Africa News blog

Forgiveness in paradise?

If you lived on an archipelago that defined paradise with palm-fringed white sand beaches and emerald green waters, you would expect a relaxed, lazy pace of life.

Lazy would be a generous description of the Seychellois soldier’s wave at the entrance to State House as I arrived with my local colleague George Thande – who is admittedly a regular visitor here.

The Seychelles were ruled by the French before the British and State House in the capital Victoria is every bit the luxurious colonial mansion: a lush garden exploding with tropical colours; an oil painting of Britain’s Queen Victoria hangs in the wood-panelled reception room close to a portrait of Castor, a runaway slave from the 19th century with a fearsome reputation; a Daimler and Rolls Royce are parked on the forecourt.

But President James Alix Michel, cannot afford to be relaxed. This is an exotic destination at the sharp end of the global financial crisis.

The Indian Ocean archipelago may lie thousands of miles from the financial hubs of the world, but the bankers on Wall Street and in the City of London, not to mention the celebrity visitors, help keep the Seychelles’ tourism-dependent economy afloat.

On Friday, however, Michel told Reuters he thought visitor numbers might drop by as much as 25 percent, a painful blow for a heavily indebted economy –  its $800 million debt is somewhat more than 2007 gross domestic product according to World Bank figures. The country, with only 85,000 people, is in desperate need of foreign currency to replenish severely depleted reserves.

When the Seychelles failed to service an interest payment on a $230 million bond late last year, it called in the International Monetary Fund, which pledged a 2-year $26 million rescue package. Now negotiations are underway with creditors over how to re-structure the debts.

Should we really care about the Chagossians?

Should we really care that Britain’s House of Lords upheld a British government appeal on Wednesday, blocking the return of hundreds of Chagossians to their Indian Ocean homes?The decision by the House of Lords ends a years-long battle to secure the Chagos Islanders the right to return to their archipelago, from where they were forcibly removed in the 1960s and ’70s to make way for an American airbase on Diego Garcia.

By a ruling of 3-2, the lords backed a British government appeal that argued that allowing the islanders to return could have a detrimental effect on defence and international security. It’s a tough decision and an agonizing result for the Chagos islanders. They continue to suffer appalling injustice because of the British government, who booted them out of the Chagos islands – also known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – to make way for a US military base.

But now the estimated 5,000 Chagossians are mostly scattered between Mauritius, Seychelles, and Britain. And the younger generations (many of whom are half Chagossian) don’t seem so keen to return. One expert has said that about 1,000 Chagossians could return to two of Chago’s six atolls, making a living from coconuts, fishing and ecotourism. But others say this outline plan has grossly underestimated the costs and practical difficulties. Should we, in fact, breathe a sigh of relief at the House of Lords’ decision?

Small islands like those in the Chagos Archipelago tend to have an incredibly rich variety of plants and animals, often found nowhere else. Scientists and sailors visiting the islands describe a near paradise of coral reefs teeming with fish. And examples from elsewhere in the Indian Ocean – Mauritius, Madagascar, Reunion, Comoros, and the Seychelles – show just how badly human populations can damage the environment.

The Chagos Archipelago, for example, has the largest coral atoll in the world, 10 so-called Important Bird Areas, ideal nesting conditions for two turtle species, and – according to tests in 1996 and 2006 – some of the world’s cleanest waters too. And while a 1998 rise in water temperatures killed as much as 95 percent of coral in some areas, Chagos’ reefs grew back probably because there is so little human activity, scientists say. The nearby Maldives were not so lucky.

A sense of justice tells us that Chagossians should be allowed to return. But if these islands truly are on the frontline in the battle against extinctions and if such clean and isolated regions are truly a rarity, then should we really be upset by the block on Chagossians’ return to their homeland?