The Seychelles Column - By Christopher Gill

Communist Hero Pulls out the Dog and Children to Rewrite and Fake History!

Most recently, the foremost communist leader of Seychelles France Albert Rene took full advantage of his state-controlled SBC-television station to reveal to us another plot in his attempt to cleanse his wretched, troubled soul and alter the course of history in Seychelles.

This time, Rene was not plotting to take control of a newly born island nation state that had just shed its colonial roots through a peaceful transition called Independence. But rather, after committing treason as the country’s first Prime Minister through his pre-meditated bloody June 5^th 1977 coup d’etat, after dragging our country through his illegal one party state dictatorship for 15 plus years, after scamming a number of elections through illegal handouts of state money and victimization of the opposing party members, through his abuse of power and victimization of ordinary citizens, his ultimate goal this time around was to fake success and fake the reality of 35 years of complete and utter failure. Rene has set out to rewrite history, and his final plot intends to fake us into believing that communist Rene is a smart visionary and the founder of modern Seychelles. Well, our history will prove that Rene is neither and he already knows it.

The Movie Plot

As SBC and Party Lepep Cuban trained reporters made the pre-planned rounds through Rene’s home, a camera shot in the living room, a couple minutes in the kitchen to see the master chef cook up a little fish with his maid overlooking the effort in case his white shirt catches fire, then an interview with wife Sarah and the children, we cannot but feel great pity for his family, for they have now inherited the pressure of all his bad deeds and catastrophic failure at running the Seychelles economy.

It was indeed a pathetic attempt to deceive the Seychellois public once again, with well-thought out quotes such as “the great mind... one who thinks ten years ahead of every one…the thoughtful, generous person…the great scholar…a caring father…the cool and calculated leader who worries over affairs of State House and our country….even after retiring from the same”.

This is the man Rene would like us all to remember. A false fallacy if there was ever one!

But as “le deluge” sets upon us, his family must be completely perplexed after initially thinking they had such a smart visionary in their midst, only to learn from Reuters and the most recent IMF report on Seychelles that the Rene-communist vision has materialized to complete failure as Seychelles enjoys the worse credit rating in the world. Let alone a bankrupt, unsustainable economy!

On the other hand, Rene and his clan are not bankrupt. The cameras on SBC give but a hint of the vast wealth accumulated over the 45 years. A stroll through town is another hint. A trip to the other islands, a visit to Australia adds additional evidence of accumulated wealth by the clan, while poor Seychelles suffers under bankruptcy.

Rene telling MNA’s under orders to never utter the word “BANKRUPT” will not make us solvent anytime soon. Mr. Visionary Architect-Economist has led Seychelles to financial disaster of monstrous proportions. This is his legacy and he knows it.

It is because of this legacy of failure, that he now needs to face us in front of a camera to show the personal human side of a dictator, trying to coax us into believing he is this great hero so that we can forget about his mismanagement of our country and his great failure to navigate Seychelles to financial stability as his clan enjoys.

The perfect example of the split personality Jekyll & Hyde psychopathic mind rests in the modern history of Seychelles. Who is Jekyll and who is Hyde? I leave that to the reader to decide. If you are clueless, ask our first founding President, James Mancham for a hint.

The interviews with Rene will not remove the IMF administrator from our midst, and this financial watchdog will be here long after Rene has departed our beloved shores. His children will share the burden with our children, to mop up the mess and repay all the debts he has created with his madness.

It is a shameful legacy indeed when one reflects that when he hijacked the Nation on June 5^th 1977, our Central Bank had 385 Million Pound Sterling in reserves and the Seychelles Rupee was convertible all over the world.

Today we have over US$ 820 Million in external debt, and our reserves sit at around Pounds Sterling 20 Million while interest continues to add up. Enough for a couple weeks of fuel and rice imports at best.

Fear Not The Failure

Those of you who still fear, stop wasting your valuable energy and simply accept the fact that we have already failed under Rene. Do not be fooled to think that Rene has answers for us, as he never did. Now he only attempts to numb our nerves as our suffering increases. He continues to target the illiterate, feeble-minded and weak hearts amongst us. He banks his ideas on stupidity rather than the intelligent mind. He counts on the fear factor as all tyrants do. Rene is no liberator. This is no 1960’s Catholic priest-in-training and this is certainly no saviour of Seychelles.

He insults his opponents in life, instead of extending an olive branch so the next generation can live beyond his disasters. He perpetuates division because he lives by the gun, even when lounging besides his triple dip pool likely paid for through government funds, sourced by taxation, from same Seychellois he professes to have saved from colonialism and poverty.

While you dip in your pool, many Seychellois are getting poorer and poorer each day because of your bozo economics and bozo management of our national resources.

Today, it is the IMF that tells Rene and SPUP-SPPF-Parti Lepep what to do. Michel quite likely cries to himself as he sits in the lonely offices of State House, to realize now that Rene has left him with a colossal mess, a bankrupt country and a divided Nation. When he meets Rene, he shakes and shudders as he recently did at the Le Pep Party Congress. Michel knows not the way out of this disaster, but he tries to lead in spite of it and buys a little time so that he can distance himself from Rene and hopefully, outlive his failed mentor.

Do Not Blame The Children

People of Seychelles, do not hold Rene’s children responsible for Rene’s failures. This is not right. His children deserve to have an independent life of him and his conspiracies. Those of you who punish and victimize his children as Rene alleges, are doing what Rene would have done to children of his opponents.

Rise above him and prove to history that you are better than him. Do not be like Rene. Doing what is evil is easy, but doing what is right is a greater challenge we must all meet for Seychelles to survive Rene.

Those of you who commit such acts are no better than Rene himself. And while he may have hinted he has repented in the past few months and is now searching for forgiveness and national salvation, he has been stubbornly silent over it.

Do not expect repentance from Rene. It is not in his character to do so. So rise up above the disgraceful examples Rene has set for you. Leave his children alone and do not victimize them. They are innocent as long as they remain so.

But Rene is not so innocent and has simply destroyed our economy. This is the man who last year led Seychelles to its last days supply of hard currency to allow us to import commodities critical to our survival. This is the same man who last year drove us to our last 2 hours of fuel at the pumps. This is the man who together with his then Minister of Finance James Michel and advisor Mukesh Valabhji, created untenable, mad economic policies for our country that led us to the brink of disaster.

IMF reports of course will verify the above facts. And this is the same man who had the audacity to call himself the architect of our nation! The architect built a nation in the sand. Now the IMF wave will wipe it all out overnight. In a year or two, all the gains will all be out of sight! We who come after Rene will have nothing to break, and everything to rebuild. But this time, we must build on solid ground and not in the sands of communism.

This is not false accusation by myself, but hard verified facts reported in the international press the world over. Of course, as any decent self-respecting communist leader would, advise his Lepep Party die-hard followers in the state controlled media to keep such information out of the local press. No wonder he made sure that Seychelles never linked to the undersea fibre-optic internet network when we had the opportunity to do so in the early 90’s. Today we all know how far we lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to internet speed. All due to the simple lack of vision from our supposedly great visionary! Today, Seychelles is a dirt road to nowhere in the information super highway of technology. Thank you Mr. Visionary. Because we do not have high speed bandwidth, now the Galapagos Islands have more tourists per annum (177,000) than Seychelles. They do not have five star hotels, nor four star, nor three or two.

Architect Cum Economist Cum Actor

Simply put, Rene the supposed economist is an oxymoron. Rene has been anything but an economist for Seychelles. He has driven our economy into overdrive failure over the years, and we have an IMF plan as evidence of his great failure.

Rene has referred to himself as the architect of modern Seychelles. This is a blatant lie as we have been left in the dust by all our neighbouring island neighbours such as Mauritius and Maldives.

Today, our country’s institutions such as the Police Department, the Judiciary, the Prison Department, the School system, the transport system and anything else that Rene controlled since he drafted his coup papers have crumbled around us.

The great architect designed prawn farms, desalination plants, orchid farms, National Youth Service, Seychelles Marketing Board (SMB) and many other white elephant projects. Animal farm indeed!

We all know how much these institutions cost our country during Rene’s tenure. This self-proclaimed messiah dismantled the once thriving tourism, business, fishing, agricultural and export sectors by nationalizing everything he could lay his hands on. What did he do with it all?

Rene destroyed an exemplary, faith-based educational system which schooled him and most of his ministers. Rene created an Army and assembled a bunch of thugs under names like SSU to beat up and terrorize our own Seychellois citizens. Rene was the architect who arranged for the deportation and imprisonment of our brothers and sisters.

Lest we forget, Rene oversaw the largest exodus of our countrymen who fled to foreign countries to salvage their dignity and to escape death. When questioned about the exodus, he referred to it as economic migration. If that is so, why do they not come back, since Seychelles is such a success under Rene, today, according to Rene and the Guinness bottle?

Even if we had to put his claim to literary “architecture” value, we would have hoped for at least one new outstanding Government building in Victoria. Or at least a new Court House, or a new National Assembly building which is now being built for us by Rene’s Communist Chinese friends. Or maybe Rene and not his brother-in-law was the real architect behind that eyesore Supasave building that was built by his connected company Island Construction. Now isn’t that just great architecture worth at least SCR 135 Million when completed, a waste of Social Security revenue!

Mancham built Rochon and La Gogue dams to give us water. What did Rene build? Well, he opted for sea water to meet our water needs. When the desalination process is improperly calibrated, Rene’s water rusts PUC pipes. Pipes explode, PUC dig up the roads, and raise the bills and tell us our water supply is unsustainable. As we consume salted rusted water sediments, we also die prematurely from cancer and other tumour-related deaths. But the asbestos pipes, and the salt, plus the rust, have nothing to do with our cancers.

What happened to the extension to our crowded Port? What happened to the Greater Victoria Sewage Project, Mr. Architect?

In summary, over the years, Rene encouraged corruption, nepotism and cronyism so that he could further his own selfish agenda and egocentric ambitions. At its worse, which is where Rene is right now, it is Hollywood and Bollywood, Nollywood and Anse Boileau-wood. Our great economist has now been reduced to acting. I am most certain he could have played a valuable role in “KASTOR”, he could use his white shirt, white pants and white shoes and white hat for the part.

The Communist Actor

From this last series of interviews, Rene has demonstrated that he is a “C-grade” actor at best. But this kind of acting earns money in Mexico and Venezuela, so I do not see why the movie cannot be filmed at his Anse Boileau-Barbarons ranch. After all, this glorious 10-acre spread in the beautiful South of Mahé was acquired from the State for a mere Seychelles Rupees Sixty Thousand. Yes, even on acquired lands, triple dip pool, multiple cars and Jeeps in the garage, an army of soldiers to watch over the old dictator, and “grand kaz” of course that somehow resembles those grand colonial homes which Rene himself professed to hate so much in the past.

And let us not forget “Mr. Rene’s” La Digue colonial home which happens to be on l’Union Estate, land acquired by the same Mr. Rene from the Mittermayer family. Isn’t communism just great when you are the head of the party, you can do as you please with resources of the people.

Using the dog as a prop was quite cute and reminds me of the “No One But You” soap Rene allowed us to watch a few years back. This classy telenova recently ran again due to SBC’s lack of funds to pay for new shows.

Face Facts Man Before You Face God

In 1970, it was the Chief Minister of the Seychelles Colony James Mancham who urged the British Crown to finance the construction of an International Airport for Seychelles to open up the then little unknown British island colony to the world of Tourism.

This is a FACT which can be confirmed by checking the British Parliament archives.

At the same time, it was France Albert Rene the leader of the Seychelles People’s United Party (SPUP) who opposed the airport construction and the dredging that was to be done by W&C French. FACT!

At that same time, it was France Albert Rene who said, “Seychelles is For Seychellois” and together with his few supporters, carried placards along the beaches of Seychelles to scare off tourists and discourage any investment in Seychelles. FACT!

Incidentally, today Seychellois have taken a back seat to foreigners who become citizens and even ambassadors overnight in their own motherland.

This is the same Rene who led the opposition when the Reef Hotel was bombed and remember, there were other explosions as well during that same period, including the bomb in Bill Pomeroy’s Mini Minor car. FACT!

Who bombed that car Rene?

This is the same Rene who has distorted history by telling the world that he was not the “architect” of the coup d’etat and that he was only asked to become President by the group of armed men who took the country on that depressing June 5^th day in 1977. FACT!

This is the same Rene who tells us that he hit a man at the Victoria Seychelles Club because the club members were racist, when in fact the members voted him out. This is the reason why Rene bulldozed this historical monument and oldest Club in Seychelles as soon as he became the illegal and self-appointed President of Seychelles. This is the same property opposite the Pirates Arms that today houses “Capital City” and is owned by Rene crony company. FACT!

This is the same Rene who told the entire world that the coup was “bloodless”, except that all of Seychelles know that at least 3 innocent Seychellois men lost their lives on that sad day in our Rene-distorted history. And this is the same Rene who admitted to SBC-TV last week and thirty-two years later that indeed “a couple of men” lost their lives accidentally on that day. FACT!

This is the same Rene who was President when many Seychellois such as Simon Desnousse, Mike Asher, Gerard Hoarau and numerous others lost their lives in mysterious circumstances. FACT!

To summarize, this is the same Rene whose SPUP party lost every single election before the 1976 Independence to James Mancham’s Democratic Party (DP). But forgot to mention that simple truth in his recent SBC movie. FACT!

So Mr. Rene, this is reality and this is the real history of Seychelles. You cannot change history, as history, unlike the SBC tapes you made to rewrite your story, are not subject to editing by Onezime, Afif or other Seychellois who are not at liberty to accept the true history of our young nation.

They are but little men in your administrative scheme of things, and they must push the story along as you say it, and not question it, to test its veracity, for perhaps, they might just be out of a job, in typical communist fashion.

What If Rene Did Block The Airport Project!

People of Seychelles, imagine for one moment if Rene and his SPUP communist party had won elections back in the 1970’s. What would have happened? We would not have had an airport on Mahé. We would not have had any tourists in the 1970’s. There would have been no Mahé Beach Hotel, no Beau Vallon Bay Hotel and no Coral Strand hotel. No other hotel would exist except perhaps for a little inn along the long old pier for the occasional sailor on HMS Bulldog to take shelter for a few days of onshore recreation.

Farmers would eat their own crops, taxi drivers would still have rickshaws and not have a decent living. Shops would really be empty most of the time. We would have been like Combodia under Khmer Rouge and we would all be sent to communal farms to toil away. The educated would be sent to dig refuse holes. NYS was not far from that. We would still be beating cinnamon in the forests under Rene’s ideas.

After the coup, and if James Mancham had not pressed the British Government for an airport to open us to the world, Rene would have had to take the steamship “Karanja” or even “Nordver” back to Mombasa to make his way to Tanzania to thank Julius Nyerere for sending soldiers to kill our Seychellois brothers and to keep himself in power.

In my opinion, this same Seychelles International Airport which Rene opposed enticed him to look towards real opportunities for himself and the well-being of our fellow citizens became an after-thought. As he rampaged and nationalized large hotel investments and illegally seized private land from harmless Seychellois families, Rene set the Seychelles foreign direct investment (FDI) climate back 30 years. If Rene had really cared about the rapid advancement of the Seychellois people, he would not have destroyed the most productive sectors of our society and scare off FDI.

His absolute, resolute, tunnel vision, only showed that he was in it for himself and a few collaborators picked up the crumbs here and there. Example, where is the $3Million that was paid for those South African mercenaries, by the Government of South Africa? Today, that money is worth SCR 42 Million and interest at 32% Treasury Bills makes it worth SCR 362Million.

The Tuna Escapade

As SBC showed us Rene fondling a tin of tuna on a processing line, they did not show us the greatest naval disaster in our nation’s history. A brainchild of Rene and son-in-law Glenny Savy, the proverbial joke of a tuna vessel called “Spirit of Koxe” will go down as the only tuna fishing boat that never caught a single tuna. The broken “Spirit of Kase” quickly became the laughing stock of the tuna industry, while Glenny and Mukesh imported themselves a Maserati each for their efforts. The vision was really starting to rub off to the little Princes!

Two Maserati at $165,000.00 each is $330,000.00. This is CIF SCR 4,620,000.00. Tax of 250% is SCR 11,550.000. Oh, how the money can add up when it is missing.

And how about that fleet of tuna boats that was to be owned by Seychellois, which until today, we do not have? Rene the naval architect and his apostles including Michel could not even manage to can our “blue gold” for a profit and had to sell off the cannery to Heinz who turned around a few years later and sold its shares for a massive profit to the now infamous Lehman Brothers investment group.

Cher, Mse. Admiral Rene, today, our tuna industry is minus forty (-40%) under your LePep leadership, and sinking fast while our visionary neighbours Madagascar, Mauritius, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Tanzania take over the industry from under our own noses.

This is our reality. These are the FACTS! For it is men who write the books, but it is a people who live the history. As long as we live, the history will so live. When we die, our children shall propagate our reality on and on, year in and year out in spite of you communists.

Rene Said Yankee Go Home!

Rene in his prime and youthful ignorance called for the Yankees at the US Tracking Station to go home, while his more visionary and realistic opponent the young James Mancham fought for the USA to set up a non-military base at the top of La Misere. And how ironic that this is the same large tract of state land that was recently ceded for a rupee to some Arab sheikh friend of James Michel while our own Seychellois people struggle to get a small piece of land to build their homes.

Now what if the Yankees had indeed gone home as Rene had wanted? How many millions of dollars of revenue would Seychelles have lost over the years?

Eventually, Rene’s arrogance did cause the Yankees to withdraw its presence in Seychelles. And what do we see today? The same Party SPUP-SPPF-LePep headed by President Michel down on his knees asking the Yankees to come back to our shores to set up base and to help protect Seychelles waters from Somali pirates.

Can Mr. Rene repudiate his “Yankee Go Home” slogans today, or is his memory failing him? Can the Anse Boileau branch of State House release an official position please. Or perhaps our great visionary from Farquar envisioned that he would have Yankee go home, then return to save us from pirates one day.

Yankee is here, but only to keep Mr. Rene’s Lepep party from taking Seychelles to failed state status to join Somalia. Nothing more.

Visionary? No!

People of Seychelles, Rene is no economist you can trust, he is no visionary you can count on, and he is certainly no architect! With Admiral Rene and Captain Michel, we are not sailing to any destination, but are sinking fast. The ship has taken a 360-degree turn and going “Back to the Future” when great Seychellois visionaries EXCLUDING Rene had the brains to tackle a British Government who simply wanted to rid itself of its colonies.

Rene did not dote the first Presidency onto James Mancham as he nonchalantly purported in his deceptive documentary. He only became Prime Minister because Mancham had the vision to create a coalition Government and to share power with him in order to bridge the division that existed between the two political parties even back then. Recently, Kenya embraced this form of government and even mad Mugabe has accepted a shared coalition Government with his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai who actually won the contested Presidential election.

Rene implemented the coup because he could not see himself playing second fiddle to a Creole like Mancham. When Rene says he despises racism it is true only up to his door step. It is like the great plantation owner in KASTOR. KASTOR was good as long as he followed the rules. When KASTOR did not follow the rules, he was a playboy like Mancham. Kastor was punished like Mancham was, because he was a creole who was too advanced for Rene.

More Interviews and Documentaries Please

I strongly encourage Rene to continue with his series of interviews. Please continue to elaborate and continue going to great lengths to convince us that you are indeed this great Seychellois hero you say you are.

But why don’t you invite your nemesis Sir James Mancham for a series of debates while you are at it so that the two of you can duke it out? That way, the Seychellois people will have the opportunity to hear the real truth, or you can continue to rewrite and distort history on your own.

Even if you cannot handle a little competition from real visionaries who do not lie and who sleep at night knowing that history will remember them favourably, please leave out the fancy dog in the next movie. It looks a bit elitist and anti-communist, and certainly sends the wrong signal that is confusing the people of Port Glaud who have “tres peu de sous” as you said on Gordon Square in 1964...... at the moment, due to your remarkable vision.

FALSE PROPHET

In summary, my opinion and that of many others suggests that Rene has been and will remain the greatest opportunist that Seychelles has ever seen since the French landed with their slaves on Ste Anne island, which of course now partially belongs to his favourite step son Francis Savy &/or company for one single Seychelles Rupee.

A false prophet indeed!

May God Bless All Freedom Loving Seychellois and Our Beloved Seychelles!