Bullfrog Films
56 minutes
Study Guide
Grades Grades 10 - 12, College, Adult

Directed by John Pilger and Christopher Martin
Produced by Granada Television

DVD Purchase $79, Rent $45

US Release Date: 2005
Copyright Date: 2004
DVD ISBN: 1-59458-239-4
VHS ISBN: 1-59458-238-6

Subjects
Afghanistan
Anthropology
Asian Studies
Ethics
Foreign Policy
US
Geography
Globalization
Government
History
Human Rights
Humanities
International Studies
Law
Migration and Refugees
Military
Political Science
Social Justice
Sociology
War and Peace

Awards and Festivals
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
Stealing a Nation
A Special Report by John Pilger

Award-winning reporter John Pilger exposes how the British Government expelled the population of a group of islands, including Diego Garcia, so the US could build a military base.

"Watch and be angry." Daily Mirror

NOTE TO ACTIVIST GROUPS: We are making this video available at a special price of $59 to activist groups. Please order under our Activists' Page. This gives you the right to show the film in public as long as no admission fee is charged. TV rights are NOT available.

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.

Web Page: http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/steal.html

Reviews
"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 exposé 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