Africa-Press – Seychelles. The final report the Truth, Reconciliation National Unity Commission (TRNUC) team handed over to President Wavel Ramkalawan on March 31, 2023 is being used as a political football by the current government and now the opposition has joined in the game.
The final report is a Protestates Curiae meaning it carries powers of a court that the person or authority designated as the implementer must act in accordance with the recommendations of the report in line with the TRNUC Act 2018 and in harmony with other laws of the Republic of Seychelles. Our politicians are either ignorant of the legal implications or they are playing a stupid political game with the sufferings of the victims.
The TRNUC report is legalis ligamen meaning it is legal and binding and non-mutatum (cannot be changed) or delayed in its implementation by the president who is the head of the executive tasked with the responsibility to implement the recommendations of the report.
It is a legal maxim that neither the president nor members of the National Assembly nor any political party – past or present – have any legal authority to play pass the ball with it.
Its next step is implementation whether some people like it or not, it is immateriale (immaterial).
The current president as head of the executive carries the responsibility to implement the TRNUC report. He is responsible and it is his duty to appoint members of the next team as a matter of urgency who will start the implementation process of the report without any further delay and political games.
There is a consensus amongst all interested parties including the Honourable members of the National Assembly that the next team must consist of one member from the executive, one from the judiciary, one from the National Assembly, one from the TRNUC Association of Victims and one from the Ministry of Finance. The five members will appoint their own chairman, vice chairman and secretary amongst themselves to avoid external influence creeping in as we have seen happened on many occasions in the past.
The suggestion by the leader of the SPUP/SPPF/Parti Lepep/United Seychelles political party that they will pay reparations for the coup d’Etat atrocities their party inflicted on the people of Seychelles over a period of 10 years if they win the 2025 elections shows how disconnected the opposition has become since losing the elections in October 2020 to the current LDS-led government and how disconnected they are about the laws of Seychelles in our current jurisdiction.
In addition it appears that SPUP/SPPF/Parti Lepep/United Seychelles believe they will pay whatever amounts they consider appropriate forgetting the amounts have already been decided and they cannot change the findings in the final report.
They have for sure lost their perception and connection with reality. The level of compensations have been assessed by experts and are now lawfully in the report so what are they talking about? It seems the spirit and expectations of the one-party authoritarian mindsets of 1997 still linger in 2023 and this is very sad for Seychelles as we endeavour to move forward and achieve closure.
The victims of the 1977 coup d’Etat are not stupid; they can take their case to international organisations in which Seychelles is a member and these organisations will hold back some of the grants Seychelles is receiving under the various treaties Seychelles is a signatory.
The era of going back to a one-party state dominant existence is well behind us as we have seen on the news lately in other countries where such attempts continue to be forced on the people but the attempts are unsuccessful because today voters of the world cannot be bought with a fridge or cooker or corrugated iron sheets.
Yet it would appear that some people in Seychelles still live with the 1977 coup d’Etat mentality that has devastated our peace-loving nation as we struggle to put the coup d’Etat into our history books and we create a democratic environment and a level playing field for our next generation.
The TRNUC exercise was supposed to bring reconciliation and closure to the victims who have suffered unimaginable human deprivation at the hands of tyrants and dictators and today 46 years later the same dictatorial attitude prevails during a period when reconciliation should be taking place.
Not long ago, week after week, our nation witnessed our fellow citizens on SBC live television broadcasts cry their eyes out with grief as they told their stories of how they suffered under the last dictatorial regime and now the same party is telling the victims they have to wait another 10 years and they will get whatever morsels of food fall off the table.
Have we gone absolutely bonkers as a nation that we cannot have at least one ounce of sympathy for those who were tortured, raped, made to disappear, forced into exile, falsely imprisoned, who lost their home, their land, where their umbilical cord is buried and had their property confiscated, their jobs terminated because of EK NOU PA EK NOU and these perpetrators have stashed away in overseas tax havens the money they have stolen from us.
When this government says they have no money to pay victims their due compensation, the answer is find the money, it is not impossible, it is the government’s odious debt.
This government knew there would be a need to pay compensations to victims of the 1997 coup d’Etat well before they took over running this country. In fact, President Ramkalawan is a champion of the TRNUC process so there you go. The government can find money to do the things they enjoy like travelling overseas regularly in first class airline seats and staying abroad in 5-star hotels and inviting 15 Kenyans to come to Seychelles to discuss projects which will never materialise while their President had already resigned and they were wined and dined in our best hotel then the government say we have no money? Who are they kidding?
We have assets worth millions but we do not know how to make our assets earn money for us. We live in a gold mine and yet our people live on Seychelles rupees 8,000 per month. We spend our time going round the world with a begging bowl when God has given us sufficient resources to feed and clothe our nation. The problem is the moment we make any money it is stolen from us and we do not go after the baddies and get our money back.
The time has come for closure and finding the money to pay the victims their compensation for the atrocities of the 1977 coup d’Etat committed by SPUP/SPPF/Parti Lepep/United Seychelles. It is not impossible. There are many ways to attract money into a special fund and money will start to flow in to meet the recommendations in the TRNUC report.
We need to work as a team and stop making excuses after excuses and passing the buck and the blame. Let us accept what happened did happen and now together we find the answer. Let us stop being so arrogant and keep believing that someone else somewhere will find the solution, no we can find the solution together and we can raise enough money to pay the victims of the coup d’Etat the amounts the experts have already worked out.
Let us start by convening a new team as agreed by all parties and we work our way forward because this matter can be resolved amicably if we all wish this to happen. There are people out there willing to help us and there are many ways to raise funds to meet the TRNUC recommendations but we will not get there if we pull in different directions and blame each other for what happened in the past. Let us take care of matters today so we can create a better tomorrow for our nation. Let us meet face to face to agree a workable final solution. There is nothing that cannot be resolved if we set our mind to do so, because we are one people, one nation with only one life to live, cadit quaestio.
Source: nation
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