Successful author Philip Sands – Inhuman Abuse

Imagine that you are living in a paradise island with white sandy beaches on all sides. Life is carefree, you are young and happy and you are carrying a new life in your belly.

Such was the life of twenty-year-old Lesbe Elysee until she was arrested without warning by the British authorities on a spring day fifty years ago. In haste, she was allowed to pack a suitcase, before being forced onto a ship and taken away from the island she loved.

By force, she and the other Chagos Islanders were removed from their homes and everything they held dear. It was an inhumane attack on innocent people, Philip Sands (62) tells Dagbladet Bok.

The author believes that by highlighting individual destinies, it is easier to see the big picture.

History has shown us that one person can make a big difference. But it also showed that one individual can make a huge negative difference – as we see with Putin today.

will give vote

Philip Sands says he writes books to give voice to the unheard. But he is also a professor of law, works as a lawyer and has extensive experience as a prosecutor at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

– The difference between writing books and practicing in court is not as great as many people think.

He was recently in Norway to talk about the book The Last Colony, about the fate of Lesbe Elysees and other residents who were forced in the years 1967-1973 to leave the Chagos Islands when the archipelago was declared a British colony and converted. in a military base.

The Chagos Islands are an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, known today as the British Indian Ocean Territory. It is estimated that between 1,400 and 1,700 people were forcibly relocated during the establishment of the military base, which was used as a staging post for US bombing raids during the Gulf Wars and the war against Afghanistan.

– heartbreaking

The boat that carried Lesby Elysees and other Chagos Islanders away from their homes was the MS Nordveer, which had previously sailed along the Norwegian coast with English tourists.

Little did the pregnant girl with a swollen belly know what awaited her when she was taken on the boat in 1973.

– It’s sad to think of what she and others have been through. It was a great injustice, says Sands, to have been asked to represent the people of the Chagoss when the British government’s trial came before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in February 2019.

He was touched when he spoke of the inflammatory speech Lesby Elysée had made there.

– She made a strong impression on me and is an example of how important an individual’s voice is in our society.

I burst into tears

He fiddles with the phone, and soon a middle-aged woman appears on the screen. She speaks in a powerful voice about the spring day she was forced to move away from her home and how it affected her life. Towards the end of the post, I broke down in tears.

– She was seventy years old when she spoke in The Hague, and had not yet returned to her native island.

Sand shakes his head.

– When I was asked to help in the case of Lesby and the others, I had not even heard of Chagos. At school we were mostly taught that England was great, and that everything that wasn’t great was underestimated.

He does not think that is unique to England.

– I think many countries put a lid on the negative, stop talking about what is unpleasant to remember. But my experience is that sooner or later what is being talked about comes to the fore.

He survived the Holocaust

Philip Sands grew up in London, the son of a French mother and a British father. He spent the summer holidays with his grandparents in Paris, where his mother insisted that he speak his native language.

In the critically acclaimed book Back to Lemberg (2016), he tells the story of his grandfather, who was born in Lemberg, the city we know today as Lviv in Ukraine.

From a family of more than eighty members, my grandfather was the sole survivor of the Holocaust.

Did he talk about it when you were little?

No, he didn’t say a word. I think he was ashamed because he was the only survivor. There was a wound in him, and he did not want those close to us to know the horrors our family had been through. But he was very cool and we had a very close relationship.

Ukrainians were impressed

Sands wrote “Back to Lemberg” after he was asked to be a guest lecturer at the University of Lviv.

– This book changed my life, and it’s the reason I keep writing. I write for influence, and through books I reach a larger audience than I do as a lawyer.

He was in Ukraine after the invasion, and was impressed by the will to fight and the strength of the Ukrainian people. Later in June, the plan was to visit the Literature Festival in Kyiv, but it wouldn’t happen that way.

– I think that the war will become more active and intense in the future, so in consultation with my wife I kindly declined.

He believes that the war will continue for many years.

– and the conflict will become deeper and more problematic. Unfortunately.

– Do you see a solution?

– I believe that the solution must come within Russia, which is why I think it is very important to point the light at the individuals who are committing this injustice.

separate court

Sands believes that regime change will only happen if the Russians themselves accept what happened, and hold their leader responsible for his actions.

It won’t happen now, but I hope it will in the long term. The war is not going well for Russia, and things are happening inside the country that we don’t know about and that can change people’s perception, which will hopefully stop the war.

The Russian invasion was only a few days earlier when Philip Sands in the Financial Times proposed the creation of a separate tribunal for war in Ukraine. The idea is to be able to hold an individual accountable for their horrific actions. Among the main politicians who supported Sands’ proposal, which is still under discussion, is former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

– Why is it important to do this now?

– I am convinced that the law should be used as a tool to determine what is legal and what is not.

He believes that the spotlight should be directed at those responsible for the actions, not the country.

– A country that does not commit criminal acts, it is the people who do them.

– he sat down and cried

I lost the child

Flashback to the spring of 1973. After a four-day boat trip at sea, MS Nordveer arrived in Mauritius. Shortly after her arrival, Lesbe gave birth to Elysee four months early. Not long after, the child died.

– This horrific step and inhumane boat trip claimed the life of her firstborn. She holds the British government responsible for the loss of her child.

– How is she today?

– very good. She is an incredibly strong woman, brilliantly intelligent, mother of six and grandmother of two, with a powerful voice despite the fact that she can neither read nor write.

In February of this year, Human Rights Watch published a report on the Chagos Islands which stated that forced relocation is a crime against humanity. The report demanded that the Chagossi people not be prevented from returning to the islands.

Philip Sands himself was there when Lesbe Elysee was reunited with the island she had left fifty years earlier.

– She was incredibly strong. The joy of seeing the island she had left was poignant, but at the same time the sadness of the loss of life was powerfully present.

Sands reminds us of how fast things spin.

We think we are safe in our homes, but history shows time and time again that we are vulnerable. We must carry that with us in everything we do.