英语外报阅读18课 stealing a nation.pptVIP

Lesson Eighteen Stealing A Nation U.S Military Base (1) U.S Military Base (2) In the 1960s and 70s, British governments, conspiring(协谋) 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(英国直辖殖民地), Diego Garcia（迪戈加西亚岛（印度洋））, 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( 毛里求斯) and in the words of the British officials who left a ‘paper trail’ （书面记录）of what the International Criminal Court（国际刑事法庭） now describes as a crime against humanity. ‘Stealing A Nation’ (2004) is an extraordinary film about the plight of the Chagos Islands, whose indigenous population was secretly and brutally expelled by British Governments in the late 1960s and early 1970s to make way for an American military base. The tragedy, which falls within the remit（免除） of the International Criminal Court as a crime against humanity, is told by Islanders who were dumped in the slums of Mauritius and by British officials who left behind a damning trail of Foreign Office documents. Before the Americans came, more than 2,000 people lived on the islands in the Indian Ocean, 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 the main island of Diego Garcia. The Americans demanded that the surrounding islands be “swept” and “sanitized”（消毒）. Unknown to Parliament and to the US Congress and in breach of the United Nations Charter（联合国宪章）, the British Government plotted（密谋） with Washington to expel the entire population.  After demonstrating on th