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Last week several hundred of them gathered in Victoria for SPUP'S first party congress. With René in control, they unanimously declared allegiance to "our march to socialism," demanded "independence within the shortest possible time." It might not come for another ten years, admitted their dashing young leader, but he would "brook no stalling tactics by our colonial masters."
"Johnson's Golf Ball." Rene has a hard fight on his hands, for the British, who so readily freed most of their colonies, find it hard to take his independence demands seriously. Even under the most ideal conditions, the Seychelles, whose principal export is $1,000,000 of copra a year, could not hope to stand alone. Besides, they figure to be part of a series of joint Anglo-American air and naval bases that may be built soon in the Indian Ocean. The Royal Navy has already installed a stand-by fuel depot on one island, and the U.S. last year opened a 100-man space satellite tracking station in Victoria.
Housed in a huge (120 ft.) white Fiberglas sphere that all but overwhelms the town, the tracking station is known to islanders as "Johnson's Golf Ball." Although René claims that he does not really object to its presence, he blasts the Americans who run it for their "bids to win us over with offers of milk for our schoolchildren." Besides, he says, "we must take steps to make it quite clear to America and to Russia that we shall have nothing to do with their military ambitions."