Review of Stealing a Nation (2004) by Stephen P — 10 Jun 2010

An emotive expose of the continuation of empire and ethnic cleansing by royal decree...

Award-winning Australian journalist John Pilger and documentary filmmaker Christopher Martin (â??Breaking the Silenceâ?? & â??Palestine is Still the Issueâ??) reteam for this shocking expose of the British Governments expulsion of the people of the Chagos Islands and the undemocratic means used to do it, which won an RTS Television Award.

Between 1967 and 1973 some 2,000 British subjects native to the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean were forcibly expelled bythe British government from their idyllic island home, which was subsequently leased to the US as a military base, and resettled in appalling conditions some 1,000 miles away in Mauritius where they continue to live in poverty to this day.

John Pilger frames the film in suitably dour form and truly shines when going head-to-head with seemingly deranged former US Defence Secretary James Schlesinger, who comes of particularly badly, while kudos goes to former President of Mauritius Cassam Uteem who leads the rally for the Chagossians at the head of a bevy of lawyers and academics who shed light on the betrayal.

Leader of the Chagos Refugees Group Olivier Bancoult comes out fighting and heâ??s brought his mother with him as the Chagossians eloquently and emotively put the case in a series of reminiscences from the elderly exiles who are leading the fight for their return and some beautiful folk songs which speak to the sadness of their current exile.

British television director Sean Crotty (â??Tonight with Trevor McDonaldâ??) also joins the team to produce some nicely done reconstructions which coupled with interviews, archive footage and documents open up a whole new side to the story and reveal a sinister and disturbing relic of feudalism at the heart of the Mother of Parliaments.

The filmmakers have put together a fairly simplistic package which for the most part cleverly leaves it to the talking heads of the exiled Chagossians themselves to relate the whole sorry history of the squalid story of their forcible expulsion and the appalling after effects of poverty, sadness and death which it has left them with in this compelling little film.

â??Help me my friend, help me to sing. To send our message to the world.â??