Islands of death
Anthony Mockler
There is in existence a photograph, that will appeal to those who savour the irony of such things, showing Ted Rowlands at the Seychelles constitutional conference in January 1976. Mr Rowlands, wreathed in unctuous smiles, was at the time Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. In the photograph he stands flanked by the beard- ed and affable Jimmy Mancham, leader of the Seychelles Right, and by the somewhat less affable Albert Rene, leader of the Seychelles Left. Independence was to be granted on 29 June that year; the Seychelles was to become a republic; and all would be light and joy under a democratic regime united in parliamentary coalition under Mancham as president with Rene as his prime minister.
On 29 June this year I went to the stadium in the Seychelles' tiny capital of Victoria to watch an open-air Independence Day film show, pre-sold to a wide public. The virtues of this President — Albert Rene — would be contrasted on film with the vices of his predecessor Mancham's life- style. The vices were embodied in an attrac- tive colour film entitled Isles of Love, much appreciated by the audience. Excited murmurs were aroused by the Highland bagpiper who played the Queen down the aircraft's steps when she arrived to open the Mahe International Airport — and thereby the Seychelles to tourism — long before independence. Delighted cries of recogni- tion greeted an aged grand colon, Henri Michaux, held up as an example of decadent reaction with his claim of at least 54 illegitimate children and no regrets. But what was totally unpredictable was the at- tentive silence that settled over the crowd when the familiar though now long-exiled figure of Jimmy Mancham appeared on the screen. There were no boos, hisses or counter-cries, even when he yelled out to a `You're in luck — we need someone here to tell people like yourself that there are no jobs going.' mass rally of his supporters under British rule, `Do we want independence?' and theY yelled back, `No! No! No!'
Independence has not been a happy ex" perience for the Spychellois; and after last week's abortive army mutiny they are likelY to be unhappier than ever. Independence has brought violence and death to a small people who, politically at any rate, were until then pleasantly free from these manifestations; things have been getting steadily worse since the present President, Albert Rene, first used violence to over- throw his predecessor. That original coup of 4/5 June 1977 was in a sense inevitable; but from it all the trouble has since stemmed.
Mancham put the Seychelles on the tourist map; he was a warm, engaging person, informal to a fault; in that way a reflection of the islands' ethos. On the other hand his regime was notoriously corrupt and one or two of his chief supporters were drunken louts. Albert Rene, who had once trained as a priest, wanted a totally different future and way of life for 'his' people than that of some Indian Ocean banana republic. Dui' ing one of Mancham's many absences abroad Rene's supporters simply took over the police armoury at Montfleury — where the few (and the only) weapons on the islands were stored — and seized the police headquarters in the centre, on what was then Royal Avenue. But it was not a bloodless coup (though it was generallY referred to as bloodless in the British Press last week). Officially two, and unofficiallY up to six, policemen were killed that night — a major shock for a small communitY that had never known political killings before. Under the new left-wing, one partY' one-newspaper, rather puritanical reghne, that followed, corruption was eliminated and health and education vastly improved' But — and here lay the rub and the root cause of all subsequent disasters — Presi- dent Rene created what had never been needed in the Seychelles before: an armY. He had to create an army both as a counter- balance to the naturally resentful pollee force and to prevent his own government being overthrown with equal ease. It was a small army — 600 strong at most — yet not, small in relation to the Seychelles' total population of 60,000. Its members were recruited naturally enough from among Rene's supporters, the least educated see" tion of the population, and trained by Rene's Tanzanian allies. The police force' 450-strong, remains everything the armY Is not: long-established, well-respected, in" telligent, hard-working and carefully train- ed in the British tradition; but also, in the British tradition, unarmed. The police force rightly detests the nevi army's privileged position outside the law. An example: while I was there, Major RaY" mond Bonte; one of the 'five majors', the unattractive group who in fact run the army, was involved in a night-club brawl in which the assistant manager of the Coral Strand Hotel was very badly beaten uP Next morning the respected Commissioner of Police James Pillay arrested the two Civilians who were with Major Bonte's par- ty but was unable to touch the major himself or his two military companions. Another of the five, Major Macdonald Marengo, has an even more unsavoury reputation. It is no wonder that the mutineers' one demand was for the dismissal of senior officers who, they said, treated them 'like pigs'. It was a small mutiny. It now appears to have involved about a hundred mutineers Who relied, vainly, on bluff and 'Papa' keno's goodwill. They did little damage, and in the end the main casualties were suf- fered by the mutineers themselves: officially five dead, unofficially three times that number.
In the three violent episodes of the last few years deaths have been by African stan- dards minimal. In the failed mercenary COUP of 25 November last year only two Men were killed, one mercenary and one Seychellois lieutenant. But in the week-long Curfew that followed several people were reportedly shot and killed by the army, and four captured mercenaries were condemned to death seven weeks ago. Apparently they Will not be appealing.
The significant thing is that with each at- tempted coup violence seems to become a More accepted part of political life. The Most chilling remark of all last week was the reference by M. Baudouin, the usually restrained head of Seychelles Radio, in a BBC interview after the radio station had been recaptured, to 'mopping-up opera- tions'. The vocabulary of the military has now become second nature to a people to Whom before independence it was totally foreign — a sign of a military mentality and indeed of a military regime to come.
For in creating an army President Rene may have created, like Frankenstein, a Monster that will one day destroy him. Already before the mutiny the army head Colonel Ogilvy Berlouis, also Minister of Defence and Minister of Youth, was being talked of, probably far too much for the President's peace of mind,, as his obvious successor. If there is a military take-over, not too many tears should be shed for Rene himself, the man who after all first in- troduced violence into Seychellois politics. But it will be an appalling outcome in every Way for the pleasant and by nature relaxed People of the Seychelles, who can only be saved from further violence and death by the abolition of the army.
But how can the army now be abolished? Perhaps only by some extraordinary event such as the restoration of what most of the Seychellois would almost certainly Welcome: the pax Britannica that reigned uP to six years ago. In the era of the Falklands, and of general disillusion with total independence for tiny and vulnerable Mini-states, this may not be quite as un- thinkable as it once was. Whatever the Precise legal terminology some sort of pro- tector is needed for the Seychellois, and therefore — with their agreement — some sort of protectorate.
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