VICTORIA, Seychelles — Former President and Leader of the Opposition Wavel Ramkalawan has issued a formal press communiqué opposing the proposed joint Seychelles-India coast guard and military facility on Assomption Island, confirming that he has written directly to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to express his position as former President and leader of Linyon Demokratik Seselwa, and calling on all Seychellois to unite in objecting to the proposal to defend national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the natural environment of the country’s outlying islands. The communiqué, released this week, represents the strongest official opposition yet to the facility announced by President Patrick Herminie following his state visit to India earlier this month.
The controversy strikes at the heart of how Seychelles navigates its strategic position in the Indian Ocean at a time of intensifying geopolitical competition between India and the People’s Republic of China. For ordinary Seychellois, the debate raises fundamental questions about who controls the country’s most remote islands, what obligations any foreign military presence would create, and whether such an arrangement could compromise the country’s longstanding neutrality and non-alignment in international affairs.
Mr Ramkalawan stated that although the facility has been described in Seychelles as a coast guard base, Indian media has referred to it as a military base and has elaborated on its strategic importance in relation to India’s concerns about PRC global intentions, which he said firmly places the project in the sphere of international geopolitics. He argued that any presence of foreign military personnel on Seychellois territory outside Seychellois control constitutes a violation of sovereignty and is unacceptable, and drew attention to the fact that although President Herminie made a major issue of foreign involvement in a Qatari tourism development on Assomption during the October 2025 election campaign, he never once mentioned any plans for a coast guard or military facility with India.
Mr Ramkalawan also raised serious environmental concerns, noting that any military construction and operation on Assomption Island would have a far worse environmental impact than the tourism project he had strenuously opposed during the election campaign, and that Assomption’s proximity to the Aldabra Atoll, a UNESCO World Heritage site, makes this a matter of international significance. He also highlighted that the Seychellois public has never endorsed the current proposal and stated plainly that the people have been misled.
President Herminie has maintained that the base will remain under full Seychelles Defence Forces command and that India’s support reflects a shared interest in a secure Indian Ocean region, reaffirming after his India state visit that under no circumstances would there be a foreign military base on Assomption or any other island in the Aldabra group. The president has not responded publicly to Mr Ramkalawan’s communiqué or to his letter to Prime Minister Modi.
The Assomption Island debate has emerged as the most significant foreign and security policy controversy of the new United Seychelles administration’s early months in office, with the terms of any India partnership yet to be fully defined or publicly disclosed.
