CONFIDENTIAL
Mr Stanley
SEYCHELLES:
THE OVERTHROW OF MR MANCHAM
RECEIVED IN
5. 51
RE...
16 JUN 1977
HKC 012/5
1. It is not often perhaps that FCO officials indulge in predictions about what may happen when a dependent territory becomes independent and it is even less often, I suspect, that events bear out their predictions. When there is an instance of this happening I think it ought not to go unrecorded.
2. When I heard the news on Sunday 5'June of the coup d'etat in Seychelles I could not help recalling that we in HKIOD, the department responsible for Seychelles before it became independent, had been of the view that Mr Mancham would probably not last for more than a year after independence and that Mr Rene would be the one to remove him from power. I do not have ready access to the files which would bear out what I say, but there is the report that Mr O'Keeffe (together with Mr Stuart, his predecessor as Head of HKIOD) wrote on the Seychelles' independence process and which you will recall my showing you last year. I attach a copy least. of this report and would draw your attention to paragraphs 15-18 and also paragraph 26(d). The most quotable of Mr O'Keeffe's remarks are the following (they relate to the pros and cons of the decision that Seychelles would become a Republic upon independence):
(a) "He [Mr Mancham] would emerge as his country's first President; and provided he could effectively maintain control over national security and defence, he could be reasonably confident of being able to live the itinerant and extravagant life which had become a necessity to him without the fear of an early coup d'etat at home.
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(b) "He [Mr Rene] could have the reasonable expectation of finding an opportunity in due course to oust Mancham
His expectation was that the coalition would gradually evolve into a single party and that Seychelles in due course would be a one- party State
If
(c) "We [Mr Larmour, Mr Grennan and Mr O'Keeffe himself] initially had some doubts about the proposal which seemed to have emerged rather hastily and to have been accepted by Mancham with insufficient reflection. The Longer term dangers to his position seemed to us to be evident
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(a) '....a victory by Mancham [in the event of fresh elections having been held before independence] would not necessarily have been decisive. The risk of an OAU or Soviet- financed revolution by the SPUP was not negligible."
3. I think these remarks speak for themselves in the light of events in Seychelles over the last few days and, with deference to EAD's views, I should not be surprised if (b) does not still hold pointers for the future.
CONFIDENTIAL
/4. Perhaps
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