Spectator's Journal/The Seychelles Test
Morrison, Micah
SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL THE SEYCHELLES TEST by Micah Morrison n November 29, 1985, a murder in London signaled a new phase in a quiet and largely obscure battle for control of the strategically...
...Businesses were nationalized...
...dent pledged to the cause of freedom...
...The assassins—Hoarau was gunned down on his doorstep—are believed to be Libyan hit men working at the behest of Rene...
...Relations with the West cooled...
...Here, it appears, is a justifiable case for application of the Reagan Doctrine of giving assistance to freedom fighters...
...maintains a satellite tracking station in the Seychelles, and in order to keep it there Washington acceded to Rene's demand that the rent be more than doubled to around $2.5 million a year...
...The U.S...
...According to sources in the resistance leadership, the State Department official responsible for the islands, former Ambassador to Seychelles David Fischer, has repeatedly refused to meet with rebel envoys...
...ties with the Soviet Union and its allies dramatically increased...
...The independent press was shut down...
...identical tactics are used in housing and employment agencies...
...The victim, Gerard Hoarau, was the leader of an organization of Seychellois exiles opposed to the Marxist government of President Albert Rene...
...Perhaps more importantly, the White House has aided Rene with the gift of silence and indifference...
...As in other Communist countries, however, medical care is channeled through party officials who use it to favor party members and keep non-party citizens in line...
...has been providing Rene with at least part of the rope with which to hang the resistance...
...naval base on the island of Diego Garcia...
...Since the assassination of Hoarau eighteen months ago, there have been signs that the resistance is moving to resolve internal quarrels, strengthen underground elements in the Seychelles, and step up the fight against Rene...
...Opponents of Rene began to disappear...
...Six hundred miles west of the islands, well within electronic-monitoring range, is the important U.S...
...The rebels, however, are fighting alone, without Western aid...
...and there is evidence of Soviet plans to expand its naval and intelligence presence in the area...
...Yet time is running out for the Seychelles...
...SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL THE SEYCHELLES TEST by Micah Morrison n November 29, 1985, a murder in London signaled a new phase in a quiet and largely obscure battle for control of the strategically important Seychelles island group in the Indian Ocean...
...ut often lost beneath strategic cont...
...Some analysts fear that the addition of a Seychelles anchorage to the Soviet Union's powerful northern Indian Ocean presence at Aden in South Yemen and the island of Socotra at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden would, in the event of superpower tensions, give the Kremlin the ability to control the area and choke oil-supply routes to the West...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1987 39...
...Hoarau's death is a sign that the Soviet-backed Rene is growing increasingly nervous about discontent in the Seychelles...
...Moscow is increasing its stake in the islands...
...Where, asked one Seychellois resistance leader, is Reagan now, when the opposition desperately needs the moral and material assistance the PresiMicah Morrison is deputy director of the Committee for the Free World and editor of its monthly publication, Contentions...
...Communism is destroying the traditional Seychellois way of life...
...T he Reagan Administration has I been following a curious path in its relations with the Seychellois ruler...
...According to some reports, the East Germans have put up three radar units to monitor Diego Garcia, and the Russians have begun surveying the waters around the Seychelles, a procedure that could be the first step toward the establishment of a major new Soviet naval base...
...Less than a year after the islands were granted independence from Britain in 1976, Rene overthrew the elected government, declaring that he would make the little nation (population about 65,000) "free of capitalism and foreign countries...
...There is a good case, too, for material assistance...
...Twice in 1986, in May and September, Rene abruptly acted to counter what appear to be attempts to force him from office...
...others were jailed or forced into exile...
...Tourism, once the economic mainstay of the lush tropical islands, rapidly declined...
...Support for a return to democracy in the Seychelles is relatively cheap: a few words from the President and a small aid package from Congress would be an enormous boon to Seychellois fighting for freedom inside and outside the country...
...Adhering to Lenin's dictum, the U.S...
...The situation in the Seychelles poses an uncomfortable question for the Reagan Administration...
...Following the "socialist" pattern, Rene proceeded to build what he called his "new society...
...A free National Health Service was trumpeted as a sign of Rene's progressive policies...
...A new constitution was drawn up, making the country a one-party socialist state...
...The "moral assistance" President Reagan pledged to freedom fighters costs very little and could be easily provided...
...Over the years the Seychellois resistance, which is sworn to a return to democratic rule, has launched repeated attempts to dislodge Rene...
...The moral costs of remaining silent and inactive are incalculable...
...Seychellois children were sent to Cuban-style National Youth Service "education camps...
...Parental protests over these camps led to violent demonstrations in 1979...
...The Seychelles lie about 1,000 miles east of the African coast, astride the sea lanes plied by tankers leaving the Persian Gulf for Western Europe and North America...
...additional grants and aid amount to several million dollars a year...
...Security expenditures were tripled...
...East Germany, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Tanzania contributed men and material to back up the Rene regime...
...An indigenous opposition movement has been fighting an illegally installed dictatorship for years...
...Instead, the Administration has been bolstering the regime with million-dollar deals and silence in the face of Rene's steady consolidation of power...
...siderations is the human-rights aspect of the Seychelles story...
...The irretrievable loss of a tiny island nation might not make a big splash today, but the strategic costs tomorrow could be great...
...The Russians, recognizing the importance of a Seychelles base, sent the former KGB station chief in Turkey, Mikhail Orlov, to head the Soviet embassy...
Vol. 20 • May 1987 • No. 5
