AMONGST all our bad habits and vices, gambling is one that has in the past decade or two wrapped its dark tentacles (SPPF Octopus) around many of our fellow Seychellois. The amusement arcade should probably be more appropriately named the arcade of empty purses and broken homes.
There is a not so good doctor who is supposedly qualified in healing the body but for quite a while has been corrupting the souls through his gambling interests. Now, the doctor, through his periodical donations, such as CT scans, the University of Seychelles project, will have us accept him as a great philanthropist. This is not so much giving with one hand and taking with another; but more like looting with both hands and giving back a finger nail. It is in the vein of South American drug lords who, whilst they ruin generations across the globe, sometimes also build primary schools. Are these Machiavellic barons blind to the gross irony of their actions or is it part of the total conning of their victims? Do they consciously seek to fool us about the nature of their activities and fortunes or are they aware of their vile doings and half heartedly seek some form of redemption in case ‘judgment day’ actually arrives in this life or thereafter?
The not so good doctor, we all know, is well mentored. He has as his master, our very own Machiavellic emperor: yes emperor, for HE does have his own brood of princes, protégés and plain sycophants. We have moved from the colonial to the medieval era.
The gambling business is an evil which the government knows too well can leave deep scars (if not incurable wounds!) on the fabric of society. Albert Rene was a strong advocate of a ban on the casino / gambling business which he maintained in the days of his one party dictatorship. At the advent of the third republic, he decided to go into this business on a personal level, with his front-man Ramadoss as the gate keeper of this evil business empire (Ali Baba’s cave!).
And what a bounty they’ve hoarded in this cave! From the one rupee per island, farms in Australia, to printing presses & newspapers, hotel complexes and supermarkets, down the alleyway of fat commissions on leases, interests in ‘televizyon par grap’, telecoms companies, bogus import companies ‘ek setera, lake lera voler! If only it was as simple as Ali Baba saying ‘Open Semame’!
The full list of ill gotten goods, patronage: political, economic and even religious…will soon come out. Time and history will tell whether these title deeds (or should we say misdeeds) stand the test of a fair judicial inquiry.
Next on the list is Health Care. An area which the infamous doctor is an expert at! Hit them where it hurts or is it a case of healing them when it hurts (anmorti en ledan pou tir de!). Albert Rene’s empire expands into the field of hospitals et al…to capture the niche of health services, while his communist free health care utopia crumbles. Be careful of the privatisation projects that the Michel government embarks on. It is all orchestrated from the top, from the SPPF Octopus’ head. The Octopus blows its ink cover and draws its tentacles to snatch the few clams left from the seabed of a failed Communist experiment and a Seychelles economy walking wounded, left in rags and begging for the crumbs falling from the overloaded dishes of the Rene Crony Society!