The Afterlife of TRNUC |28 December 2021

What is the Afterlife and do you believe in it? Well some people believe that when death occurs in the existing body the spirit or soul leaves that body and hovers around waiting to inhabit a new body most times that of a new born child, male or female consequently a person can possess several past lives. The Afterlife theories derive from religions, esotericism and metaphysics as opposed to real physics. Afterlife is a belief in the Sub-conscious mind that instructs the Conscious mind to make someone behave in a certain manner. Christianity, Islam and some pagan religions believe in the Afterlife, some call it the soul some refer to it as the spirit. Hinduism and Buddhism believe in the metempsychosis of reincarnation. Reincarnation is the philosophical or religious belief that a living being starts a new life or is reborn in a different physical body after death.

In my wellness clinic at Pointe Larue I take several clients into their past lives known as Past Life Regression under clinical hypnosis conditions and this has triggered several instances when they have experienced being in a past life and they could relate to the places, events, happenings and other experiences that it is difficult to imagine that the client is making it all up. Some have re-enacted their experience when they have come out of the hypnotic trance. It is not easy to explain how such events manifest themselves but they do so real as well. Clinical hypnosis accesses deep rooted memories in the Sub-conscious mind so if a person has not experienced such events then how come the memories are in the Sub-conscious mind? Where do all the details come from? It is a phenomenon we do not yet fully understand and may be as our human mind continues to evolve one day we will be able to comprehend fully the theories and belief of the Afterlife.

In the context of the Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission (TRNUC) I am usingthe theories of the Afterlife to demonstrate that unless a real and physical structure is put in place to carry out the recommendations of the TRNUC, we would have wasted a great deal of time and taxpayers’ money carrying out the exercise of finding the truth, bring about reconciliation and provide compensations for those victims whose property and land were stolen from them, or they were exiled from their homeland, or they were tortured and imprisoned for their political belief by the SPUP/SPPF/Parti Lepep regime.

The almost daily transmission on SBC TV by the TRNUC has shown us that we are capable of tackling such a difficult undertaking, manage it, present it and deliver satisfactory results the general public expect and the victims are entitled to receive. Those people who took the victims’ land and property must now return these assets or pay compensations to the victims. TNRUC has not set out to punish the perpetrators, on the contrary the TRNUC has invited the perpetrators to come forward and be granted amnesty because compensating the victims is more important than punishing the perpetrators and this idea most people do not grasp. As we have seen recently on our TV news the Anti-corruption Commission of Seychelles (ACCS) has at long last started to prosecute those who have stolen our money and made themselves very rich. Corruption in Seychelles is rife and it is worst at the top end of our society. The ACCS is going after those who were in positions of power and in positions where they helped themselves to build palaces for their families and concubines and laundered our stolen money in overseas jurisdictions. At least 3 banks in Seychelles need to be investigated because the day of reckoning has arrived for these people.

Now people are waiting for the Human Rights Commission to be effective because they are spending their resources and time teaching school kids about human rights instead of processing the real cases put before them. Human rights violation is high in Seychelles and prevalent and yet no one has been prosecuted for these violations. This is not good enough by any stretch of the imagination. In contrast the hard work of the TRNUC whether with 7 or 5 Commissioners can be felt in the community which is why it is so important that a professional handover by the TRNUC to a new body to implement their recommendations take place. President Wavel Ramkalawan used to be and perhaps still is an active and very effective voice calling for the atrocities of our Coup D’état to be resolved satisfactorily and as soon as possible. Let us hope he is still in the same frame of mind now that he is the President and the buck stops with him not to let this process falter.

It is believed that in preparation for the closure of the TRNUC in August 2022 that the victims’ files relating to land violation activities by the SPUP/SPPF/Party Lepep are being sent to the Ministry of Land and Housing and this puts shivers down my spine because I have personal experience of how incompetent this ministry can be and to send all these files into this ministry without a structure to follow up progress and chase results will be a disaster and the victims will lose all the benefits and the courage they mustered up to bring their case to the attention of the TRNUC process and the public. Surely this cannot be allowed to happen. Minister Billy Rangasamy is aware that his ministry is not as efficient as it should be and this is something that he has inherited. So it is up to the TRNUC process of continued support for the victims that someone somewhere monitors the progress if any taking place at the Ministry of Land and Housing. It would be a travesty to allow all the work of the TRNUC investigators to sit in the IN-TRAY of an officer in the Ministry of Land and Housing for months on end because no one is chasing progress. This is not brain surgery this is basic common sense which if you were one of the victims you would want to know that at long last your case is being resolved.

The current government in all honesty has inherited a bad dream, a kales kase if you prefer and it will take time to change first of all the mind-set of the civil servants then their functionalities and service delivery.  The Ministry of Land and Housing which used to be called Ministry of Land Use and Habitat where some of the echelons of our society got extra land cheap and favours will take time to become efficient. So let us give them time to change but any files of victims of the Coup D’état passed over from TRNUC to this ministry must be monitored and controlled by a new body that will make sure that the recommendations of the TRNUC are met and delivered by the parties concerned. This is a mine field we are walking in and it will be too late 2 or 3 years from now to say the victims have not received their due compensations as has happened in other countries where they have made a mess of the Truth and Reconciliation process. We in Seychelles can do better and we must do better.

We need to set up a Coup D’état Reparation Agency to handle the recommendations of the TRNUC and it need only be a 3 person team but someone has to make sure that the recommendations are delivered and that we can close the chapter of our Coup D’état in our history book. In the meantime the people of Seychelles want all the land and money stolen from us to be returned to the people to help us eradicate poverty in Seychelles.

The pain and sufferings created by the atrocities of our Coup D’état cannot be left to fester any longer; we must all play our part in bringing the evils committed on our people by a handful of greedy individuals who pretended they were doing it for the people but they were doing it for their personal enrichment. Then they have the nerve to create a “Foundation” under their name with the aim of giving back to the people the money they stole from the people in the first place. Then they expect our children to line up and sing “thank you for the donations”. This is a sick joke and a stop must be put to it. When I made the CD called Nobody’s Child and I donated R200,000.00 to the First Lady, Natalie Michel, I did not ask for any thank you because deep in my heart I felt good and happy the CD was a success. 

So whether you believe in the Afterlife or not the spirit of our TRNUC must reincarnate itself in another organisation which perhaps could be called Coup D’état Reparation Agency (CDRA) or similar name, so that the recommendations of the TRNUC can be monitored and managed to a satisfactory conclusion that will bring closure for the victims. 

Contributed by:

Barry Laine FCIM, FInst SMM, MCMI, MBSCH

Chairman

Seychelles Truth Reconciliation and Peace Platform (STRPP)

The Wishing Well, Anse Des Genets,

Mahe, Seychelles

Email:      barrylaine@hpcgroup.sc

     Web site: www.seychellestruthreconciliation.sc