Freedom Next Time
Book Review - Part One

‘This book is about empire, its facades, and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom. It should be read by anyone who, against all the odds, still believes that ‘We The People' can make a better world. We study history to discover how history is made so that we can make it consciously. John Pilger is heir to this rich tradition of history writing. His work offers an antidote to the authorised versions of contemporary history that ‘censor by omission and impose double standards'.

It is an irony of history to recall that following its Declaration of Independence on July 4 1776, the fledgling US was forced to fight a revolutionary war with Great Britain that lasted until 1783. Since that time the US has militarily intervened more than 200 times against national liberation movements and governments that threaten its great-power interests. Sixty years on from the victory over fascism and eighty-four years since the end of ‘the war to end all wars' the colonial assumptions of Great Power remain.

Whole societies are discussed and measured by their usefulness and their degree of compliance with (or hostility to) US authority. The triumphs and tragedies of millions of people in faraway places are rarely acknowledged. For example, in the early 1980s the democratically elected Sandanista Government of Nicaragua scored some remarkable gains in alleviating poverty, achievements that set an example for the rest of Central and South America to follow. This was not to the liking of the Reagan Administration, whose policies rested on the force necessary to support the false assertion that Nicaragua was subject to a ‘communist takeover'.

Proceeds from secret arms sales to Iran were diverted to the Counterrevolutionary Army (Contras) based in neighbouring Honduras . Between 1981 and 1991 these forces inflicted a reign of terror so brutal upon the Nicaraguan people that they capitulated from sheer exhaustion and the need simply to survive. The Conservative, pro-US government led by Violetta Chamorro that succeeded the Sandinistas soon reversed most of their socialist-based policies in favour of the Neo-Liberal, ‘free-market' economy desired by the US .

Pilger argues that military force is not always required. It is often sufficient to let the ‘free market', with its bias toward the already rich and powerful, do the work. Iraq provides an example where a variety of methods have been employed. Uranium tipped weapons used in the First Gulf War (1991) caused an unknown because uncounted, number of children to contract various cancers. Pilger writes of ‘hospital wards filled with these little, mutated ghosts'.

As if that were not sufficient, the vindictive use of economic sanctions by the Superpower and its ally Great Britain , led to the deaths of many thousands of children from poverty-related diseases. “Their suffering goes unnoticed; their cries of anguish unheard”. Voices raised in their defence are often silenced from fear of being accused of aiding and abetting terrorism. Governments use every device at their disposal to make us complicit in their war crimes.

Sometimes these War Crimes are committed in ways that evade scrutiny, the details emerging only years after the event, thanks to efforts made by a few courageous reporters like Pilger who in the course of their work, become aware of the struggles of ordinary people. For example, how many people alive today would have known at the time (1960s and 1970s) that British Governments, Labour and Tory, ‘tricked and expelled the entire population of Diego Garcia, a British colonial dependency, so that the US could take over their homeland as the site for a military base from which to reach targets in the Middle East and elsewhere?

For almost a decade neither Parliament nor the US Congress knew anything about it. Even BBC newsreaders still refer to US aircraft flying out to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq from the “uninhabited' island of Diego Garcia . It is doubtful whether this ‘fact' even rates a mention in the Australian media. The Chagossian people of Diego Garcia, like the Australian Aborigines, simply disappeared from history.

The Chagossian people were enslaved by the French and brought to Diego Garcia in the 18 th century. Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1915 the island became a British colony, like its population, the property of Great Britain . Twenty years later the islanders benefited from the abolition of slavery and remained living peacefully on the island with their dogs, cats, pigs and horses.

Until the last moment they had no idea that the British had other plans for their homeland. US long-term strategic plans required a suitable Atlantic Island from which to stage air strikes against the Middle East and elsewhere. The Americans applied pressure to their faithful ally to permit them to take over the Island of Diego Garcia . In a complicated, protracted process compliant British Governments set about depriving the islanders of their citizen rights to make way for the military base of a foreign power.

In true Westminster style, and without recourse to Parliament, a secret unaccountable group comprised of past and present government ministers called the Privy Council, advised the Queen to give her Royal Assent to the plan, which under the constitution she was obliged to do. Thus a powerful body, unaccountable to the people, took the ‘sordid and morally indefensible decision' that violated the Statute of the International Criminal Court as Crime Against Humanity.

The British Government engineered their departure in 1971, ahead of the American takeover of the Diego Garcia. In a situation strongly reminiscent of their ancestors' status as slaves, the islanders were forced into the hold of a cargo boat packed with chicken shit. They were not permitted to take any of their animals with them. The last sounds they heard as they sailed away from Diego Garcia were the agonised howls of their beloved dogs, all 800 of them, as the incoming Americans set about burning them to death.

Bewildered and terrified they arrived at Mauritius where they were dumped on the wharf. Many had never before seen traffic. Conditions were so harsh it was not long before the very old and the very young began to die. In the short space of only two months, a woman named Lisette had lost her eight year old daughter Jollice and Regis her son aged ten months. They were taken straight from hospital to the cemetery. Her husband died soon afterwards. Ask any of the exiles to account for the deaths of their loved ones and the invariable answer will be “They died of sadness”.

Eventually the exiles found refuge in an abandoned housing estate in which goats had been kept. Rubbish and filth were everywhere. Lisette and a small group of her compatriots, all of whom had lost children and other close family members, began to transmute their common grief into anger in a growing determination to win back their island. John Pilger took an interest in their case. On a visit after they had been on the island for twenty-two years, he discovered them living in the same squalid places, sleeping on the floor, the rain pouring in, and the lavatory still a hole in the ground.

As Pilger's book went to press these determined people arrived in London for yet another round in the long process aimed at winning back their island. This was the High Court's long-awaited judicial review of the government's use of the royal prerogative to prevent them going home. Should their efforts fail they will take their case to the European Court of Human Rights. They have the services of a distinguished lawyer, Sir Sydney Kentridge QC who represented Nelson Mandela in South Africa .

Despite endless setbacks these courageous people will not give up their fight. A lot hangs on the result. They are mindful that men, women and children of Afghanistan and Iraq , people just like them, are being bombed by US planes launched from Diego Garcia. They have experienced the kindness of ordinary people, so different from the elite, whose lives like theirs have often been an unbearable struggle to survive.

The struggle continues.

The scandal continues to this day.

Click here to read Part 2 of Margaret Setter's Review