Pilger needs to provide more Background amid his heavy prose. As one of my Internationalist Duties here is some background from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagos_islands#History:

"The archipelago's first inhabitants arrived in the 18th century. These were the lepers of Ile de France (Mauritius) who were brought there in the second half of the 1700s. Soon after, a plan was drawn up by the French to settle the Chagos and make them profitable.

Workers for a massive French project to establish coconut plantations and produce oil were sent from Ile de France (Mauritius) and settled in some of the largest islands....The supervisors of the plantations were probably Frenchmen and the workers were probably little more than slaves, but very little has been recorded about conditions on the islands during that time.

By the mid-20th century the oil plantations had largely failed, but the original workers and their families had settled some of the largest islands and survived there. The islanders were known as the Ilois (one French Creole word for "islanders") and they numbered almost 2,000. They were of mixed African and South Asian descent and lived very simple, spartan lives in their isolated archipelago. Few remains of their culture have been left, except for the ruins of a few dwellings and a stone church that can still be seen in Diego Garcia.

Suddenly, between 1967 and 1971, the entire population was forcibly removed from the islands and relocated to Mauritius to make way for a joint United States-United Kingdom military base on Diego Garcia. Apparently, the displaced people received an initial funding of some £650,000 for their rehousing from the British Government, but individual islanders saw little of those funds and ended up living in a slum in Mauritius.

After negotiations in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Government agreed to pay a further £4 million to the Chagossians. The Government says the total sums paid to the Chagossians amounts to £14.5 million in today's prices. Attempts by the Chagossians to secure additional compensation to this were dismissed by the High Court and Court of Appeal in 2003 and 2004."

Pete

This is one of the biggest stains on the British Government, and the country in general. It is one of the few things that makes me ashamed to have a British Passport. These people were treated appallingly, and their removal was unecessary - merely part of a paranoia. The thought that they would be a threat to the US base is laughable. The fact that the Law Lords (well three of them) have upheld this, what I consider to be, international crime, is even more appalling, showing no humanity or compassion. The islands remain empty, other than that one where the US Base is, and a haven for round the world yachtesmen and women.

Sure, this is not the only case of forcible removal, but as a Brit, it appalls me, makes me angry and ashamed.

Thank goodness that we still have people like John Pilger around with intestinal fortitude enough to bring these sort of heinous crimes out into the light of day.

Britain and the United States (and any nation who supports them) should hang their heads in shame over this outrageous exercise in political thuggery!

This is a classic example of the "holier than thou" nations who have dominated the globe by the use of military might and an overwhelming attitude of world superiority.

They never cared whom they hurt in their war-monging excursions across the globe, smashing into submission all who objected or stood in their way!

This is just one of many crimes committed against various peoples of the world that have been hidden from public view by more "important" issues, but it certainly appears that the British Empire is finally getting it`s come-uppance as the British Empire gradually crumbles into history,....regardless, the damage that has been done to these poor people can never be compensated and it will remain another stain on Britain`s and the US` character forever.

Shame Britain! Shame America!.....and their supporters!

" 'To get us out of our homes,' Lizette told me, 'they spread rumours we would be bombed, then they turned on our dogs. The American soldiers who had arrived to build the base backed several of their big vehicles against a brick shed, and hundreds of dogs were rounded up and imprisoned there, and they gassed them through a tube from the trucks’ exhaust. You could hear them crying. Then they burned them on a pyre, many still alive.'

Lizette and her family were finally forced on to a rusting freighter and made to lie on a cargo of bird fertiliser during a voyage, through stormy seas, to the slums of Port Louis, Mauritius. Within months, she had lost Jollice, aged eight, and Regis, aged ten months. 'They died of sadness,' she said. 'The eight-year-old had seen the horror of what had happened to the dogs. The doctor said he could not treat sadness.' "

On the one hand I can't believe it and on the other I don't doubt it for a second. Thanks, John, for telling Lizette's story, and for reminding the world the depths that even 'civilized' nations can plumb.