Forty years in exile: return to the promised land

The Leader of the Chagos Refugees Group, Olivier Bancoult, will be speaking at Bristol University on 26 June before going to the House of Lords for the hearing of the Chagos case.
The Leader of the Chagos Refugees Group, Olivier Bancoult, will be speaking at Bristol University on 26 June before going to the House of Lords for the hearing of the Chagos case. Mr Bancoult represents the hundreds of people who were exiled from the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean in the 1960s and '70s.

The free public lecture, entitled Forty years in exile: return to the promised land, will be given at 6 pm in Lecture Theatre 2, 15 Woodland Road, Bristol. 

Mr Bancoult will be visiting the UK for the hearing by the Law Lords of an appeal lodged by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office against three previous judgments upholding the right of the exiled Chagossians to return to their homeland, the Chagos Archipelago (British Indian Ocean Territory - BIOT). The people were exiled between 1967 and 1973 to make way for a US communications centre on Diego Garcia.

The lecture will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Mr Bancoult and a panel of experts on the Chagos saga.  Stephen Howe, Professor of the History and Cultures of Colonialism, will chair the event and David Snoxell, former Deputy Commissioner of BIOT and High Commissioner to Mauritius and an alumnus of the University, will introduce Mr Bancoult.

The University's Centre for the Study of Colonial and Postcolonial Societies will host the event.

The lecture is free, but it will be necessary to reserve a place. To book, go to www.bristol.ac.uk/events