Time Ripe for Seychelles to Join the East African Community

The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)

Makwaia wa Kuhenga

27 June 2011

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There are small but very beautiful islands a little deeper in the east coast of the Indian Ocean called the Seychelles. These are the islands President Jakaya Kikwete visited the other day to a rousing welcome by its residents.

Fortunately, I for one, nurse an everlasting memory for these breath-taking islands because I lived there for one long memorable year as a media consultant seconded by the Tanzanian government to work on the Seychellois state-owned media from 1980 to 1981.

So when one talks of the Seychelles one talks of an assortment of the Indian Ocean archipelago islands, the largest being two with the principal one known as Mahe, which is the seat of government with Victoria as the capital.

It is really Victoria! I will tell you why! As the name, Victoria, which immediately connotes “victory” – this capital city of the rainbow nation of the Seychelles is a revolutionary town. It has tasted and recorded its own revolutionary triumphs over forces of reaction and counter-revolution.

Although the scenario may not resemble a Havana of the late 1950s which witnessed bearded guerrilla fighters led by Comandante Fidel Castro and that internationalist revolutionary Che Guevara triumphantly entering Havana from the Sierra Maestra mountains from where they had waged a protracted guerrilla war campaign against an American-backed military dictatorship, Victoria had witnessed a popular putsch spearheaded by a handful of revolutionary men, led by France Albert Rene and his immediate lieutenant, James Michel.

That was at the dawn of the eighties. The new revolutionary men who had seized power in the Seychelles then immediately looked around for support to safeguard their Revolution. It was Tanzania, then the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist bastion, they had banked on for immediate support to consolidate the Seychellois Revolution. They got it.

Then President and Commander-in-Chief Mwalimu Julius Nyerere ordered a contingent of the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) into the Seychelles at the request of new revolutionary President Albert Rene (pictured) to consolidate the Seychellois Revolution.

It was at the command of Brigadier General Hassan Ngwilizi, now retired, who was to be joined later by Major Abdulrahman Shimbo, currently lieutenant-general and Chief of Staff of the TPDF.

It is against this background and political context in bilateral relations that President Kikwete was visiting the Seychelles last week. The geographical setting of this archipelago state which is only two hours’ flight from Dar es Salaam and its placement in the east coast of Africa makes it every inch East African.

Its rainbow racial composition is another factor because in the Seychelles like in South Africa, you have every soul there in all colour pigmentation. It is all beautiful because any variety is beautiful, isn’t it?

There is another factor. If the islands of Unguja and Pemba which constitute Zanzibar command a tourism destination because of their history, the Seychelles is equally remarkable in tourism attractions. Have you ever seen a coconut resembling a female and male sexual organ? It is found only in the Seychelles.

I have seen it myself! It has a name in French which has skipped my memory although I can name it without being able to write it correctly! Some people even claim, buoyed with evidence of these coconuts that the Seychelles is actually the biblical “Garden of Eve”!

Now here comes the debut of this perspective. It could be very beneficial for the Seychelles if this Indian Ocean island state in the east coast of Africa was to ask for membership of the East African Community (EAC).

One visualises the advantages for Seychelles as many fold. From mutual perspective, Tanzania as a tourism destination can do better if joined by the Seychelles because they are both very attractive tourism destinations. Tourists could come to view game and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and then hop to the Seychelles to enjoy its virgin beaches and see the wonders of nature.

This eventuality may also help to de-isolate the islands because East Africans would be seeing Seychellois leaders most often rather than wait for rare inter-state visits!

Concerns for security in combating piracy and economic linkages may be consolidated in this eventuality for mutual benefit for the whole people of this region of eastern Africa and its ocean, which they mutually share.

So this is to impress upon the relevant officials in Tanzanian respective ministries of East African Cooperation and Foreign Affairs to assure the Seychellois government of support in the event the Seychelles embarks on this option of joining the EAC, which may mean a watershed debut for these beautiful islands and the Seychelles’s cultural and economic linkages with this part of Africa.

Mr wa Kuhenga is a senior Tanzanian journalist and author.

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