Seychelles Truth and Reconciliation Process |27 February 2017

The way forward is non-political

The Seychelles Truth and Reconciliation Platform (STRPP) has, for a year now, been working on this project in an attempt to achieve peace and harmony in our country. Or beloved country has been so badly divided by politicians who have sought to fulfil their ambitions or get back at someone for bringing defeat to their door step that some of us believe the time for forgiveness and reparation has arrived. We cannot continue to sit back and allow the future of our next generation be dragged down to any lower level than the one we have reached right now. Hopefully you will join me in achieving peace and harmony as we seek the participation of the various religious groups in this matter.

We have seen that the sudden departure of James Michel has brought us a new President and already people are saying there is a different mood in our nation because people see President Faure as an agent of change. The old wars that James Michel fought with Wavel Ramkalawan must now come to an end as we move forward into a new era. However we have to recognise that Wavel has been a prolific fighter and we have a great deal to thank him for and he will continue to be respected for his contributions which has got us to where we are today. However he is not always right and he must now accept this situation.

Notwithstanding our Truth and Reconciliation Process must now move forward positively and with a great deal of thought and working together like we have never done before. Teamwork is not very prevalent in Seychelles only in sports but outside of sports we are still operating as individuals and autonomously. People are asking our politicians to “back-off” a bit in several areas and let some of us participate in the running of our country. Our country is in a mess and we need to find a way out and the only way out is for us to work together, not just saying it but making it happen. Words mean nothing unless you back it up with deeds and it is no good leaving it to someone else, we must do it.

STRPP has worked very hard for the last year or so trying to find a way that is really acceptable, peaceful, and forgiving and most of all that we achieve reconciliation which finally will allow us to achieve closure and put this chapter of our history squarely into our past. The young people could not care less about the Coup D’état, they want a good job, a Samsung Galaxy edge mobile phone, some money to spend and they are willing to work for their future. We must give them the opportunity, the rest is up to them. I would sooner see all the young people playing on their mobile phones than getting involved in drugs or prostitution. Our job as the “dying generation” is to clean up the past before we go so that the legacy we leave our next generation has been sorted out. I ask you to join me in this endeavour, it is a noble cause.

What is the way forward?

The way forward is for each sector of our Truth and Reconciliation Process to be undertaken by different parties and that politicians do not rush forward with what they perceive as the way forward either in an attempt to punish someone or protect someone involved in the Coup D’état. We must not carry out a witch hunt because if we do we will never achieve closure because we will have inflicted more pain to the victims and their families.  We must involve the various churches in the process and we are lucky in Seychelles that we have SIFCO, whose members represent several major religious denominations. It is strange but true that whenever something goes wrong with our body we rush to the doctor but when there is something wrong with our spirituality we hesitate to seek assistance from our religious domain, whatever that may be, or the choice we have made.

STRPP has presented its Operational Framework, in a presentation, to the National Assembly Committee which shows, in our view, how each section of our Truth and Reconciliation Process should function, as indicated in these graphics and we have done this following a year of research to establish the best way forward.

A “Platform” not a “Commission”

Prominent people in Seychelles have also advised us not to call our Truth and Reconciliation Process a “Commission” because this is what other countries have done and you can see that the name conjures a government organisation set up to punish or find out what you have done wrong and find ways to punish you. This is the old way of doing things. We have no personal agendas, we want to achieve peace and harmony and having politicians breathing down our neck as a “Commission” to sort things out is not the right way forward. So far in Seychelles none of our so called “Commission” has sorted out anything, most of them are toothless bulldogs as Wavel put it in the National Assembly, therefore we do not want another. The creation of the Anti-Corruption Commission is a good example of how not to do certain things. We see this Truth and Reconciliation Process as a friendly and approachable exercise where people who want to tell their stories come forward and do so in private and in confidence.

We are here to forgive and to forgive we must know what we are forgiving. Our conscience must be clear that we mean no harm, we intend to listen and clear the way to forgiveness and with forgiveness we achieve reconciliation and closure. We do not see this process as an insurance claim where people come forward and fill up a form to make a claim. Most people we have spoken to say they want the process to be non-intrusive and private and certainly non-political. People are looking for guidance whether it is material or spiritual, there is a need for mind and body reparation work to be done.

Involving outsiders in our Truth & Reconciliation Process

Last time Ban Ki Moon came here we showed him around and he went back thinking “these Seychellois people live well” because we took him to the best places, we booked him into the best hotel and he thinks we are truly a High Income Country.

We did not tell him that 40% of our population live below the poverty line and that our country is deeply divided.

A new era is upon us

We will recall how Srdjana prayed to God at the end of President Faure’s inauguration by saying “Lord forgive them for they know not what they are doing” do you remember this? Well that is the old days and a new era has dawn where “Lord we pray for forgiveness and reconciliation in our nation”.

We have also seen politicians, party leaders, our professionals being dragged through the courts where one of our teachers, one of our priests, a senior army official, a PS, a Captain of Industry, the leader of the opposition have been made to give evidence. They have been publicly humiliated just for political gains. This is not acceptable anymore in our society. They swore they did not do anything wrong in trying to protect their political inclinations. That is shameful and is it not time that we stop all this nonsense? The time has come when politicians must involve members of the public in some decision making because we have lost trust in our politicians. They must now listen to us because we matter.

We wish to share our research with you

Nowadays it is easy to find out how other people did things, where did they go wrong, what can we learn from those countries which have tried to create a Truth and Reconciliation Process. We have prepared a resume of our research, which is a fraction of our work thus far, but it is too long to include in this article. However you are welcomed to contact us and we will send you a copy. We had to carry out this research exercise to establish the best way forward for us, taking into consideration the mistakes made by other countries. The research tells us that the first thing we must do is to make our process “non-political” because in nearly every country where politicians have been at the forefront of the process it has failed, because they have their political agendas to fulfill. We must learn from past mistakes and we must not fall into the same trap. The activities of our politicians have been clearly identified in this article and in the recent presentation we made to the National Assembly Committee.

Our research has also identified that each time a country has tried to involve outsiders the process has failed for the reasons shown in the accompanying slide “Inviting International participants”. It is an inescapable fact that we are better off carrying out this exercise the Seychellois way. Do you want to blame someone else all the time? Is it not time that we do our own thing and if it goes wrong we admit it, we apologise and we move forward? Is this not the Seychellois way? We seek forgiveness, reconciliation and closure, nothing else, so for God’s sake let us do it together and in peace and harmony. Politicians are not always right and it takes a good politician to see that someone else’s way is a better way of doing something than one’s own way.

Please visit our website www.seychellestruthreconciliation.sc and you will understand why we want to go the way we have proposed.

Contributed by:

Barry Laine FCIM, FInst SMM, MCMI, MBSCH

Seychelles Truth Reconciliation and Peace Platform

P O Box 133, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles

Web site – www.seychellestruthreconciliation.sc

Emails – info@seychellestruthreconciliation.sc

seytruthrecon@gmail.com