Africa-Press – Seychelles. The second day of debate on the Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission report in yesterday’s session of the National Assembly focused mainly on the historical aspect of the coup d’état of 1977 with the ruling party, ‘Linyon Demokratik Seselwa’, maintaining its stance that the party responsible for what it claimed grossly violated people’s rights, should apologise to the victims and the families of those who were killed, as well as bear responsibility for the payment of compensations.
The seven LDS members who intervened highlighted some of the injustices and oppressions they said took place after the coup and pointed out many ways how the former regime under the leadership of France Albert Rene terrorised some of the citizens.
For their part, the opposition United Seychelles, whose former party, SPUP, orchestrated the coup, maintained their argument that the country should bear the cost for reparation and highlighted many ways they claimed Mr Rene had been the country’s architect, helping Seychelles to develop and thrive after the coup d’état.
In one of his interventions, Speaker Roger Mancienne said he was disappointed with the flow of the debate, which he stated was not focusing on the report’s recommendations and what was needed for Seychelles to move forward as a country.
“The National Assembly has to say what it wants to see being done and how it should be done in the future,” he stated.
Speaker Mancienne added that the debate was also not doing much to advance reconciliation and national unity and there were “too much effort by the members to re-write TRNUC’s report and repeat everything that has been said before”.
“It is good to make reference to TRNUC’s report but more effort should be made to make points on the recommendations,” he stressed.
Speaker Mancienne said some members were also making a lot of reference to the past such as slavery, which is not relevant to the matter before the House.
“I respect the freedom of each member to speak as they wish to but I think it is important that I express my point of view, to put it on record, what I as Speaker, see the debate should be like,” he stated.
The debate on the TRNUC report started on Wednesday and will end today.
The report contains 47 recommendations to ensure that human rights violations are not repeated in future.
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