Talks over the Chagos Islands show the rising clout of Mauritius

In a tatty office in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, Olivier Bancoult points to the tricolour flag on the wall. It is that of the Chagos Islands, the largest of which, Diego Garcia, hosts a British-American base. Its construction in the early 1970s was preceded by the forcible expulsion of 1,500 Chagossians, including Mr Bancoult, then four years old. Britain detached the Chagos dependency from the colony of Mauritius, 2,000km away, before Mauritius was granted independence in 1968. The orange represents sunsets, says Mr Bancoult. The black is for the dark times faced by Chagossian refugees, some of whom his NGO represents. And the blue? “That is for the seas—and our future.”