TRNUC Victims Committee gives progress report |08 July 2022

The TRNUC Victims Committee has released its progress report (28 pages) and the following are some of the main points highlighted in it.

The TRNUC Victims Committee was formed by TRNUC commissioners under their mandate and unanimously approved by 100+ victims at a Plenary Meeting on April 5, 2022.

The purpose of the Victims Committee is to give the victims of the 1977 Coup D’état a common voice and presence in the concluding deliberations of the Truth, Reconciliation and Unity Process of Seychelles.

The report is primarily addressed to President Wavel Ramkalawan, the Speaker of the National Assembly Roger Mancienne and the Chief Justice, Ronny Govinden.

The report calls for the mandate of the current TRNUC to be extended for a further three years and amended accordingly to enable the recommendations of the current TRNUC team to be implemented otherwise the process will fail after so much work and tax payers money have been spent on the process.

If we are not vigilant the final TRNUC report due in August 2022 will end up in someone’s filing cabinet and never see the light of day as it has happened in so many countries researched where elites in the society are implicated.

The main players named in the report

The report calls specifically on President Wavel Ramkalawan, who was one of the instigators and vociferous voice in 2017 who sedulously worked for this process to get underway and now that the people have elected him as our President he must deliver what he preached when he was the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly and he formed the National Assembly Committee on Truth Reconciliation and Unity and he asked the victims to send their cases to his new Committee and suspiciously there was a break-in at the National Assembly and several documents of the victims disappeared.

The Speaker of the National Assembly is called upon to pass the necessary legislations to amend the current TRNUC Act to extend and amend its current mandate to enable the same team to implement their findings and recommendations. This will enable a smooth continuation and will avoid the blame game between a new team and the old team, which is so prevalent in Seychelles.

The Chief Justice is called upon to remind the Judiciary itself, the Executive and the Legislative arms of our government that the victims of the 1997 Coup D’état are legally owed a fiduciary duty to ensure the odious debt of the last despotic government is rectified by the current government under International Law. May be via AG’s Office the correct jurisprudence can be put in place quickly to amend the current TRNUC Act which ends in August 2022 to ensure a successful outcome of the process. It is illegal for the current government not to meet its obligations. All branches of the current government must play its part in ensuring the process is a success otherwise the victims will take their case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The report avers it will serve us all well if all three branches of our government meet their respective obligations to the victims and we make reparations for the unbelievable and heinous atrocities of the 1977 Coup D’état.

Reparations to the victims

The report calls for all land and properties stolen from the victims by the despotic government of SPUP/SPPF/Parti Lepep now renamed US to be returned under a “no retributions” condition and privacy will be afforded to those who recognise that the time has come for ills of the past to be put right. Land deeds and documents can be deposited with the Central Bank in a special Victims Depository. Where land and property have been sold on, the proceeds can also be lodged in the same depository.

When it comes to reparation for victims who were murdered and made to disappear, the report provides typical earning capacity examples of such victims and what their life is worth from a monetary standpoint. It is clearly acknowledged that no amount of money will bring a dead father back to life to provide for his family and certainly no amount of money can replace a lost son or erase the pain and sufferings the victims have suffered over the last 45 years. The report gives good examples of how to calculate the loss to a family whose fathers could have earned from R38m to R80m during their working life if that person had not been murdered or made to disappear. For these reasons, the TRNUC have consulted widely internationally and locally and have set the ceiling for reparations to R20m per victim regardless of how many violations or type of violations a victim suffered or was subjected to during his cruel death or disappearance.

There are 15 categories of violations mentioned in the report and they include Unlawful Killing, Enforced Disappearance, Forced Exile, Torture, Rape and Sexual Abuse, Kidnapping, Unlawful Detention, Abuse of Office, Denial of Employment, Wrongful Dismissal, Harassment, Loss of Property/Business, Forceful Eviction from Building and Other Acts of harm. The report asks the reader what value do you put on your life? What amount of money would you be prepared to accept to be forced to leave your home where your children’s placentas are buried? It also asks whether you would subject yourself to being raped and sexually abused for R3m.

Where will the money come from for reparation payments?

The report avers that billions of Seychelles Rupees and dollars have been stolen from the people of Seychelles and this money must be repatriated back to Seychelles. Billions have been placed in off-shore bank accounts and numbered Swiss bank accounts by the elites in our society. The large number of land and properties stolen from the people of Seychelles must be repossessed, sold and the proceeds go towards paying the reparations. The Auditor General has identified several pieces of land and property purloined in the past which must now be repossessed and sold. In addition share ownership in Nouvobanq can be sold as well because why do the people need to have shares in Nouvobanq anyway, the report asks? Then the FIU must do their job and repatriate the money stolen from us by the Irish and by the way where is the money the British left us when we gained independence, the report asks? The victims are also asking what happened to our oil reserve discovered in the Macarena section of our ocean. The victims further propose the selling of some assets in which the people are not gaining any benefits, for example some outer islands under the control of IDC can be sold on 99 year lease, then of course there are benefactors out there who will contribute towards the Victims’ Trust Fund and endeavours of bringing some reparations to the victims who have waited 45 years to receive any kind of justice.

Coup D’état Monument must be erected

The report calls for a Coup D’état monument to be erected in the Peace Park in Victoria in close proximity of Sir James Mancham and Nelson Mandela’s statues because all 3 signify sufferings of mistreatments by our fellow brothers and sisters. The report calls for the names of the victims who were murdered and made to disappear to be etched on the monument for eternity and as a reminder to our future generations never to even think about another Coup D’état.

Members of the TRNUC Victims Committee are:

Barry Laine (chairman)

Regis Francourt (vice chairman)

Livette Hermitte (member)

Julianna Betsy (member)

Lewis Betsy (member)

Bernard Sullivan (member)

A copy of the TRNUC Victims progress report can be obtained by writing to TRNUC Victims Committee, P O Box 1424 Victoria, Mahé, Seychelles or by sending an email to Barry Laine, the chairman, on the email address TRNUCvictimscommittee@yahoo.com. Here are some photos of the events.

Contributed