Africa-Press – Seychelles. An interim report on the Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission (TRNUC) hearings was officially presented to President Wavel Ramkalawan yesterday morning by the chairperson of the Commission, Gabrielle McIntyre.
She was accompanied by the other commissioners.
The final report is expected to be ready in three months or in the worst case scenario by the end of year.
Has the topic of reparation/remuneration for the victims been discussed with the President during the presentation? Mrs McIntyre shared that “the President just received the interim report today and his approach is to really look at what we are advocating in terms of the decisions we have made. The President needs to get a feel of what we have found and on what we have based these findings and then he would need to look at the reparation policy before he can formulate a strong opinion, which is a very sensible approach. Obviously he has heard what has been said in the media and public meetings and I think once he had reflected on that, we will have a positive outcome”.
The report, consisting of five volumes, is different from the previous reports TRNUC filed. It contains actually elements from the final report – Volume 1 –introductory background; Volume 2 – Facts and evidence and historical context for the Coup d’état; Volume 3 – The legal framework and the approach to the case determination as well as 126 case determinations; Volume 4 – Amnesty and Volume 5 – Reparations. There is also a volume of recommendations.
“What is missing from what TRNUC files is the remaining case determinations in Volume 3. We have 100 cases that are in drafting stage pending approval of the national commissioners and around 60 in the drafting process. There are between 70-80 that TRNUC needs to start drafting. The final report should be ready in three months, but in the worst case scenario it should be ready by the end of the year. We know people have been waiting, but it is unfortunate that we could not finish on time. The reason we are giving so many volumes today is that we never gave hope that we could deliver on time, until last week,” shared Mrs McIntyre.
Has TRNUC achieved its mandate? “What I think is that the TRNUC has achieved a phenomenal amount, it has done a lot but it faced a lot of constraints. It never had the outreach capacity. All the outreach and communication has been done through the hearings. If we had the capacity and resources to do that, we may or could have driven a movement of change. From the beginning, when we started, we also made it very clear that TRNUC will reconcile the people of Seychelles. Having people come and talk about what happened to them is not going to reconcile the people of Seychelles. It depends on the national leadership and that is the politicians, the religious leaders and the community leaders. They have to have that commitment and they have to lead the process. We hope we have laid the foundation for that to happen. There is still a lot of work to be done.”
Does TRNUC have the intention to extend its mandate? To this, Mrs McIntyre gave a positive nod. “We hope that our mandate will be extended till the end of the year. We were budgeted till the end of the year but the mandate’s legal framework was not extended till the end of the year. The extension of the mandate will have to go through the National Assembly. Currently, the members of the Commission do not work in an office per se and they function mainly by email and telephone and it will continue in the same way. There are still 100 cases pending, it is not an easy task as they have to fulfil their responsibility. Everyone will be focused on this on a full-time basis.
The chairperson of the Commission explained that it is not only finishing the cases, all the files have to be sorted, ordered and the materials should be scanned to be preserved and made it accessible. Even if we finish the case determination, there will be a lot of logistical work to be done.
TRNUC did make four pages of recommendation and most of them are about commitment to the rule of law such as merit base recruitment, non-politicisation of the government, corruption and what measures could be implemented to prevent that.
Was the Commission used as a political tool? “When I came here I was completely naïve and did not know anything about the depth of political division in this country. I do not think it was used as a political tool, but I think it was a platform where people that haven’t been heard could be heard. I think that platform had political consequences. The time it was set up, it was a bi-partisan agreement and I do not think anyone realised that these people would have had the courage to come and speak and would have that impact.
Regarding her personal experience, Mrs McIntyre said “it was tough for me. Being the only legally trained person and the only person having experience in transitional justice issues, I have really devoted myself to this Commission. I have felt the responsibility and wanted to finish on time because Commissions never finish on time. We all were moved by the stories and the victims are looking up to you to make things better for them and this is a huge responsibility. I hope that at the end of the day, the Commission does contribute in a positive way, not just to the community but to the lives of individuals,” concluded Mrs McIntyre.
Once the final report is ready, it will be made official by the Office of the President.
The other members of the commission who accompanied Mrs McIntyre at the event yesterday at State House were Michael Green (vice-chair), Jacques Gbilimou-Koui (commissioner), Marie-Therese Purvis (commissioner) and Bishop James Wong (commissioner).
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