U.S. STILL WILLING TO AID SEYCHELLES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504570016-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: October 7, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504570016-7
ARTICLE P RED
ON PAGE
I By James Morrison
The United States is prepared to
offer limited military training to the
Seychelles even though North
Korean troops help keep the island
government in power in its fight
against exiled anti-communist reb-
els, according to David Fischer,
director of the State Department
office of East African Affairs.
Although the State Department
last week said it believes the North
Koreans might be preparing to leave
the island, a spokesman for the Sey-
chelles resistance has said the North
Koreans are as entrenched as ever.
Critics of such U.S. aid call the
Seychelles government a Marxist
dictatorship and argue that any U.S.
offer of military aid makes a mock-
ery of the Reagan administration's
often-stated goals of supporting
democratic resistance movements.
Critics also believe that troops
from Tanzania, which helped Sey-
chelles ruler France Albert Rene
overthrow a democratically elected
government in 1977 and helped keep
him in power until North Koreans
replaced them about a year ago, will
return to the Seychelles if the North
Koreans leave.
About 125 North Koreans act as
Mr. Rene's bodyguards and help
train his army on the strategically
located archipelago of 92 islands,
located about 800 miles off the east
coast of Africa. The islands lie in the
oil shipping routes from the Red Sea
through the Indian Ocean and
around the southern cape of Africa.
The main island of Mahe is home
to a U.S. Air Force radar station,
reputed to track NASA satellites but
also said to collect ssatellite data.
U.S. military training for the Sey-
chelles is not contingent upon the
removal of North Korean troops,
said Mr. Fischer, former U.S. ambas-
sador to the Seychelles. In fact, he
said, the U.S. has had a longstanding
offer of military training to the Sey-
chelles.
The State Department is prepar-
ing to discuss a military program
when the Seychelles defense minis-
ter, Ogilvy Berlouis, visits the
United States next month. If Mr.
WASHINGTON TIMES
7 October 1985
U.S. still willing
to aid Seychelles
Rene accepts the U.S. offer of mili-
tary training, the State Department
would interpret that move as an
effort of the Seychelles to move out
of the Soviet sphere of interest, Mr.
Fischer said.
"We have reason to believe [the
Seychelles government] will accept
it," Mr. Fischer said.
"We will be pleased if the North
Koreans are, in fact, leaving," he
said. "We believe it would show that
the Rene government is becoming
more non-aligned.'
"That's just bloody nonsense,"
said Rear Adm. (Ret.) Robert J.
Hanks, former head of U.S. naval
forces in the Middle East whose
command included the Seychelles.
"Anybody who thinks we are going
to be able to buy their return to
democracy and capitalism is smok-
ing that stuff that's illegal," he said.
Seychelles exiles in London
expressed shock when told of the
State Department's plans.
"I would find it extremely diffi-
cult to believe," said Gerard Hoarau,
president of the Seychellois National
Movement, the exiles' political
front. "I cannot see the United States
approving of a one-party state where
no opposition is allowed and, espe-
cially, one with human rights abuses.
"We look to the United States as a
guardian of democracy," he added.
"But I think the United States is let-
ting us down very badly."
Paul Chow, a spokesman for the
Seychellois resistance who visited
the United States recently, said any
member of the Seychelles military
who receives U.S. training will
return to the islands and "continue
to oppress the people."
Mr. Fischer said the Seychelles is
showing other signs of what he
called a "more balanced foreign
policy." Mr. Rene has allowed the
return of U.S. Navy ships for rest-
and-recreation tours and is toning
down his previous anti-U.S. rhetoric
at the United Nations, Mr. Fischer
said.
"He's no Soviet puppet;' he said of
Mr. Rene.
Since Mr. Rene took power in the
Seychelles, he has aligned himself
with the Soviet Union, Cuba and
Nort11.. Korea, and has been quoted,
own party newspaper, as
ut st countries.
He has also consolidated power in
own political parts, the Seychef
;kits People's Progressive Front, out-
l*wed the oppositibi Seychelles
Democratic Party, silenced the
position press and locked up-
tical opponents, some of who~ii
ere accused of trying to overthrow
the government in an aborted 1981
'coup. They were later either con-
victed or exiled.
That coup, financed by Seychelles
exiles of the Movement for the
Resistance, was led by the legend-
ary mercenary Col. Michael "Mad
Mike" Hoare, who hijacked a plane
to South Africa when the coup failed.
He was later arrested and sentenced
to 10 years in a South African jail.
Amnesty International, in a
report this year, identifies several
political prisoners not connected
with that coup who are still held by
Mr. Rene. The international human
rights group also calls for investiga-
tions into suspected murders of
political opponents.
Mr. Rene created the Seychelles'
first army, estimated at 800 troops;
accepted Soviet arms; allowed
Soviet warships to use the island
ports; and invited in Soviet and
Cuban advisers.
He has strongly denied Western
press reports that the Soviet Union
has a military base on the Seychelco
Check hyphenationles.
The idyllic islands, whose 65,000
inhabitants are a mixture of Asians,
Africans and Europeans, are
reputed to have been the original
Garden of Eden.
'Ibday the Seychelles is a pawn in
the global superpower chess game,
according to experts like Adm.
Hanks, now a consultant with the
Institute for Foreign Policy
Analysis.
"We can do without the Seychelles
as long as nobody else gets it;' he
said. "If the Soviets have it, it would
be a big problem."
He said an unfriendly power in
control of the Seychelles could
threaten U.S. military installations
on Diego Garcia, another island in
the Indian Ocean. An enemy could
also use the islands as a perma-
nently based aircraft carrier to
refuel combat planes and as a sea-
port for battleships in a war in the
Indian subcontinent, Africa or the
Middle East, he said.
Adm. Hanks said the offer of U.S.
military training will only increase
Mr. Rene's control over the Seychel-
les people.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504570016-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504570016-7
Z.
"Rene is going to use them for the
same reason he used the North
Koreans," he said.
The U.S. military training is being
offered through the U.S. Interna-
tional Military Education raining
program, which offers logistical,
transportation, combat or leader-
ship training to foreign military per-
sonnel. The State Department has
budgeted $50,000 to train Seychelles
military personnel in the United
States.
The offer of military training is
not contingent upon the removal of
North Korean troops, Mr. Fischer
said. Although an official explana-
tion of the reported withdrawal of
the North Koreans is unavailable,
Mr. Fischer said, he suspects they
have had cultural and language
difficulties with the Seychelles peo-
ple.
The Seychelles U.N. ambassador,
Giovinella Gonthier, did not respond
to a reporter's inquiry about the
reported movement of Korean
troops from the islands.
Asked if supporting a government
that overthrew a democratically
elected president is consistent with
President Reagan's philosophy, Mr.
Fischer pointed out that the United
States has many bilateral relations
with one-party states.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504570016-7