Remembering Matthew Servina
Matthew Servina, a former minister during the one-party state, and human rights activist since 1998 passed away Monday after a long illness. Whilst many may remember Matthew Servina for his role in the early days of Seychelles’ politics, it is his involvement as a human rights promoter that gave him the most satisfaction and for which the country will remember him most.
Since the creation of the Centre for Rights and Development in Seychelles, Matthew showed the greatest sensitivity and awareness as a leader of a non-governmental organisation involved in the noble and complex task as human rights and development.
Through his devotion and hard work over the years, he was able, almost single handedly, to raise the profile of the activist group despite the very difficult circumstances prevalent in Seychelles. Through his work, the country played a pioneering role in the small arms initiative in Africa and brought the voice of the small islands states to the world platform.
Servina who was schooled at Seychelles College, served for a spell on the Royal Fleet Auxilliary (RAF) tanker “Fort Sandusky”, and began his political career as a trade unionist in the late 1960’s helping to launch the two main SPUPaffiliated unions – the Government Workers’ Union and the Transport and General Workers’ Union.
Matthew as he is colloquially known, went into partisan politics in 1970 as a joint candidate for the Seychelles People’s United Party (SPUP) in Praslin, then a doublebarrel constituency, alongside Joseph Albert senior (father of local businessman Joe Albert) against the Seychelles Democratic Party’s (SDP) candidates, incumbents David Joubert and Stanley Pereira.
The elections were to replace the former Governing Council with a Legislative Council with 15 elected members from whom the Governor would appoint a Chief Minister best able to command majority support.
The SPUP lost those elections gaining only five seats against the SDP’s ten and Servina was to resume his trade unionist activities, working alongside the late Guy Sinon and Philibert Loizeau, also former ministers in the one party state, to help organise several strikes for better salaries.
One notable event during that period was the general strike of April 1972 which almost coincided with the official visit of HM Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain who was in Seychelles on 20 March 1972 to for the official inauguration of Seychelles’ International Airport. According to the historian, William McAteer, rumours were rife in early March that the unions would strike during the royal visit, but a statement issued by Matthew Servina, as the Union’s secretary general confirmed that no strike action would be taken out of respect for the Queen.
Another historical strike was staged by Seychellois employees of Cable & Wireless calling for equal pay with their expatriate counterpart. In that strike, in which Albert Payet, an assistant engineer played a leading role, another Cable & Wireless technician, assistant accountant James Michel (current President of the Republic) was also very active in the strike and admits as much in his autobiography, “Distant Horizons” which even carries a photo of his first wife Ninette and their infant son marching with the workers.
Matthew claimed that he had introduced Michel who left the company after the strike to former president Albert René, as the SPUP was looking for someone to write for the party’s mouthpiece “The People”. In his autobiography, Michel confirms that after he lost his job following the strike he joined the party and was later nominated to the Central Committee, which he said was because “Sylvette Frichot, backed by Matthew Servina and Maxime Ferrari” had got him elected.
Matthew was nominated to the then Governing Council along with five other party officials in 1975, and an equal number from the SDP. This part of the coalition Government deal struck with the British which was to ensure a peaceful transition to independence. As such he formed part of the Pre-independence constitution talks at Malborough House in 1975 and again in 1976.
The 5 June Coup in 1977 brought a change of fortune for Matthew, who became one of seven ministers overnight.
However, the historians have claimed that he had not been privy to the coup plot. Ex-President Mancham says so in his memoirs “Seychelles, Global citizen” that some SPUP officials, notably Guy Sinon, Mathew Servina and Philibert Loizeau were purposefully left out of the conspiracy, since they were satisfied that the coalition was working well and therefore they could not be trusted.
In the one-party state Matthew was initially made Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare and was later given the Tourism and Transport portfolios. It was as minister for tourism that he organized an extravaganza, including a motorcade at Beau Vallon.
It was during his period as Minister for Agriculture that he was summoned to step down. According to the official statement from the SPPF congress that year, Matthew Servina had decided to resign to study abroad. Few people believed that and it was alleged that the main reason was because Mathew had entertained some “ambitions” which he had shared with certain persons.
Differences with former president René surfaced after the return of multi-party democracy and Matthew set up a “Forum for Progress” through which he addressed the constitutional conference of 1992. Mr René had been cynical throughout the presentation and at one point even told those present that he was getting sleepy.
On 10 December 1998 Matthew launched the Centre for Rights and Development (CEFRAD), a non-governmental organisation committed to promoting and educating the new multi-party democracy on human rights. He was behind many workshops in Seychelles and attended several high-level international conferences in that capacity.
He played a leading role in pushing for civil society involvement in the election process with the creation of a locally-manned election observer group for the presidential elections in 2006. However, the political will was not forthcoming and the Electoral Commissioner refused to recognize and accredit the organisation which was unable to play its full role despite the training received from the Southern African Electoral Institute.
At one of the many rights based workshops that Matthew attended, he spoke at length about the role of the media in Seychelles. Referring to the importance of understanding democracy, he urged journalists to take full responsibility for their work as educators.
“It is absolutely essential for journalists to make serious efforts to understand what democracy is really about, so they may be able to live it with ease, even finding comfort in it. For one cannot safeguard something you don’t really understand,” he said.
Media actors he pointed out are one among many groups of citizens with roles in safeguarding democracy and contributing to sustainable development.
“It is absolutely essential to understand how roles interlink and how citizens are interdependent when it comes to discharging our responsibilities and obligations to our families, our communities and our society in general,” he said, adding the theory advanced over time was that the role of the media had evolved from ‘watchdog’ to watchman’ and then to ‘mediator’, depending on different stages of development. “If such theory is to be entertained, media actors in Seychelles need to ascertain which of the three categories they actually belong to,” he said.
Source: Today.sc 4-18-12