’s a quest for justice.
CU SCHLESINGER INTERVIEW SYNC	35:52
	35:53	JAMES SCHLESINGER: And what is your motivation if I may inquire?
CU PILGER	35:58	JAMES SCHLESINGER: Purely the quest for justice, I’m sure.
		JOHN PILGER: Yes.
		JAMES SCHLESINGER: Yes, of course.
		JOHN PILGER: Yes it is, yes.
CU SCHLESGINGER	36:04	JOHN PILGER V/O: Do you not –
CU PILGER A/B	36:05	JOHN PILGER: - think these questions are valid in asking you about consequences of –
CU SCHLESINGER A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	36:14	JOHN PILGER: - the imposition of great power on people?
	36:16	JAMES SCHLESINGER: I think that the questions are based upon a refusal to acknowledge the context of the times and the attitude of the times and that it’s based upon a willingness, thirty five or forty years after a set of events, to go back and critique them when they had become what, shall I say, far less relevant.
EXT. DAY L/A CU HIGH COURT BUILDING, PAN R TO L/A WS ROYAL	36:48
COURT OF JUSTICE SIGN ARCHIVE: O. BANCOURT, CHAGOSSIANS & LAWYERS EMERGE FROM HIGH COURT WITH HANDS RAISED IN VICTORY (SOURCE: ITN, DUR: 23”)	36:50 36:57	COMM: Far less relevant? The High Court in London found it extremely relevant. In November 2000, it agreed with the people of the Chagos and handed down a shaming rebuke to the British government. The court ruled that the expulsion of the islanders was illegal. After more than thirty years, they had won and were finally going home.
BCU PHOTO OF O. BANCOULT WITH HANDS RAISED ON WALL	37:16
Z/O TO MS FRAMED NEWSPAPER
ARTICLE WS FRAMED ARTICLE ON WALL, PAN R TO MCU O. BANCOULT	37:18	COMM: Victory in the High Court gave Olivier Bancoult and his people the right to start their lives again.
CU O. BANCOULT INTERVIEW SYNC CAPTION SUPERED: ’OLIVIER BANCOULT Leader, Chagos Refugees Group’	37:26	OLIVIER BANCOULT: It’s something which I will never forget. When just coming out of the court with this to ask that it is a victory for the Chagossian people. A small people upon a big power.

EXT. DAY MCU ALEXIS INTERVIEW SYNC	37:41	ALEXIS SUBTITLES: ’After the first judgement in court, we were very ecstatic,’
CAPTION SUPERED: ’CHARLESIA ALEXIS’	37:42
	37:45	‘we thought that the British had some feelings after all.’
INT. DAY MC TALATE INTERVIEW SYNC	37:50	TALATE SUBTITLES: ’When I won the victory I felt at ease’
CAPTION SUPERED: ’MARIE LISETTE TALATE’	37:51
	37:54	‘because I thought I would return to my motherland’
	37:57	‘and I would return to the cemetery where my ancestors are.’
	38:01	‘I thought I would see my lovely beaches again’
	38:04	‘and the beautiful sea where we were born.’
EXT. DAY WS FOREIGN & COMMONWEALTH OFFICE SIGN, Z/I	38:07
TO CU MAP: CHAGOS ISLANDS & DIEGO GARCIA	38:10	COMM: However, the Foreign Office had other ideas. Within hours of the High Court judgement, it announced that the government would not allow the islanders back to Diego Garcia – the main island where most of them came from.

INT. DAY MCU GIFFORD I/V SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ‘RICHARD GIFFORD Lawyer for Chagos Islanders’	38:26	JOHN PILGER: Robin Cook told me that he said it would have been politically impossible to allow the Chagossians to go back to Diego Garcia because they had a treaty with the United States.
Z/I TO CU		RICHARD GIFFORD: Well the first thing to point out there is that this is British sovereign territory.
STILL: AERIAL WS DIEGO GARCIA, TRACK R & TILT DOWN OVER ISLAND (SOURCE: CHAGOS CONVERSATION TRUST)	38:43	RICHARD GIFFORD V/O: The British have a duty to their own citizens, they have the legal power to tell the Americans what policy and what immigration law they’re putting in place on the islands. But, in the meantime,
CU GIFFORD INTERVIEW SYNC	38:56	RICHARD GIFFORD: - we’ve signed a couple of pieces of paper with the Americans and we now regard our obligations to them as paramount. I just don’t see the logic of that.
STILL: WS WATER SEEN OVER BEACH (SOURCE: CHAGOS CONVERSATION TRUST)	39:06
FADE TO STILL: WS BEACH (SOURCE: CHAGOS CONVERSATION TRUST) FADE TO STILL: WS WAVE BREAKS ON BEACH (SOURCE: CHAGOS CONVERSATION TRUST) FADE TO STILL: LS PALM TREE (SOURCE: CHAGOS CONVERSATION TRUST)	39:07 39:12 39:18 39:24	COMM: And to keep the people from the rest of the Chagos Islands, the Foreign Office invoked something called a feasibility study which would question if people could survive in this idyllic place where they had lived for six generations. This study consulted not a single inhabitant of the Chagos Islands.
EXT. EVE WS PORT LOUIS, PAN R & Z/O TO INCLUDE DOCKS IN B/G	39:28
H/A VLS BOAT IN HARBOUR LS CONTAINER SHIP IN HARBOUR VLS SHIPS AT SEA	39:32	COMM: After the High Court victory, the government promised the islanders that at least they could visit the graves of their families. Boats were chartered here in Port Louis, Mauritius. But they never set sail.
ARCHIVE: BARONESS AMOS MAKES SPEECH IN HOUSE OF LORDS (SOURCE:	39:46
PARLIAMENTARY RECORDING UNIT, DUR: 30”)	39:49	COMM: Baroness Amos, Tony Blair’s Leader of the House of Lords, explains why they never went back.
SYNC	39:56	ARCHIVE BARONESS AMOS: …we chartered a vessel. Unfortunately the vessel was not made available. We are happy to reinstate any such visit, but it would not include Diego Garcia because of the reluctance of the US government.
	40:11	COMM: The President of Mauritius, Cassam Uteen, took her up on this.
MCU UTEEM INTERVIEW SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ’CASSAM UTEEM former President of Mauritius’	40:16	CASSAM UTEEM: So I said to the Baroness, I said Britain has no objection? She said no, Britain has no. Said you allow me to take the matter up with President Bush? She said by all means. And this is what I did. I wrote to President Bush.
ROSTRUM: US DEPT OF STATE HEADER ON LETTER FADE TO ROSTRUM: MS TEXT OF LETTER	40:30	CASSAM UTEEM V/O: The reply came, I’m sorry to say, we don’t deal with the Mauritian government, we deal only with the British government -
MCU UTEEM INTERVIEW SYNC	40:37	CASSAM UTEEM: - and the British are not agreeable. It’s black and white. The British are not agreeable to this visit and we agree with the British. So they’ve been playing table tennis, ping pong with the Chagossians.

MS MARDEMOOTOO INTERVIEW SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ’ROBIN MARDEMOOTOO Lawyer for Chagos Islanders’	40:53	ROBIN MARDEMOOTOO: When we go to London we are told it’s an American problem. When we go to Washington, we are told it’s a London problem. It is an arrangement between them to, you know, treat this problem as a ping pong ball and it’s terrible because by the time the ping pong game is over, well there will be no Chagossians left.
EXT. DAY L/A WS FOREIGN OFFICE BUILDING	41:16	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 10”)
	41:18	COMM: By June this year, the Blair government had run out of excuses, but there was still one more trick to play.
INT. DAY MS PILGER TO CAMERA, PAINTING OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II IN B/G Z/I TO MCU	41:27	JOHN PILGER: Have you ever heard of something called an Order in Counsel? It’s a royal decree using archaic powers which, unknown to most of us, are still invested in the Queen. It’s a cosy arrangement. The Queen rubber stamps what, in many cases, politicians know they can’t get away with democratically. On November 5^th 1965, an Order in Counsel was issued by the government of Harold Wilson. The aim was to secretly expel the population of the Chagos Islands, all of them loyal subjects of the Queen. In June this year the Blair government used the same powers to bypass parliament and the High Court in order to ban the Chagos islanders from ever returning home. Dictators do this, but without the quaint ritual.
EXT. DAY WS BUCKINGHAM PALACE	42:19
RECONSTRUCTION SEQUENCE: INT. DAY BCU/3S LINE OF AIDES BOW CAPTION SUPERED: ’Reconstruction’	42:21 42:26	COMM: The quaint ritual takes place here, at Buckingham Palace. The public never sees it, parliament is merely told about it.
H/A WS QUEEN’S FEET	42:30
O/S MS ORDERS IN HAND	42:31
END RECONSTRUCTION	42:32	DAVID STODDART V/O: Orders in Counsel, they go through without discussion. They’re read in title only.
INT. DAY MCU STODDART INTERVIEW SYNC, CAPTION SUPERED: ’PROFESSOR DAVID STODDART Berkeley University, California’	42:37	DAVID STODDART: No reason is given for them, no contents are spoken. The Privy Counsel never even sits down. They all stand around, they go up to the Counsel, reads the thing in title. There are two orders, and the Queen says agreed. And that’s it. That is it.
		JOHN PILGER: It’s a decree.
		DAVID STODDART: It’s a decree.
WS P.O.V BACK TRACK FROM BUCKINGHAM PALACE ALONG MALL	42:54	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 22”)
	42:57	COMM: And with that royal decree, the people were banned forever from going home. It was June 10^th 2004, election day in Britain. When they thought no-one would notice.
EXT. DAY WS FOREIGN OFFICE FRONTAGE, TILT UP	43:12
INT. DAY MS RAMMELL	43:16	JOHN PILGER: The High Court has ruled that the expulsion of the Chagossians was illegal.
MS PILGER	43:23	JOHN PILGER: The Commission on Human Rights at the United Nations has called on your government to return them -
MS RAMMELL A/B	43:29	JOHN PILGER V/O: - to their homeland.
MS PILGER A/B	43:33	JOHN PILGER: Why has this government denied this basic human right of return?
MS RAMMELL A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC CAPTION SUPERED: ’BILL RAMMELL MP Foreign Officer minister’	43:38	BILL RAMMELL: Firstly, the feasibility study, which was drawn up by independent experts which told us that the only population of the islands that would be possible is short term on a subsistence basis. Longer term would be precarious, given the climactic conditions, given that in some cases some of the islands are barely two foot above sea level and would be very costly.
CU STODDART INTERVIEW SYNC	44:01	DAVID STODDART: It is true that the Foreign Office has conducted I think now three –
ROSTRUM: BCU PAN R OVER FEASIBILITY STUDIES FOLDERS TO MAP OF CHAGOS ISLANDS	44:06	DAVID STODDARD V/O: - feasibility studies, as they call them, about resettlement. Their contents have nothing whatever to do with the resettlement of the islanders who had lived there for 200 years.
CU STODDARD A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	44:17	DAVID STODDARD: Page after page after page is devoted to establishing that the beaches are made of sand.
STILL: MS SANDY BEACH (CHAGOS CONVERSATION TRUST)	44:23
Z/I ON SAND	44:24	DAVID STODDARD V/O: Take your shoes and socks off and walk across them. You know what sand it, I know what sand is

		RICHARD GIFFORD V/O: They then go on to say –
CU GIFFORD INTERVIEW SYNC	44:33	RICHARD GIFFORD: - human interaction on global warming will make occupation of the islands precarious for a resettled population. But that’s a very strange statement because –
ARCHIVE: US MILITARY & CIVILIAN WORKERS ON DIEGO GARCIA, AMERICANS SAILING, ON BEACH, SNORKELLING, PLAYING VOLLEYBALL, HAVING A BARBECUE, SUNBATHING, PLAYING BASKETBALL	44:46	RICHARD GIFFORD V/O: - there is a settled population. There is hundreds of American military and thousands of civilian workers. They’re all on Diego Garcia. They’re not going to sink under the waves.
& WOMAN IN FANTASY ISLAND	44:57	(SOAK IT UP, NEILL POLLARD DUR: 20”)
SHIRT (SOURCE: US DEPT OF DEFENCE, DUR: 37”)	45:00	COMM: Far from sinking, they’re sailing on it. Swimming in it. Playing in it. And having a barbie next to it.

	45:15	COMM: And what do they call this unliveable place? Fantasy Island.

		RICHARD GIFFORD V/O: Nobody takes those conclusions seriously –
CU GIFFORD INTERVIEW SYNC	45:23	RICHARD GIFFORD: - and insofar as the government repeats them, I’m afraid they’re just opening themselves up to ridicule.
MS RAMMELL	45:30
		JOHN PILGER V/O: At the moment, on Diego Garcia,
MS PILGER	45:33	JOHN PILGER: - there are 4,000 US servicemen and contractors, there are 2 bomber runways, each two and a half miles long. There are anchorages for thirty ships and two nuclear cleared berths.
MS RAMMELL	45:44	JOHN PILGER: There are space tracking domes and weapon ranges. It’s the biggest American base outside the United States which the US Navy describes as ‘indispensable’. The living conditions as ‘outstanding’, the recreational facilities as ‘unbelievable’ and the US wants to extend the least past 2016.
MS PILGER	46:04	JOHN PILGER: And you’re asking us to believe these islands are uninhabited or they’re sinking?
MS RAMMELL INTERVIEW SYNC	46:07	BILL RAMMELL: No, no, no. Of course they’re inhabitable. But at a cost. The United States does have concerns about the climactic conditions longer term in respect of Diego Garcia…
		JOHN PILGER: What about them?
	46:16	BILL RAMMELL: …and has exactly the same concerns that were formulated in our independent study. But what the independent study told me, there was no fresh drinking water. There was, you know, real concerns in the outer islands about the sea levels and the danger of flooding and there would be a need for substantial expenditure on actually building a liveable infrastructure.
CU STODDART INTERVIEW SYNC	46:38 46:39	DAVID STODDART: One of the chief things was what is the water supply going to be like? Oh my god, we can’t guarantee it. These islands - and I’ve published this in 1971 - are respectively the third Peris Banos(sp) and the fifth, Salomon, wettest islands in the world. Peris with four metres of rain a year and the other with 3.5. When it rains, the water tables are so high the rain remains on the surface for days.
		JOHN PILGER: So what does that make these feasibility studies?
		DAVID STODDART: Worthless. Waste of time. Waste of time.
CU RAMMELL	47:15	JOHN PILGER: Let me ask you. Does this government,
CU PILGER	47:19	JOHN PILGER: - do politicians in this government – because this story has shocked most people -
CU RAMMELL INTERVIEW SYNC	47:23	JOHN PILGER: - do you not feel any shame for these actions?
	47:25	BILL RAMMELL: I’ve said to you at the beginning I am not seeking to justify the decisions that were taken in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
CU PILGER	47:28	JOHN PILGER: No, now. I mean shame now because you have used the same…
		BILL RAMMELL: No, no, no, no.
		JOHN PILGER: …the same powers to ban them.
CU RAMMELL INTERVIEW SYNC	47:34	BILL RAMMELL: No I don’t feel ashamed because I took what I believe – and the government took – a responsible decision in the circumstances almost 40 years after the last Chargossian lived within these islands and I was being asked, and the government and the British taxpayer was being asked, to pick up the financial tab to allow, almost on an exploratory basis,
C/AWAY: CU PILGER LOOKS ON	47:52	BILL RAMMELL V/O: - for people to go back to the islands.
CU RAMMELL A/B, INTERVIEW SYNC	47:55	BILL RAMMELL: You can’t manufacture money, you actually have to make choices about how you spend your money.
CU GIFFORD INTERVIEW SYNC	47:59	RICHARD GIFFORD: Only the other day the minister was asked by a Member of Parliament, what is the anticipated cost? And the answer was £5 million to set up and £5 million a year to run. Well that’s peanuts. £5 million is the cost of an embassy building in London.
EXT. DAY WS TILT DOWN TO EMBASSY GATE	48:17 48:19	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 53”)
MCU WESTMINSTER HOUSE SIGN MS TENNIS COURT, PAN R WS BUILDING, PULL FOCUS TO BARBED WIRE IN F/G WS COMMISSION BUILDING FADE TO	48:20	COMM: This is an embassy building in Mauritius, home to Mr David Snoxhall, the British High Commissioner. It has tennis courts, lavish gardens, security fences, a swimming pool and a Jaguar car. All paid for by the British tax payer.
WS SLUM BUILDING	48:40
MCU GIRL LOOKS TO CAMERA	48:41
WS GIRL SITS IN MUD BCU WOMAN HOLDS DAUGHTER MS 2^ND WOMAN SEEN THROUGH SLUM WINDOW, Z/O TO WS	48:43	COMM: Minutes away, these are the British citizens who are less worthy of tax payers’ money.
STILL: AERIAL LS DIEGO GARCIA, Z/I ON LAND MASS (SOURCE: US DEPT OF	48:55
DEFENSE) STILL: MS AIRCRAFT CARRIER (SOURCE: US DEPT OF DEFENSE) STILL: MS B52 ON RUNWAY (SOURCE: US DEPT OF DEFENSE) STILL: WS LINE OF BOMBERS ON APRON DEFENSE)	48:57 49:03 49:06 49:08	COMM: The reason the government won’t allow the islanders to go home is not money. It’s power. American power and its self-given role to dominate.
INT. DAY MS UTEEM INTERVIEW SYNC	49:11	CASSAM UTEEM: Might is right. And the great powers have the might and, therefore, the right to do anything they want. Wherever and whenever they want. They wanted the Chagossian islands, in particular Diego Garcia, for a base. They take it, they grab it, it’s their right.
EXT. DAY MS CHAGOS REFUGEES GROUP SIGN ABOVE LOCK UP	49:33
INT. DAY WS/2S O. BANCOULT & PILGER BCU PLACARD, TRACK L TO CU CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY PLACARD	49:34	COMM: However, the islanders are not giving up their right of return. Today they’re getting ready to demonstrate outside the British High Commission in Port Louis.
	49:46	JOHN PILGER: So these are all going on the demonstration to the High Commission?
		OLIVIER BANCOULT: Yeah, of course.
WS PLACARD ON TABLE, TILT UP & Z/O TO WS/2S O. BANCOULT & PILGER HOLD UP PLACARD	49:49	JOHN PILGER: This is a particularly relevant one, isn’t it?
		OLIVIER BANCOULT: Yeah, yeah.
		JOHN PILGER: When you – I mean that’s quite a serious -
R/A O/S CU PLACARD	49:57	JOHN PILGER V/O: - indictment.
WS/2S O. BANCOULT & PILGER HOLD UP PLACARD	49:59	OLIVIER BANCOULT: Yeah, of course. We should…
	50:01	JOHN PILGER: But you’re referring to the High Court found in your favour that you could all go home and the British government’s prevented you from going home.
	50:07	OLIVIER BANCOULT: Yeah, yeah. It’s why – it’s true. It’s something that everyone must know about it. What had been…
		MARK CURTIS V/O: The British government seems to be using all of its powers –
MCU CURTIS INTERVIEW SYNC CAPTION SUPERED: ’MARK CURTIS Author, ‘Web of Deceit’	50:18	MARK CURTIS: - to even capture the law and using it for its own political ends. You know, by overturning the High Court ruling and saying that, you know, this is no longer on. That our – by referring to the Crown prerogative and going back to these Mediaeval laws and overturning, you know, the legal decision to allow these people back to the outlying islands, that, to me, is a capture of the legal powers of the state that really only happens in totalitarian regimes.
EXT. DAY WS DEMONSTRATORS ON STREET, PAN R	50:45
BCU TALATE WITH MICROPHONE BCU POLICE BADGE ON SLEEVE	50:48	COMM: The struggle and the dignity of the Chagos islanders were displayed here. By elderly ladies having to stand on the street and shout for their basic human rights.
CU ALEXIS HOLDS PLACARD, PAN L TO BCU TALATE	51:01
	51:03	CHANT SUBTITLES: ‘‘Respect our rights!’’
BCU WOMAN HOLDS PLACARD	51:06
	51:07	‘‘English – thieves!’’
WS MAN LEADS CHANT AMONGST PROTESTORS, PAN L OVER PROTESTORS	51:11	‘‘Give us back Diego!’’
INT. DAY MCU RAMMELL	51:21	JOHN PILGER: You know, these are a lot of very spirited old ladies who you won’t allow to go home –
CU PILGER	51:30	JOHN PILGER: - where they want to go home and die. That’s basically these are the people who are leading the charge among the Chagossians. Isn’t that shameful?
MCU RAMMELL INTERVIEW SYNC	51:39	BILL RAMMELL: Of course I’ve got sympathy for people based upon what happened to them and their families in the past. But this is today, almost forty years after that event. And for us and the British government and the British tax payer to be asked to finance that, when that money could actually alternatively go on leaving aid and poor people throughout the world. But that is the choice that you ask me whether I’m ashamed of the decision that I’ve taken, no I’m not. I believe, in the circumstances, and it was a difficult decision, I believe we took the right decision.
MCU UTEEM INTERVIEW SYNC	52:12	CASSAM UTEEM: No human being would treat another human being the way the British administration treated the Chagossian people. In this part of the world, except if we go back to the days of slavery and to the days of indentured labour. I can’t remember anything of the sort happening.
MCU STODDART INTERVIEW SYNC	52:38 52:39	DAVID STODDART: Jesus Christ. How low can you get? How intellectually dishonest, how morally duplicitous can you get? I’ve spent my life, forty years now, with this and every single thing sickens me. Sickens me. And it goes on, it goes on, it goes on. Conservative, Labour.
EXT. DAY MS NORDVAER PAINTING ON WALL, Z/O TO LS/4S TALATE,	53:06	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 21”)
ALEXIS, BOY & O. BANCOULT WALK UP TO MONUMENT CU MONUMENT, TILT DOWN AS FLOWERS ARE LAID AT BASE. TILT TO FOLLOW ALEXIS LAY FLOWERS	53:08	COMM: Year after year, Olivier and Rita, Lisette and Charlesia Alexis come to this monument in Port Louis harbour. It commemorates those Chagos islanders who died in exile. From sadness.
INT. DAY MS R. BANCOULT INTERVIEW SYNC	53:27
	53:28	R. BANCOULT SUBTITLES: ’It is very heartbreaking, but God will punish them for this injustice,’
	53:37	‘for all this hurt caused, all this suffering.’
	53:40	‘We have sustained so much’
	53:46	‘look at my age, seventy nine’
EXT. DAY MS/2S TALATE & R. BANCOULT, Z/O TO INCLUDE O. BANCOULT & ALEXIS IN LINE	53:50	R. BANCOULT V/O SUBTITLES: ‘but all the time I am here, until I walk on my knees’
	53:53	(STEALING A NATION THEME NICK RUSSELL-PAVIER, DUR: 13”)
	53:54	‘I will keep fighting, until the day God takes me away from this earth.’
MS INSCRIPTION ON MONUMENT	53:58
LS/5S R. BANCOULT, TALATE, ALEXIS, BOY & O. BANCOULT STAND IN FRONT OF MONUMENT, BACKS TO CAMERA	54:02
INT. DAY MS PILGER TO CAMERA Z/I TO MCU	54:05	JOHN PILGER: The film you’ve just seen is not only the story of a single injustice, it’s a rare glimpse of great power at its most ruthless. What was done to the people of the Chagos raises wider questions for those of us who live in powerful states like Britain and America. Why do we continue to allow our governments to treat people in small countries as either useful or expendable? Why do we accept specious reasons for the unacceptable. Four years ago, the High Court delivered one of the most damning indictments of a British government. It said the secret expulsion of the Chagos islanders was wrong. That judgement must be upheld and the people of a group of beautiful, once peaceful islands must be helped to go home and compensated fully and without delay for their suffering. Anything less diminishes the rest of us.
END CREDITS	55:08	(TRAD SONG, DUR:26”)

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