Controversy over India’s plan to build military base in Seychelles
VICTORIA, SEYCHELLES: A plan for India to build a military base on an outlying Seychelles island has won favour among the archipelago nation’s politicians, but some hostility from its people.
The base on Assumption Island is to be funded by India and shared by the two countries’ militaries. The deal was struck in principle in 2015 during a visit to the Seychelles by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but progress since has been slow.
The government of the Seychelles, based in Victoria on Mahe Island 1,135 kilometres northeast of Assumption, says the base will help coastguards to patrol its 1.3 million sq km exclusive economic zone for illegal fishing, drug trafficking and piracy. The location of the remote coral island lends it strategic importance for monitoring shipping in the Mozambique Channel.
India plans to invest $550 mn dollars in building the base to help it ensure the safety of its vessels in the southern Indian Ocean. “Assumption is very close to the Mozambique Channel where much of the international trade is transiting, and not just for India but for other countries as well, and our interest is that our trading vessels are safe,” said India’s ambassador in Victoria, Ausaf Sayeed.
India has had a military cooperation agreement with the Seychelles since 2003 and the deal would give it use of the Assumption base for up to 30 years. But ratification of the 2015 agreement has been slow with a new, amended pact only signed between the two countries on January 27.
“What we did in relation to the first agreement is to clarify some points that could give rise to litigation,” said Frank Ally, the Seychelles’ attorney general. He said these included a prohibition on any nuclear uses of the island or weapons storage. India is also not allowed to use Assumption in war. The government has made available to the public some details of the classified defence agreement. Nevertheless, the project remains controversial with small weekly demonstrations in the capital.
Indian presence in the Seychelles is a sensitive matter. Some fear an influx of Indian workers who, they say, might come to dominate the economy, while others consider a foreign power building a military base an affront to sovereignty and national pride.