Madam, – Jody Clarke (“Seychelles, trouble in paradise”, Weekend Review, December 18th) correctly identifies a backlash against Irish personnel working for the Seychelles government from a number of parties, but fails to identify the true causes of this backlash.
Jean-François Ferrari of the Seychelles Opposition Party complains that his SNP opposition newspaper office was searched by a former garda superintendent appointed into the Seychelles police. At a time when Seychelles waters are regularly invaded by Somali pirates (indeed when armed pirates have landed on Seychelles territory), when 23 Seychellois citizens have been kidnapped in four separate incidents, when Seychelles coastguard vessels are routinely fired on by pirates and when there are growing concerns that fundamentalist terrorism in Somalia and East Africa may be deriving financial and material benefit from ransoms extorted by Somali pirate ransoms, Mr Ferrari chose to print, on the front page of his political party’s newspaper (which is also hosted on the internet) the graphic plans of a new naval base currently being built with overseas aid to help confront piracy in Seychelles waters.
Was this the act of a responsible opposition party and its newspaper? Did not the Seychelles government have a responsibility to search (the police search was conducted under a court warrant and in calm cooperation with a senior figure in the newspaper) and locate the leaked documents so that the source of the leak could be identified to prevent further risk to Seychelles personnel and the EU personnel helping them?
Mr Ferrari’s views are not indicative of the ordinary Seychellois man or woman, nor do I believe the SNP Opposition party would have deliberately or consciously put Seychelles at risk – this leak was an aberration. Perhaps next time, if Mr Ferrari travels with those of us Irish officers who have personally led the ground operations to recover all of the Seychellois hostages from Somalia (and indeed helped with other countries’ hostage releases as well), or went on patrol with the courageous Seychelles Coastguard when they are next subjected to automatic weapons and RPG fire from pirates, he might feel less inclined to publish confidential security material.
In addition, Mr Clarke states: “People in the diplomatic community . . . expressed their disapproval of the Irish workers to this reporter.” I am quite sure they did. In our respective positions within the administration here, we do our best to work with and co-operate with diplomatic representation from other states and international agencies such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Unlike these external actors, however, we are appointed to and serve the democratic government and people of the Republic of Seychelles.
As a consequence, there are occasions when our advice and work conflicts with external interests and agendas. I refer to The Irish Times article of May 29th, 2010, by Dr Garret FitzGerald in which he cites the work being done by Irish personnel in Seychelles as an “example of the kind of valuable role Irish people can play in developing countries, where a combination of trustworthiness, good human relations and the skilful deployment of expertise – all free of the pursuit of a national self-interest – gives us a clear advantage vis-a-vis some other European states.”
Is it therefore surprising that some people in the diplomatic community express their disapproval of us? One senior member of the diplomatic community has on a number of occasions expressed to me resentment at “the influence in Seychelles of such a small and peripheral European state such as Ireland.”
In a small but not entirely insignificant way, former Irish public servants have helped and are helping a courageous and reforming, democratically-elected president to achieve sustainable improvements in the economy, the criminal justice system, the public administration, education and national safety and security.
Mr Clarke is correct when he says there has been a backlash, but it is important to understand that it is a backlash from external and internal political and anti-reform interests that would use Seychelles and its people for their own ends. – Yours, etc,