In April 1986, Seychelles President France-Albert Rene made a special request to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during his visit to New Delhi: Depute a small team of Indian security officials to discreetly assess the existing security and police systems in his country.
This arose because of his doubts about his own security setup and since the entire Indian Ocean Islands were caught in the whirlpool of Cold War polemics. Consequently, this writer was chosen to lead a two-member team early in 1987. The other member was a senior Intelligence Bureau (IB) official.
Rene, a “leftist,” had ousted James Mancham, the first “right-wing” president, from power in 1977, one year after the country’s independence. Since then, Mancham was openly in cohorts with the Western and South African intelligence agencies to return to power through countercoup or elections.
Although Rene personally knew many foreign leaders like French President Francois Mitterrand or Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, there were reasons why he turned to India to do this sensitive work. He did not want to be caught in the Cold War crossfire. Also, France, which had guided Seychelles’ security for long, had turned against it for geopolitical reasons, forcing Rene to temporarily turn to Tanzania and the Soviet Union to save his government.
Further, the May 13, 1978, coup in the Comoros orchestrated by a French mercenary named Bob Denard had successfully overthrown the leftist President Ali Soilih and had brought back former president Ahmed Abdallah, who was ousted in 1975. Ahmed Abdallah had then promptly restored his close ties with France and other Western countries.
Meanwhile, Mancham was using global media to highlight his comeback efforts. On May 24, 1983, he told The Observer in London that he had accepted GBP 12,000 from MI-6 for his election campaign. He also admitted that he had signed two agreements with the CIA, well before the Seychelles got independence in 1976, through which the Agency would set up an intelligence system to monitor his political opponents and to create a para-military unit in the Seychelles. The other agreement was to subsidise his weekly Seychelles News through the US embassy in Nairobi.
More light was thrown on Rene’s predicament by a CIA assessment document (“The Mellowing of President Rene”, October 1983), declassified only in 2008: In April 1979, he had to hurriedly request the Soviet Union to send warships to show support during a suspected coup in the Seychelles. In November that year, the Soviet Union was again asked to send warships against a suspected French plot to oust him. During that period, Rene even arrested a French police adviser then working with him and deported him to France. The New York Times (December 23, 1979) identified him as Jacques Chevalereau.
The CIA paper also said that Rene detained a French military crew working in a Seychellois patrol boat “Topaz”. The paper added that Rene’s suspicions against the French involvement “were not totally groundless according to US Embassy reporting”.
These destabilising efforts reached a nadir on November 25, 1981, when 43 South Africa-supported mercenaries called “The Froth Blowers” led by British-Irish Col. Thomas “Mad” Mike Hoare arrived at Mahe, Seychelles International Airport through Air Swaziland F-28 (Fokker) chartered aircraft. Their original idea was to enter the country like tourists and incite Rene’s opponents to rise in revolt. This time India was unwittingly involved in this attempted coup.
Although Hoare’s boys were dressed as tourists, a chance examination by a local customs official led to the discovery of AK-47 rifles in their baggage. Knowing that their game was up, the mercenaries took 70 airport staff hostage. They also took control of the airport control tower.
At that time a Boeing 707Air India flight 224 led by Captain Umesh Saxena from Salisbury (now Harare), which was going to Bombay with 64 passengers on board, was arriving at the Mahe airport for a scheduled refuelling. While Hoare’s mercenaries allowed it to land, the local security forces assisted by Tanzanian soldiers did not want it to come down. A fire fight ensued which damaged the mercenary plane F-28 (Fokker).
Hoare’s mercenaries realised that they could escape only through the Air India flight and tried to force Captain Saxena to take them to Zimbabwe. They finally agreed to travel to Durban due to shortage of fuel. At Durban, the mercenaries were arrested and later prosecuted.
It was in this background that we landed early in 1987 at the Mahe international airport near their capital city Victoria. We had expected the airport and capital city to be ringed by uniformed troops in view of the earlier coup attempts. Surprisingly, we did not notice any unusual police or armed forces deployment anywhere there or on our way to the hotel.
The next morning, when we were taken to the presidential palace to meet President Rene, we were again surprised to find that except for a ceremonial guard outside, the corridors of the palace were deserted. We were first taken to the President’s secretary, who led us to Rene’s modest office, where he gave us a briefing on what he was looking for.
He frankly told us that he could not trust his own security set-up due to “colour” divisions. He also told us that he was changing the white Commissioner of Police and appointing a “mulatto” officer who had better relations with the people, especially blacks. He wanted us to visit all the security establishments, including training institutes, assess their professionalism and give suggestions.
In addition, he openly told us that he would have to work with the Western nations to dispel the notion that he was merely following the Soviet bloc. Amazingly, the same assessment was made by the CIA document in 1983 saying that Rene was “showing a more positive attitude toward the major US interest in Seychelles-the USAF tracking station in Mahe”.
We completed our assignment within one week and orally presented our findings to him, adding that we would send our written report through our Prime Minister’s office.
The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, who was part of the high-level committee to enquire into the 26/11 terror attacks
Sunny day at Seychelles beach (Source: X/@Harmonyexplore1) 
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