Although fully justified, calls from the US and UK governments for the Egyptian people to be granted freedom, justice and democracy have a somewhat hollow and ironic ring when the ethnic-cleansing of Diego Garcia is recalled.

An idyllic archipelago in the Indian Ocean and inhabited by 2,000 contented islanders, the location was seen by the US government as another base for its bombers in the quest for world domination.

Conveniently described as a long forgotten coaling station on a rock in the Indian Ocean, a sordid deal was done between the UK government of Harold Wilson and the Americans, with the unfortunate islanders being forcibly removed between 1967 and 1972 in order that the secure air-base could be constructed.

Their beloved dogs and other pets were gassed by the exhaust from US Army trucks, a method of execution pioneered by the Nazis.

Uprooted and robbed of their homes and livelihoods, the former inhabitants of Diego Garcia now live in poverty in the slums of Mauritius, more than 1,000 miles from their homes.

In 2000, a British court ruled that the forced evacuation was invalid and in 2003 a British High Court judge ruled that the islanders had been treated shamefully.

But by using an archaic Order of Council, Tony Blair overturned the ruling, thus prohibiting the islanders from ever returning to their homes.

Yet a further irony is that the US base is known as Camp Justice!

Gordon Clack, Witney Road, Ducklington, Witney