135.
   A chain of islands appeared in the expanse of ocean beneath us. “That’s Mauritius.”, said Conrad. “In the 1960’s the British gave it its independence, most of it that is. After World War II, America and her mother country were determined to carry on and expand what was left of the British Empire. An isolated island in the archipelago named Diego Garcia was a perfect place to establish an air base that could dominate the Middle East and its oil. I was born and raised there. It was a paradise. There was a slight problem however. Diego Garcia had been populated since the 18th Century. What do you do with a population of two thousand people who could trace our ancestry on the island back generations?  I was a child when the soldiers came. There were a thousand dogs on the island that were a beloved part of my culture. The first order of business was to round them up, gas them to death and burn the bodies in front of us. We were told we could take only one suitcase with us. Sound familiar? We were loaded onto freighters and shipped to the island of Mauritius where we were dumped onto the docks. We were penniless strangers in a strange land. Suicide, infant mortality, disease, drug addiction and prostitution tormented us.  More than ten years later we were offered three thousand pounds each on the condition we would never try and return to our island. It’s always best to wait a decade after stealing a country before offering a hand full of coins to its people. We have sued and won in the British courts, but the government refused to abide by the decision. The huge base the Americans have built holds two thousand troops who refer to it as Camp Justice.” Conrad fell silent. I put a hand on his shoulder. He shook his head. No one said a word.