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Archive -Seychelles

2018 - Year of the People |03 January 2018

Wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year and as we enter a new year we must reflect on years gone by and make our new year’s resolution for the coming year. We cannot just allow one year to slip by while we have no plans and aspirations for the New Year emerging because at the end of the day the New Year is what we are going to make of it. Some events we have no control over their manifestation but most events we can contribute towards them being good or bad or indifferent. We have certain wishes and expectations we wish to see fulfill and we have to ask ourselves what we can do individually or collectively to make next year a better year than the years past.

Looking back at the coup d’état in 1977 and over the last 40 years we have seen that when civil society is not involved, we suffer a number of atrocities, the amount of land stolen from the people go to people who already have plenty of land and we find our money stolen from our monetary system as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is totally unacceptable the way wealth is distributed around the world and particularly in Seychelles and how the greedy echelons of our society have built themselves palaces for their concubines from the sweat of the brow of the poorer people. All this has happened because civil society have not got involved in the events that control their lives and they have left it to others to dictate to us how things should be done. In 2018 all this is going to change.

In Seychelles in 2017 we saw a change of regime in the government as President Danny Faure took over the Presidency from James Michel. President Faure is seen as “the people’s president” and he will go down in our history as the President who turned Seychelles round from being autocratically ruled to being democratically ruled. He will be known as the “Transitional President” we have been waiting and praying for to liberate the Seychellois nation from the shackles of autocracy that has brought untold sufferings to our little “paradise” in the middle of the Indian Ocean but paradise for tourists and not for Seychellois.

The Seychelles Civil Society (SCS) has been formed to give President Faure a helping hand to turn our destiny round and we are here to work with him to achieve our expectations. He has a big task ahead of him because he has to clean up the mess he has inherited, replace the dinosaurs with fresh new blood, mentes et integrioperis (let fresh minds do the job): put new ideas into practice: share the burden of running Seychelles with other societies and organisations who want to work with him and are not in existence just for the sake of it: he has to recompense those who have lost their inheritance through the coup d’état and the intimidation and victimisation that have permeated our peaceful nation over the last 40 years: he has to bring closure to those who have lost loved ones under mysterious circumstances and satisfy the souls of those who died with their eyes opened because their earthly issues were not satisfactorily concluded and they left us with no closure.

We are talking here about a mammoth task for one man, one President in the chair for such a short period, who at the same time has to co-habit with another political party who is also seeking the same things that Seychelles Civil Society (SCS) is seeking therefore it makes sense that these 3 entities should work together to achieve the aspirations of “the people” not any individuals, not any political party, not any group with special interests or people with money who can “buy your souls” for a few rupees. Seychelles Civil Society (SCS) takes its hat off to the new LDS majority led National Assembly team because they are in a position to speak their minds and they do so with courage and candour…

We Seychelles Civil Society (SCS), I and the LDS team too will continue speak our minds without fear from or favour to no one and this is how it is going to be in 2018 ‘The Year of The people’ and in the future.

The time has come for civil societies around the world to get involved in the decision making of their respective nation. We have created an independent NGO, we are a legal body, we answer to no political party or pressure groups and our membership is 93,000 which means that every Seychellois citizen is a member of the Seychelles Civil Society (SCS) including the President who has been given a special job to do and it also means that we contribute and not only complain. When something is right we say it is right but when something is wrong we will say it is wrong and damn the consequences that follow.  In addition we will exercise our legal rights under the law and we will make sure that the human rights violations taking place in our country stop right now. We will also ensure that when the government forms a new Tribunal or a new Commission paid for by tax payers that such an entity carries out its functions to the satisfaction of the citizens and that they are not formed to protect the misdemeanours of the past by a few who chose to go down the misguided path of hurting their fellow citizens.

Like the Seychelles Truth Reconciliation and Peace Platform (STRPP) which is a sister organisation of the Seychelles Civil Society (SCS) we are undertaking these processes without malice and with no intentions of repudiation because we are essentially a peace making NGO but we must have the truth in order for us to deal with the matter. We set out not to punish but to create harmony where may be through no fault of theirs directly some of our colleagues have committed crimes which we must now come to terms with and reconcile. After all we are all Seychellois and we do things the Seychellois way which is the peaceful way but make no mistake we are not going to be anyone’s door mat. We intend to be fair but firm and achieve a return to peace and harmony to our beloved beautiful country the Lord has seen fit to bless us with and if you like in parallel to us the Arabs were given deserts to survive on then God gave them oil to cultivate the deserts, we have fish in the sea and breadfruit on our lands therefore in theory we should never go hungry yet 40 % of our people live below the poverty line and this we will address as a matter of urgency in 2018, The Year of The People.

Seychelles Civil Society is forming a Council of Executives made up of 15 Counsellors who will each carry a portfolio. Each Counsellor will have expertise in his/her own domain and we invite you to join us especially the young and women because we wish to create a balanced team. This is our life, our nation, our world and we the civil society must now take control of our destiny. Please contact us for more information.

 

 

Contributed by:

Barry LaineFCIM, FInst SMM, MCMI, MBSCH

Seychelles Civil Society

P O Box 1336 Victoria                                                                    

Email: barrylaine@hpcgroup.sc

                        seycivilsociety@gmail.com

 

 

 

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