Stealing a Nation is a 2004 Granada Television

Granada Television

Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....

 documentary written and directed by John Pilger

John Pilger

John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist and documentary maker, based in London. He has twice won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US....

, produced and directed by Christopher Martin and with reconstruction footage directed by Sean Crotty. The documentary is about the expulsion

Depopulation of Diego Garcia

The Diego Garcia depopulation controversy pertains to the expulsion of the indigenous inhabitants of the island of Diego Garcia and the other islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory by the United Kingdom, beginning in 1968 and concluding on 27 April 1973 with the evacuation of Peros Banhos...

 of Chagos Islanders, who were forcibly removed by the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 government between 1967 and 1973 to Mauritius

Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...

, 1,000 miles away, so that the island could be used as an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and British airbase.

Synopsis

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. 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'.

Interviewees

• James Schlesinger
  James R. Schlesinger
  Dr. James Rodney Schlesinger is an American politician. He is best known for serving as Secretary of Defense from 1973 to 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...
  
   – US Secretary of Defence
  United States Secretary of Defense
  The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
  
   1973-1975
• Cassam Uteem
  Cassam Uteem
  Cassam Uteem is a Mauritian political figure who served as President of Mauritius from 30 June 1992 to 15 February 2002 and is the longest serving President of Mauritius, having served for nine years....
  
   – former President of Mauritius
• Bill Rammell
  Bill Rammell
  William Ernest Rammell is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Harlow from 1997 to 2010, and has served as the Minister of State for the Armed Forces at the Ministry of Defence...
  
   MP – Foreign Office Minister
• Professor David Stoddart – Berkley University, California
• Robin Mardemootoo – Lawyer for Chagos Islanders
• Richard Gifford – Lawyer for Chagos Islanders
• Marcel Mouline – Chagos Islands plantation manager
• Andrew Stuart – Foreign Office 1965-1983
• Mark Curtis
  Mark Curtis (British author)
  Mark Curtis is a British journalist, writer, and historian specialising in investigative journalism. He has written numerous books on the foreign policy of the United Kingdom and the United States during the twentieth century.-Biography:...
  
   – Author, Web of Deceit
• Olivier Bancoult – Leader, Chagos Refugees Group
• Marie Lisette Talate
• Charlesia Alexis
• Rita Bancoult
• Louis Onezine

Awards and festival screenings

• The Chris Award, Columbus International Film and Video Festival
• Best Single Documentary, The Royal Television Society Programme Awards
• United Nations Association Film Festival, Stanford
• Silver Lake Film Festival