A Bristol graduate and retired member of the Diplomatic Service is giving a lecture at the University on what he describes as ‘one of the worst violations of fundamental human rights perpetrated by the UK in the 20th century’ – the forced expulsion from the Chagos Archipelago of its indigenous people in the 1960s and 1970s.

David Snoxell (BA History 1966) was Deputy Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) from 1995 to1997 and British High Commissioner to Mauritius, 2000-04. At the invitation of the Centre for the Study of Colonial and Postcolonial Societies, he will give a lecture on 7 November on the political and legal history of the Islands.

‘Expulsion from Chagos: Regaining Paradise’ will focus on the removal of the inhabitants to make way for a US base on Diego Garcia (the largest atoll in the Chagos Archipelago) and the continuing legal battle to restore the right of the Chagossians to return to their homeland. Mr Snoxell will draw from his experience of foreign policy, going back to 1969 when in his first job in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office he was a member of the UK delegation to the Decolonisation Committee of the UN General Assembly.

Expulsion from Chagos: Regaining Paradise
by David Snoxell
Lecture Theatre 3, 17 Woodland Road
5.15 pm, Wednesday 7 November
Admission free. All are welcome. Lecture will be followed by questions and discussion.