Sir James Mancham
Bon vivant president of the Seychelles who decamped to Putney after being unseated in a coup
SIR JAMES MANCHAM, who has died aged 77, was the former playboy president of the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean. A bon vivant known for his love of beautiful women, he was the first president of the idyllic islands when they became independent from Britain in 1976. He had the unique distinction of having served as Seychelles’ first chief minister, then prime minister and then “founding president”. Only a year after being installed as president, however, he was the victim of a Marxist coup d’état led by his prime minister and arch rival, Albert René.
News of the coup reached Mancham while he was in London attending the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations and the Commonwealth Summit. Scheduled to make a speech in front of the Queen, he was bitter that it was cancelled on the grounds that it would embarrass the monarch were he to mention the political situation.
Mancham would later recall how he was woken at five am by a telephone call from his friend the arms broker Adnan Khashoggi: “I was in a deep sleep, a guest of Her Majesty’s government in a suite at the Savoy … with my own guest sleeping prettily beside me.”
Mancham made no secret of his love of women, and multiple relationships were, he said, part of the inheritance of a boy born in the “islands of love”.
The son of wealthy Seychellois merchants, his mother French and his father Chinese, James Richard Marie Mancham was born on August 11 1939. Sent to London to study law, he was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1961.
He returned to the Seychelles just as the British were encouraging the elected governing council there to start taking greater control of domestic affairs, and he formed the Democratic Party in 1964. At first, as a member of the governing council, he identified closely with the “grands blancs”, the plantation-owning classes, who argued in favour of minimising taxes on their coconut production, but gradually he started to campaign for greater rights for the poor, largely black labourers who brought in the harvest. On a holiday to the United States as a guest of members of the Heinz food company he claimed to have been shocked at the social inequalities between white and black Americans.
In spite of evidence that Britain wanted to divest itself of all possessions “east of Suez”, Mancham believed firmly that the Seychelles would be better off maintaining some kind of close association with Britain even after eventual independence. As first chief minister from 1966 (prime minister from 1976), he lobbied successive governors and constitutional experts in London to allow the islands to become a selfgoverning protectorate along the lines of Gibraltar.
He hoped Britain would grant the Seychelles special status akin to what France had done for nearby Réunion. When it became clear that the British government had no wish to maintain small colonies like Seychelles, Mancham set his sights on becoming its first president. He campaigned to make the islands “the Switzerland of the Indian Ocean”, and hoped to attract wealthy foreign investors to a tax-free haven.
While his arch political rival Albert René courted friends and tactical alliances in the eastern Bloc, and had his People’s United Party recognised as a “liberation movement” by the Organisation for African Unity, Mancham pinned his hopes on attracting high rollers to invest.
He befriended Peter Sellers and George Harrison, Adnan Khashoggi and the Shah of Persia. He enjoyed a love affair (while married to his first wife) with the Bosnian actress and Bond girl Olga Bisera and boasted of flirting with Jackie Kennedy’s sister Lee Radziwill and the actress Vivian Ventura.
When he was denounced by political opponents for mingling with the jet set, Mancham retorted that he needed to bring rich, high-profile individuals to the islands to promote tourism and to attract investment.
Asked by a foreign reporter whether his complicated private life eroded his political credibility, he observed: “Ever since I was a schoolboy I have enjoyed the company of beautiful ladies and I won four elections while everybody knew about this. I have always felt that life should be a series of honeymoons. What is a tête-à-tête if you don’t have stories to tell?”
Jimmy Mancham was only 37 when he was overthrown, and one of his comforts in exile was light music. There was a song, he said, to match every turn in life. During his brief presidency, when his country was happy and peaceful, he was asked to describe his ideal day.
“It would begin with a long drink, toasting the rising sun and singing Che Sera Sera. After a day’s work, I would toast the setting sun and sing Tonight, Tonight … Then I would like to wake up in the morning, look in my mirror and sing There’s Never Been A Night Like This. Now? I can only sing No Regrets …”
Behind the ebullient façade, however, Mancham concealed an intellectualism which did not sit easily with the unsophisticated island-style politics of his homeland. Settled in Putney after the 1977 coup, Mancham campaigned tirelessly for democracy to be returned to the Seychelles. Although he claimed that Margaret Thatcher was sympathetic to his cause, Britain had no real interest in deposing René.
Mancham always denied having any involvement in the counter-coup attempt of 1981, when South African mercenaries led by Colonel “Mad Mike” Hoare attempted to storm the airport. At South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation hearings it was stated that Pretoria would have liked to have seen Mancham back in charge, as a bulwark against communism in the Indian Ocean.
Old friends like Adnan Khashoggi allowed him access to a network of wealthy individuals and the possibility of earning a living from various international consultancies. One unforeseen bonus of his time in London was being interviewed by the Evening Standard journalist Catherine Olsen. She described him as having “skin the colour of golden treacle, taut and firm and a beard with just the right number of grey streaks”. Grasping the reporter’s hand, he began to recite poetry. She became his second wife soon afterwards.
Mancham returned to the Seychelles to stand in democratic elections in 1992. As he stepped off the aeroplane he was greeted by the sound of supporters and local musicians playing the pop song Una Paloma Blanca, an unofficial anthem he had adopted for its line “no one can take my freedom away”. However, Mancham and his Democrats failed to dethrone René’s Progressive Front in subsequent elections, and eventually in 2009 Mancham effectively wound the party up.
René restored much of Mancham’s land to him and he took up residence in a new home, Villa Isabella, built into the rocks on the north coast of Mahé. He continued to travel widely and launched the “Movement for National Reconciliation between Nations and within Nations”. Mancham found an audience for his message by collaborating with the Rev Sun Myung Moon – the Korean who founded the Unification Church, popularly known as “the Moonies”.
Mancham became associated with Moon’s Inter-religious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP). He was later appointed president of the Global Peace Council of the Universal Peace Federation, and the University of Seychelles opened a Sir James Mancham Institute for Peace Studies.
In his last interview just before Christmas, Mancham said that he believed all along that Britain and France had known in advance that Albert René had been plotting the coup. “We were a naive little set of islands adrift in the cross-currents of geopolitics. Once Britain knew it had access to the navy base at Diego Garcia in Chago they knew we were dispensable. And René convinced them he would remain non-aligned, which he did.” Asked whether he minded being remembered as the “playboy president”, he smiled wistfully. “Actually, Albert René used to say I was the ‘playboy’, but he had more girlfriends than I ever did! And why not, in Seychelles the beauty of the islands was made to be enjoyed by lovers.”
Jimmy Mancham was knighted in 1976 and adopted British nationality in 1984.
He married, first, in 1963, Heather Evans, with whom he had a son and a daughter. The marriage was dissolved in 1974 and in 1985 he married, secondly, Catherine Olsen, who survives him with their son and his two other children.