By Tom Wheeler
On 1 April 1977 The Guardian in London produced a five broadsheet page supplement on the island republic of San Serriffe in the Indian Ocean. Full coverage was given to the island's struggle for independence, its recent turbulent political history, commercial opportunities and the head of state as a family man (all Ministers 'Here members of his family). The editorial text was accompanied by many advertisements like that by Kodak -Mlich read "If you have a photograph of San Serriffe, 'He would like to see it".
Always on the look-out for new political friends in Africa in those days of isolation, the staff at South Africa House immediately reported on this new phenomenon to Pretoria with copies to Washington and our erstwhile mission on Reunion. (In those days the report was typed and put in the next outgoing diplomatic bag.)
Just over a month later - fast for those days - the accompanying report on a follow-up conversation between a member of the Embassy in Washington and the desk officer for San Serriffe at the US State Department arrived.
The issue is of such importance both to the history of South Africa's international relations and, with our new found interest in the IOR*, to the situation in Indian Ocean early in the next century, that it is reproduced here for posterity, (with the agreement of the drafter of the report.)
*.IOR : Indian Ocean Rim
BUT FIRST, THE ACTUAL EXTRACT:
A GUARDIAN SPECIAL REPORT - 1 APRIL 1977
THE TEN YEARS of independence which San Seriffe celebrates today have been a period of economic expansion and social development probably unrivalled by any other new nation.
With this achievement has gone a determined attempt, In part successful. to maintain the outward forms of a parliamentary democracy. This special report, edited and introduced by Geoffrey Taylor, attempts to recount the remarkable transformation in the life of the Republic, to inform British investors and visitors of the opportunities which have been and are being created, and not least to
encourage companies trading with the Republic to call attention to their share in its development.
.
Rapid growth brings its own problems, not all of which can be solved in total composure. The
survey allows some of those problems to be brought under closer scrutiny.
(Survey then follows)
Reaction of SA Mission in Washington, to Head Office:
CONFIDENTIAL
The Secretary for Foreign Affairs
PRETORIA
CAPE TOWN
(Copied to London and Reunion)
INDIAN OCEAN: REPUBLIC OF SAN SERRIFFE
10 May 1977
Please refer to the Ambassador, London's minute UKl8/317 /4 of 1 April 1974 and enclosure (Guardian Special Report on San Serriffe).
We recently had occasion to discuss the implications of the first ten years of San Serriffean independence with the desk officer at the State Department responsible for San Serriffe, David P Rosenblatt III. Mr Rosenblatt, a graduate of Iowa State University and the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, served in Damascus, Baghdad and Beirut, before being posted to Bedoni as political
officer in 1974. While in Beirut, where he served from 1969 to 1973, he met Mr Woodward and Mr Shaw, W'l0 are familiar with Mr Rosenblatt's remarkable objectivity in reporting on Arab/Israeli problems.
Mr Rosenblatt opened the discussion by sketching the difficulties facing San Serriffe. Apparently the erosion of the Western Coasts of the island is proceeding at a far greater pace than originally thought. Scientists at MIT have now calculated that San Serriffe will strike the coast of Sri Lanka, 22,5 km south of Galle, sometime in December 2008. Apart from the damage that will be sustained by the Sri Lankan coastline, there are problems of an Infringement of a sovereign nation's economic zone, not only by fishing vessels of the nation in question, but by that nation itself. As a result, Mr Rosenblatt indicated that the US contribution earmarked for the so-called Zimbabwe Development Fund (Mr Rosenblatt was somewhat vague about the location of Zimbabwe) would now be allocated to Sri Lanka so that the Sri Lankan government would be able to repair the damage to their coastline and integrate those San Serriffeans who wished to come ashore, or are thrown ashore on Sri Lanka, by the force of the impact, with the Tamil population of the island. When we pointed out that the Sri Lankan government was forcibly returning the Tamil population to India, and that such repatriation was causing untold hardship amongst the Tamils, Mr Rosenblatt replied that that was an internal affair of Sri Lanka, and therefore the United States had no right to intervene. In any case, he said, Mrs Banderenaika had "not done a bad job nd if the undisciplined San Serriffeans come barging in to a peaceful island where they had no right to be, they can jolly well accept the consequences". The fact remains, of course, that San Serriffe has not yet collided with Sri Lanka, although it is steaming across the Indian Ocean at such a pace that it is threatening to turn the ocean from a zone of peace into at very least, a zone of considerable consternation.
Turning to the President, General MJ Pica, Mr Rosenblatt raised a rather chilling fact. Apparently the president, although only 34 years old, has allowed the description of "father of the San Serriffean people" to go to his head - in a manner of speaking. In fact, he is quite crippled with syphilis and his doctors expect him to live for only six months more. Allied to this is the fact that the leader of the opposition, Mr Ralph Baskerville, is obviously in his dotage and it is quite obvious that the frail web of democracy in San Serriffe is in peril. In fact, the most alarming development in these islands is the appearance of radical cells amongst the M'flong, a newspaper printed In Mitton and Portuguese, entitled "0 Osinho Legatato" has suddenly appeared on the campus of Perpetua University and even in Bedoni, walls are suddenly daubed with signs reading 'Viva Frelimi", with the M'flong translation "Frelimo Viva" in brackets. The fact that a radical element is emerging amongst the indigenous people of these islands is extremely depressing to the West. Furthermore, it is obvious that the worst form of African socialismt (i.e. that socialism implantedin Africa after the sudden departure of the Portuguese) has now taken root on the islands vk1ich, through the vagaries of erosion, are travelling away from the African mainland at 15 m. p. h. and therefore exporting an alien ideology to South East Asia. However, there is a ray of hope. Mr Rosenblatt revealed that the CIA is well established in the Maldive Islands where a complicated programme of dyke-building and counter current making, which should resist the onward surge of the Republic of San Serriffe, is underway.
The local head of the CIA is so confident of the outcome of his plans that he feels that the Serriffean islands may not only be halted, but that their shape may be altered totally. In an interview in the capital of the Maldives, the head of the CIA operations there, Mr Cyrus X Treat said, "Who knows, the semi-colonic San Serriffe Republic might, through our efforts become an enigmatic question mark in the cookie jar of history". (Washington Post, 14 May 1977)
We would like to suggest that our Consul at Reunion pay an official visit to Bedoni while the islands are still within reach and under General Pica's rule. Whether or not the Department decides to establish a permanent presence on Serriffe is a matter for the East African and South East Asian sections to decide. The only comment that this mission would like to make is that the South African presence on San Serriffe will certainly not lack mobility.
JM STERBAN
for Charge d'Affaires a. i.
Footnote: . For those with a knowledge of the printing trade the significance of the names will not be lost - serriffe, pica, bodoni, baskerville and many others.
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