Research institute for peace and diplomacy |11 August 2022

Working for peace: The first five years

 Peace can never be taken for granted. Even in our favoured location, an island state far from neighbours, we are not insulated from global geopolitics. In any case, conflict can occur at different levels, between individuals as well as nations, in the home and community as well as theatres of war, and we need to be prepared to deal with all situations.

This is why, five years ago, the University of Seychelles (UniSey) established a new research institute for peace and diplomacy (with the acronym PDRI). The inspiration for its formation was the founding president of Seychelles, Sir James R. Mancham, who devoted the later part of his political career to the cause of peace, reconciliation and national unity.

Despite his death early in 2017, we decided that the ideas he espoused offered a fitting legacy to his ardent belief in a world of peace. And so it was that on August 11 of that year, the present institute was launched.

On this fifth anniversary, we can now look back on a packed sequence of events. Under the leadership of Diana Benoit, the core of our work has been research. With the coincident hearings of the Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission, tracking that process and looking more closely at related issues of trauma and healing has been a constant theme. Meanwhile, at a different level, the changing geopolitics of the Indian Ocean has attracted its own research and a steady stream of publications. Nor has it just been research locked away from the real world. A close link has been formed with the Seychelles Prison Service and each year we have together found innovative ways to mark UN Nelson Mandela International Day. Other annual events have included a celebration of Gandhi’s achievements, a remembrance

of the massacre that took place in 1994 against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the UN’s International Day of Peace.

The institute has also been responsible for launching a new Master’s programme in Peace and Conflict Resolution, and discussions are currently ongoing to support the nation’s diplomatic service.

Next month will see the publication of a book on the Chinese community in Seychelles, an illustration of how different ethnicities can live in peace, one with another.

In an ideal world, there would be no need for an institute of this sort but, as current events show, war and conflict remain an innate part of human evolution. Through spreading the message that peace is better than war, that non-violence offers a preferable means of resolving differences, PDRI continues to have a role in the life of Seychelles.

We will continue to work for the cause on which it was founded.

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