The National Coast Guards (NCG), at its recent anniversary celebration, displayed, with understandable pomp, the numerous ?feats? accomplished during its more than a dozen years of existence. The list of achievements was quite impressive; and the NCG certainly deserves our gratitude and congratulations, especially when we consider the poor amount and rudimentary quality of means, tools and equipments put at its disposal .

But, this poverty or scarcity of means cannot be an excuse for the scandalous inefficiency of the NCG Unit in Agalega. The NCG is definitely not to be congratulated, if it is not expressely to be blamed, for the practically daily pillaging of the territorial waters surrounding the Agalega Islands, by fishing vessels coming from Taiwan, Japan, Seychelles and other countries. The inhabitants helplessly watch these unscrupulous lootings, carried out with total impunity. They impotently witness thousands of tons of our fish being stolen under the very nose of the NCG Unit stationned there.

Maybe the poor Officers posted there are not really to be blamed. They are totally untrained to tackle the rough Agalega seas , and are miserably ill-equipped. The Unit, under the supervision of a Sergeant, is supposed to consist of 12 Officers. However, with the frequent transfers and the inevitable delayed replacements of Staff, it is usually manned by only 7or 8 Officers at a time. It has (a) a VHF Radio that permits communication with Port Louis/Plaisance, with the Dornier in flight, and with any vessel within a 3-nautical miles; (b) a rat-eaten, leaking, inflatable dinghy that risks submersion every rare time it is put to sea; (c) a 6-men capacity snail-paced boat with a 15HP outboard motor; (d) a falling-to-pieces Land Rover fit only for the junk-yard; and (e) other minor tools.

The Officers are lamentably ill-trained. Even in an acute crisis, in a life-saving emergency, they have been known to take a whole 47 minutes just to fix the outboard motor onto their boat and to push it into water, two of them foolishly falling in the sea in the process! (The person in danger would have effectively drowned, were it not for the local inhabitants who are, most of them, real hommes de la mer ). Unlike the comparatively gentle and tranquil seas in Mauritius, the waves in Agalega are ferocious breakers. Quite a few of our NCG Officers get miserably sea-sick, whenever they venture beyond the protective lagoons. The Officers have absolutely no knowledge of how to hail, accost or board a boat/ship. As to their ability to carry out a proper and efficient search/rummage of a vessel, I am unable to express an opinion. As far as I know, they have never attempted to carry out such a ?testing?operation.

It is usually the locals, with their keen hawk-eyes, who spot the marauding vessel and report it to the OIDC Administration, who in turn, has to alert the otherwise uninformed insouciants NCG Officers. We would then rush to the shoreline and stand gazing - with bitter frustrated impotence ? through our binoculars, at the undisturbed merciless pilfering of our waters.

I have many times reported (through fax and phone) dozens of such illegal activities ? in some cases (whenever we had been able to read them) giving the exact names of the vessels so involved - to OIDC Port Louis, to be transmitted to NCG Mauritius for necessary actions. But, whether any action were taken; or, if taken, what were the outcomes, seemed to have been closely guarded secrets, deemed not proper to be disclosed to a mere Resident Manager of Agalega.

Apart from these plunderings of our seas , there is also the question of National Security of Agalega, and, thus, of our Republic. Who is there to patrol our seas and coasts, and control/prevent any unwelcome visitors from landing on or invading the Islands? The half-dozen indolent, untrained and ill-equipped Coast Guards? (En passant, it might interest those concerned to know that these ?Guards?, instead of ?guarding the coasts?, spend most of their duty-time to pique ourite and faire ourite sec and despatching same via the Dornier to their relatives to sell on the very lucrative Mauritian markets). There are stories of different inhabitants having, more than once, come across foreign-looking strangers miles inland in Agalega - this, when there was no official visitor to the Islands. Some even talked of having encountered ?des hommes grenouilles étrangers? on the beaches .

Although these stories could be attributed to the over-imaginative minds of some inhabitants; the possibility of such unwelcome landing or invasion cannot be discarded offhand. And, unfortunately, there is absolutely nobody ? neither our inefficient Coast Guards or the equally inefficient Police Officers there, nor the unarmed and unequipped Resident Manager and local inhabitants ? to prevent this, if ever it were to happen.

Allow me to engage in some fictional ? but, absolutely possible speculations :

a) The unprotected and could-be-easily-invaded Agalega represents an inviting possible base to launch terrorists operations on the near-by American Base at Diego. Before the Authorities in Mauritius could even become aware of such events, we could easily have another 11th September in our midst.

b) The isolated Agalega seas offer an excellent rendez-vous point to tranship drugs, and even arms and weapons destined for neighbouring Les Seychelles, Les Comores or Madagascar - not unknown, as favourite grounds for all sorts of commando/mercenaries attacks and coup-d'états.

This deliberately ugly and pessimistic picture, about the unpatriotic (and criminal?) unconcern of some people entrusted with our Economic and National Security depicted above, results from my personal experience, observations and my deep concerns about the deplorable situations as they were (positively WERE) until the beginning October 2001, when I resigned from the post of Resident Manager and left Agalega. If, after that date, matters have evolved in a positive manner ? I sincerely hope they have! ? then, so much the better for our Republic. And, in which case, my apologies to NCG for my criticising views.

Jagdish Seebaruth