Ramkalawan’s Perspective on Seychelles-EU Relationship Is Flawed and Misleading

 President Ramkalawan, has for quite some time now, been overplaying the nature of the Seychelles relationship with the European Union. During a February visit to the Embassy of Seychelles in Brussels and in a meeting with European Union officials as well as EU ambassador to Seychelles, Vincent Degert, Ramkalawan made sure to, “on behalf of the government and the people of Seychelles express our appreciation for the strong partnership that exist between Seychelles and the EU”.

The President similarly attempted to leverage this relationship during his recent address to the nation, where he made sure to emphasize cooperation between the European Union and Seychelles, conveniently ignoring criticism recently levied against his government’s activities in the human rights field.

Of course recent developments in Seychelles have been followed closely by European Union officials, as well as international human rights organizations. All have expressed their concerns over the direction in which the country is headed. One senior MEP sitting on the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI) told this reporter in official correspondence that “The situation in Seychelles is of concern & warrants further scrutiny, particularly with regards to the financial support provided through several partnership & capacity-building programs. The possibility that a resolution will be tabled at one of the upcoming plenary sessions in the next year is being seriously discussed by myself & several other members.”

Only recently, in September of this year, the Seychelles Human Rights Commission, the Ombudsman and Bar Association of Seychelles all filed a lawsuit against the government challenging the 10th Constitutional Amendment that would empower the Defense Forces to play a role in internal security matters. The specific concern expressed, to quote directly from a communiqué issued, was that the President’s proposed amendment, “undermines the democratic protections afforded by the Constitution, in particular due process, the rule of law and human rights”.

Naturally in a country that has had such a dark history with military coups, it only makes sense for a leader looking to position themselves in power long-term, to seek to ensure the ability of a sympathetic military to operate freely in times of peace. This, coupled with recent appointments which the President made of his cronies to positions of power in the military, should leave everybody more than slightly concerned.

A further instance of the severe deterioration of democracy in Seychelles was seen in the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), which Ramkalawan has been targeting for years. As early as 2016 the former opposition leader had been filing complaints against the state broadcaster, criticizing them for promoting a political agenda that did not support his own. His accusations, specifically, were that the national television station was guilty of exhibiting too much support for Parti Lepep. More recently and as President, he has been able to actually do something about this by threatening the broadcaster with cutting their funding as a way of directly impacting what can and cannot be said on national TV. After all if you don’t control the media how can you possibly control the population?

As a way of encouraging and further strengthening his relationship with European Union, the President has also been making the absurd claim that his administration is free and clean of corruption. We need look no further than only a few weeks ago to see how ridiculous this claim is, with the President’s own Chief Justice, Ronny Govinden, accused publicly of taking advantage of his position of power for self-enrichment. Specifically, he was accused of procuring land below market value and reselling this for personal gain, excusing it away as necessary as a result of financial hit he took with his divorce. It is unclear when it became the responsibility of the public purse, to make up for political appointees poor life decisions.

In terms of the country’s reported relationship with the European Union, one of the world’s foremost guardians of human rights, it would be doubtful if despite all of these issues, and we are only touching on the surface, there was no concern being expressed in Brussels as to the future direction of the country. Indeed we know from confidential sources that the head of the European Union funded Anti-Corruption Commission of Seychelles (ACCS), May De Silva, was in Brussels not too long ago deflecting criticism being levied against her organization for engaging in practices that don’t conform with human rights standards.

European officials must put an end to this charade, and speak out regarding their concerns. At a time when democratic backsliding is so commonplace on the African continent, and anti-democratic actors such as China and Russia are rearing their ugly heads, the European Union must do everything within its power to discourage regimes, such as Wavel Ramkalawan’s government, from not respecting human rights. The European Union certainly has the power to do so, and must not allow their relationship with Seychelles to be leveraged as a tool to enable nepotism, corruption, miscarriages of justice and severe human rights violations.

Ramkalawan’s Perspective on Seychelles-EU Relationship Is Flawed and Misleading | by Marie Aguillard | Nov, 2022 | Medium