Three complainants and one witness appear in TRNUC ad hoc hearing |19 March 2020

The Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission (TRNUC) yesterday held an ad hoc hearing with two public and two closed sessions.

Case 103: Regis D’Unienville (Complainant)

In setting out his complaint in open public session, Regis D’Unienville said he was barred from continuing his education at the Seychelles College by the one party state following his participation in the student strike against the National Youth Service (NYS) in 1979. He was a Form 5 (Secondary 5) student.

He added that further to being denied further education, he was also denied jobs in the country. He said he was lucky in 1980 to obtain a job as a technician at the Cable and Wireless for which the state made several attempts to get him sacked.

D’Unienville also claimed that his family was constantly harassed by the state because they did not support the government. He also said that the state even went as far as to plant drugs in his mother’s hang bag for which she was convicted for three months in jail. She was in her late 40s then.

He stated that during his time as a technician at the Cable and Wireless, he witnessed illegal phone taping by the state which mostly occurred at the head station in Victoria. He noted that as a resistance member, he also listened to and tapped President Albert Rene and high government officials among others and related information to the Mouvement Pour La Resistance (MPR), a resistance movement by local dissidents based in England.

D’Unienville further claimed that he suspected the state had tried to kill him on two occasions but he was lucky as on both occasions it had been one of his friends using his car when intercepted by the state security, who claimed they were doing spot checks.

Being involved in anti-government activities, he said he was warned to leave the country on suspicion that he was going to be killed and he therefore sought political exile in England. There, he worked for the British Telecom but upon arriving, he worked in the office of the MPR and helped many Seychellois seeking political asylum.

D’Unienville claimed that from his point of view, it was somebody outside from Seychelles who killed Gerard Hoareau, the MPR leader living in London, in November 1985. He said that following Gerard Hoareau’s death, he (D’Unienville) had a taped conversation about the state’s involvement in a similar attempt on Hoareau’s life which was supposed to happen during the 1985 Indian Ocean Games in Mauritius. He said he suspected that the same man could have been involved with Hoareau’s death in London.

Case 22: Olivia Vincent

In relation to Simon Denousse who was allegedly killed in a car explosion in October 1982 along with South African Mike Asher, D’Unienville noted that he and Denousse were classmates from childhood to Secondary 5 at the Seychelles College and that they were also part of a student team at the cultural centre in the American embassy in Victoria, who planned the student strike against the National Youth Service (NYS) in 1979. He stated that the strike was organised purely by students and he denied allegations by the then government that the strike was instigated by the MPR. He said that all those involved in organising the strike were barred from continuing their education.

He claimed that from there, both he and his friend Denousse, among others, were denied jobs in the country. He noted that being denied further education pushed them to get involved in resistance activities where they distributed leaflets, newsletters and audio tapes prepared by MPR among other materials they prepared themselves.

D’Unienville explained that prior to coming before the commission yesterday, he received a text by somebody (he declined to name) who claimed that as a child, while sleeping in the same house, he did hear one of the supposed perpetrators possibly involved in the killing of Denousse in 1982, describing how he was killed. He told the commission that the man, who is still alive, is the same man who followed him and Denousse around during that time.

As to the whereabout of the recorded phone tapes, D’Unienville did not want to comment further.

Case 73: John Cruise Wilkins (Complainant)

In the second open session in the afternoon, John Cruise Wilkins read a letter he had sent to President Danny Faure on June 6, 2017 in connection with the Cruise-Wilkins La Buse treasure hunt expedition 1977-1987, in which the government had, in February 1980, ceased the treasure hunting activity of the family through the acquisition of the property on which the treasure site was, to be given to a German treasure hunter in 1984.

He claimed that the Cruise Wilkins family had legal rights over the treasure site from previous governors and the land owner through a promise of sale and that it should legally be returned to the family. He further claimed in the letter that government legally owned half of the treasure if found and if government had wanted to be a partner it should have invested like any other investor and not used questionable means to take over a legal operation to recover buried pirate treasure.

Cruise Wilkins said that he had to partner with different Americans at different intervals from 1988 to 2012 to obtain a license to continue with the treasure expedition and he has further received a draft agreement from government which he will speak about in the commission’s next session when it reconvenes on March 31, 2020.

Patrick Joubert