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........

© Indian Express