National Assembly starts debate on TRNUC report today |02 August 2023

Mr Green and Dr Purvis during their appearance before the National Assembly yesterday

The National Assembly will start debates on the contents of the Final Report of the former Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission (TRNUC), along with its 47 recommendations, as of today.

The Final Report and list of recommendations were presented to President Wavel Ramkalawan on March 31, 2023, marking the end of the Commission's mandate.

Assembly members yesterday had the opportunity to dig deeper into the report and recommendations, as former Vice-Chairperson Michael Green and former Commissioner Marie-Therese Purvis were present to address their queries.

As explained by Mr Green, there are four categories of recommendations, 32 of which are necessary to ensure that human rights violations are not repeated in future. Other recommendations relate to perpetrators, public awareness regarding the events, and reparations to victims.

Of the recommendations, members, most notably from the United Seychelles (US) party, were primarily interested in the proposed establishment of a successor body, to oversee the outstanding works of the commission.

The successor body will be tasked with completing transcriptions and translations, archiving of the documents, as well as the implementation of the TRNUC's reparations policy.

Mr Green noted that of 1129 witness accounts, 389 still need to be transcribed, 319 of which also need to be translated to be archived.

The commission had proposed that the body be comprised of a representative of the Ministry of Finance, National Planning and Trade, one from the Judiciary,  a former TRNUC commissioner, a representative of the TRNUC’ Victims Committee, and two or three other individuals.

Over the course of its existence, the TRNUC held 280 plus sessions and special hearings, hearing evidence from victims, witnesses and perpetrators in 371 cases.

Determinations made by the commission for each case are found in Volume 3 of the report, while Volume 5 is the proposed policy on reparation, one of the main objectives of the commission.

“People do not necessarily appreciate the notion of reparation. It is not just a question of money as reparation, but there are other aspects such as a public apology, a plea for forgiveness by the state because finally it is the state who was responsible for the things which happened during the timeframe that the TRNUC was investigating,” Mrs Purvis clarified.

She urged members to seriously consider the recommendations based on reparation, in drafting the National Assembly's own report based on the findings and recommendations of the TRNUC.

The TRNUC was established in 2018 with the aim of settling past political divisions and human rights violations stemming from the coup d’etat on June 5, 1977.

Laura Pillay