well, my guest is seychelles president, wavel ramkalawan. is this a story of paradise lost? president wavel ramkalawan, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. well, it s a pleasure to have you in the studio. you in the seychelles are known at the un as one of the sids nations. that s the small island developing states. do you think the world listens properly to the sids? i would say no. in fact, as an african country, when the world talks about africa, they don t really pay attention to the sids. and yet, the sids of africa are the ones that are doing very well. when you look at the mo ibrahim index, for example, mauritius is first, seychelles is second, cape verde s third. so you have three sids that are doing extremely well, but the focus is on mainland africa. but isn t that, in a sense, part of the point? you are doing relatively well. i believe your per capita income is over $10,000, which in african terms is pretty remarkable, and you re very small. your population
straight after hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. in the glossy tourist brochures, the seychelles, an archipelago of islands far off the coast of east africa, is portrayed as a little piece of paradise. but dig deeper and you find a very different reality an island nation threatened by climate change, a population with the worst heroin addiction rate in the world and a political culture tainted by allegations of corruption. well, my guest is seychelles president, wavel ramkalawan. is this a story of paradise lost? president wavel ramkalawan, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. well, it s a pleasure to have you in the studio. you in the seychelles are known at the un as one of the sids nations. that s the small island developing states. do you think the world listens properly to the sids? i would say no. in fact, as an african country, when the world talks about africa, they don t really pay attention to the sids. and yet, the sids of africa are the on
strike me as, frankly, a form of diplomatic blackmail. you are saying to the world, we believe there are some substantial oil deposits offshore in seychelles. and you ve signed an agreement with a canadian company we will give licences to explore 500 million barrels or more of oil unless you give us money now. that s a form of blackmail. no, no. what we are doing, we need to know what we have. this is normalfor a country. we re an independent state, so it s important for us to know what resources seychelles has. but would you. you re the president of the country would you give the green light for a massive offshore oil exploration programme in seychelles? yes, but let us also look at what the west is doing. with respect, can you just answer that simple question? we have to know first,
fish, fish exports. so can you afford to stop fishing? no, we cannot. right now, we cannot. this is why, when we put all these elements in the basket, we re saying to the world, pay heed to our call. one thing the world will not appreciate is blackmail. no, no. hang on, there is one aspect of your strategy which does strike me as, frankly, a form of diplomatic blackmail. you are saying to the world, we believe there are some substantial oil deposits offshore in seychelles. and you ve signed an agreement with a canadian company we will give licences to explore 500 million barrels or more of oil unless you give us money now. that s a form of blackmail. no, no. what we are doing, we need to know what we have. this is normalfor a country.