By Raymond de-Silva
The republic of Seychelles is situated in the Western Indian Ocean between 4 and 11
degrees south of the equator, and comprises a group of 115 islands with a land area of
455 square kilometres, spread over an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of over 1.3
million square kilometres.
Forty-one islands in the group are granitic and mountainous. These are all situated within
50 kilometres of the main island of Mahé, which, with a land area of 154 square
kilometres, accounts for one-third of the total land area of the archipelago. The remaining
islands are all coralline, seldom rising more than six metres above sea level.
The climate is equatorial, with an annual average rainfall of 2115 millimetres. Humidity
is uniformly high at an average of 80% and mean temperatures range from a minimum of
24 degrees Celsius to a maximum of 30 degrees Celsius.
Most of the islands are situated outside the area affected by seasonal cyclones. The
northwest monsoon (December - March) and the southeast trade winds (May-october)
seldom bring winds in excess of 60 knots.
History
In the Indian Ocean region, the Seychelles are one of the few island groups that were
never off-shore parcels of the civilizations of Africa or Asia. The islands had no pre-
colonial history. Although the islands comprising the Seychelles had been visited earlier,
the first documented exploration of the main granitic islands was carried out in 1609 by
an English expedition. The islands then remained uninhabited for a further 160 years,
although they were visited regularly by navigators who exploited their timber, freshwater
and food resources. For some time the islands were also used as a base for
pirates.
Distant Europe created this mid-oceanic world of islands precisely because of their
strategic location. During the 18th century, French navigators from the Ile de France
(now Mauritius) sent expeditions to the islands and, in 1756, Mahé and seven
other islands were formally claimed in the name of the king of France. They were named
Séchelles in honour of the finance minister to Louis XV, Jean Moreau de
Sachelle. The first French settlers arrived in 1770 and proceeded to administer the islands
for the next 40 years. In 1785 the Seychelles population was 120 slaves and 7 whites.
Towards the end of the 18th century, the British started to take an interest in the islands.
Governor De Quinssy surrendered to the British, but as they sailed on, raised the French
flag again. The French capitulated about a dozen times in this manner before the
Seychelles became a British dependency of Mauritius in 1814.
The islands had to be self-supporting and maintain the British administrators and troops
garrisoned there. Britain was thus keen to win over the merchants and ex-corsairs who
were encouraged to transform themselves into a cinnamon and copra plantocracy. As part
of the policy of creating a new class of collaborators, the French language and Roman
Catholic religion flourished. Thus a peculiar cultural disjunction between socio-economic
and state power was to characterize the islands under British rule. The abolition of
slavery in 1835 led to the creation of the Seychellois people, who are of mixed African,
Malagasy, and European origin, later enriched by Indian and Chinese stock. The
population is now totally integrated, using a common Creole language derived from
French, revealing Bantu grammatical influence. Creole, English, and French are the
official languages.
In 1903 the Seychelles became a crown colony administered from London. The country
went into the political and economic doldrums until 1964, when political parties were
formed. In 1976 the country gained its independence as a republic within the
Commonwealth.
The Road to Democracy
The modern political history of the Seychelles began in the 1960s when local political
parties were formed to represent the needs of the people to the British colonial regime.
The two most prominent leaders of those days are still the main political personalities in
the Seychelles. France-Albert René, leader of the Seychelles United People's
Party (SPUP), and James Mancham, leader of the Seychelles Democratic Party
(SDP).
The 1974 elections established a coalition of the two parties as the first independent
Seychelles government. As head of the largest party in the government, James Mancham
went on to become the first president of an independent Seychelles on 29 June 1976, with
Albert René as his prime minister. Barely a year later, on 5 June 1977,
René carried out an almost bloodless coup, which established the SPUP (later to
become the Seychelles People's Progressive Front SPPF) as the leading political force in
Seychelles. The Seychelles Democratic Party was outlawed and many of its members left
the island.
In the years that followed, the country went through a period of social and economic
development. Tourism became the main pillar of the Seychelles economy. New hotels
were built to complement those already existing. The local airline, Air Seychelles,
expanded to start international flights which brought increasing numbers of tourists to the
country, first with charter planes, and eventually with new planes of its own. Other
industries were also promoted. The fishing industry became one of the biggest foreign
exchange earners, particularly after the establishment of a modern tuna canning plant in
the late 1980s.
Alongside these two industries and other developments in the economic sector, the
Seychelles government also invested in the social sector, providing new housing,
recreational and other facilities throughout the country. A comprehensive Welfare
State was introduced, with free health care and education made available to all
Seychellois. As a result, the Seychelles was able to achieve a high level of social
development for its people, with almost universal literacy, low infant mortality, and high
life expectancy comparable to developed countries.
Between 1977 and the early 1990s, the Seychelles became a well-established member of
the international community and played a prominent role in many international
organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, the
Commonwealth and the Francophonie Group of Countries.
It was against this background of international links and continuing social and economic
development, that President René decided to introduce multi-party politics in
December 1991. During the early months of 1992 a total of eight political parties
registered. These included the Democratic Party, led by Sir James Mancham, who had
returned to the Seychelles from exile.
Special elections were held to elect the people who would formulate the new constitution.
President Ren‚'s party, the SPPF won 14 delegates, while the remaining 8 were won by
the democratic party led by Sir James Mancham. The draft constitution which was then
drawn up was put to referendum in November 1992 but failed to obtain the required 60%
approval.
Thus delegates from both sides returned to the discussion table. Greater transparency
meant that debates, held in Creole, brought the argument to the people via the mass
media. A new atmosphere of trust and reconciliation developed between the different
parties, and when the time came for the members of the Commission to ratify the new
Constitution they did so unanimously. The new constitution was subsequently approved
by over 73% of the electorate in June 1993.
A few weeks later, on July 23rd, presidential and legislative Assembly elections were
held.
The Process of Economic Transition
The Seychelles economy has made tremendous advances in the 20 years since
Independence in 1976, and social and economic indicators are impressive. This is
indicated by the relatively high GNP per capita, which had risen to an estimated US$
6,500 in 1995. However, the impressive statistics have to be viewed against the
background of the extreme fragility of the Seychelles economy.
The Seychelles, like many other small island developing states, has many disadvantages
including a small human and natural resource base, small internal markets, high
dependence on imports, limited domestic resource mobilization potential, physical
dispersion and isolation from major trade routes, extreme dependence on one or two
vulnerable industries (including tourism and fisheries), environmental fragility and so
forth. The economy is highly vulnerable to outside influences, like the decline of the
tourist industry during the Gulf War. The Seychelles has also experienced a significant
decline in ODA receipts over the past few years.
Following the political transition, the Seychelles economy is now undergoing a period of
profound changes, and is rapidly moving away from an economy with strong central
direction and high levels of state ownership, to one relying increasingly on private
initiative and market mechanisms. This change has been initiated by the move to pluralist
democracy, and has been reinforced by the State's actions in winding down its
predominant role and divesting its ownership of productive assets to allow room for the
private sector to flourish and for the entrepreneur to take risks.
As the Seychelles economy has traditionally been based on just two industries (namely
tourism, which accounts for around 60% of foreign exchange earnings, and fisheries) the
country is seeking to diversify through the creation of a third pillar of the economy, based
on the development of the country as an international trade and investment centre,
including off-shore services, transhipment, and export processing. Despite such moves, in
the immediate future, tourism will remain the main engine for the growth of the
economy, and for maintaining the living standards of the people.
This preponderant focus on tourism means that the Seychelles remains a vulnerable
economy. An additional hazard is that the dominance of beach tourism, as well as eco-
tourism, makes the industry extremely susceptible to any form of pollution and thus
necessitates sound environmental management and the promotion of environmentally
sustainable development. In view of our lack of human, financial, and technological
capacities, it is important to ensure that the country can benefit from the resources of the
ocean in a manner that is in keeping with ecological sensitivity.
Development Strategies
In order to promote sustainable development and to create an enabling environment for
the development of the private sector, the Seychelles government has introduced two
major policy documents in the recent past. These are the Environmental
Management Plan for Seychelles (EMPS) and the Public Sector Investment Programme
(PSIP). The EMPS addresses a wide range of environmental issues that
have come to the fore and exemplifies the concern of the Seychelles with the
sustainablility of its development process, which is of particular importance to a small
vulnerable, island state.
At a national level, Seychelles' Environmental Management Plan (1990 - 2000) identifies
a number of environmental issues and priorities for action, including those which
specifically stress the importance of developing an anticipatory and preventive approach to
coastal and marine pollution, as opposed to belated attempts at environmental
rehabilitation. In spite of a number of remarkable initiatives which are being
implemented, the Seychelles at present lacks the database, monitoring capability, and even
expertise in some key areas, to produce authorative assessments of the marine
environment.
The PSIP embodies the change in approach to economic management and
details the new orientation on the country's development strategy. It embodies the gradual
shift of initiatives for development investment from the state to the private sector. The
government is pursuing a steady programme of privatization, and is withdrawing from
direct involvement in many areas of economic activity. Important private investments are
expected in tourism, trade, and communications during the 1995-97 period. A set of fiscal
measures is in place aiming to attract foreign investment in the Seychelles. The setting up
of an international trade zone and the reforms at the Port of Victoria are targeted at the
same goal. All this amounts to a major restructuring of the Seychelles economy. To
succeed and maintain employment at acceptable levels, public and private investments
must be maintained at a constant level but foreign investment is the only type that will not
cause a deterioration in the external equilibrium.
It is envisaged that in recognition of the importance of the Seychelles' environmental,
economic, and social conditions, and the levels of development, the international
community must continue to respond to the needs of developing countries, through
support for appropriate programmes and activities that can be implemented at both
national and regional levels. This is not just a necessity for developing countries, but it is
also an issue that has direct relevance to the sustainability of the planet's oceanic
resources as a whole.
Raymond de-Silva is attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Planning and Environment of the Republic of Seychelles.