Day: March 31, 2023

The chairperson of the Seychelles Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission (TRNUC), Gabriel McIntyre, handed the commission’s final report to President Wavel Ramkalawan on Friday.

This was done on March 31 in conformity with the second extension granted at the end of last year by the National Assembly.

Ramkalawan handed over the report to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Roger Manciennne, who will be in charge of beginning debates on the recommendations.

The TRNUC was established in 2018 to work on settling past political divisions and grievances that were a result of the coup d’état in Seychelles on June 5, 1977.

One of the biggest concerns is the compensation that the victims are asking for.

The chairperson of the TRNUC Victims Committee, Barry Laine, said that the monetary reparations will vary from up to SCR 1 million ($77,400) for harassment and other acts to up to SCR 20 million ($1.5 million) for killing or disappearance.

“There are people who are saying that we as taxpayers should not have to pay for the damages and instead get the perpetrators to do so themselves,” said Ramakalwan when accepting the document at the State House.

He added that “this is why I have decided to make the report public as of today and hand a copy to the Speaker of the National so that work is necessary now that we have the report in our hands,” he said.

It was in August last year that the commission handed President Ramkalawan an interim report as the final document was yet to be completed.

Present at Friday’s ceremony were the Chief of the Seychelles Defence Forces, Brigadier Michael Rosette, and the Commissioner of Police, Ted Barbe.

“It is important that we have the representatives from the Defence Forces here so that they too know what it is in the report and that those events in our history are never repeated,” said the President.

Gabriel McIntyre said that now the final report is public, the commission “anticipates that it will be criticised and it accepts that such criticism is part of the course of the work of truth commission’s the world over.”

She said that criticism will be made regardless of its veracity and that the report will not satisfy every Seychellois.

With TRNUC’s work completed six months later than usual, McIntyre said she is “extremely proud of the work achieved by the commission in exposing the past in Seychelles, of the closure it has brought to many of the complainants and of the stepping-stone it has created towards a better future for all Seychellois”.

Ramkalawan said that the establishment of the TRNUC and the laws governing it was a bi-partisan act with the intention of guiding the people and bringing them together.

Now that the commission has completed its mandate and presented its report to the President, it has also issued six amnesty letters to perpetrators – who have confessed to their crimes before the TRNUC.

The work was completed later than initially planned as the commission was unable to complete its mandate, it was granted an initial extension by the National Assembly until December 2022. The government was informed in November 2022, that considerable investigative challenges meant that the commission would not be unable to complete all of its determinations under the extension granted.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

A local vessel, with prohibited catch onboard, was apprehended in the waters of Seychelles during a joint maritime operation by the Seychelles Coast Guard and their United States counterpart.

On March 20, the team involved in the operation boarded the fishing vessel Fishfinder, which was not showing up on vessel monitoring system (VMS), in the vicinity of Denis Island, where it was conducting fishing activities.

Following a thorough search onboard the vessel, 19 gunny bags of suspected dolphin meat were discovered – a species that is banned from fishing in Seychelles. The vessel and the crew were apprehended and escorted back to Mahe and the confiscated items were handed over to the relevant authorities.

According to a press release from the police, the crew of the vessel comprised six Sri Lankan nationals. An investigation is ongoing on the matter.

The two-week bilateral maritime operation between the two coast guards is a result of the bilateral agreement to counter-illicit transnational maritime activity operations signed in July 2021 by the U.S. and Seychelles governments.

The agreement provided the authority for joint ship rider law enforcement and counter Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) proliferation operations.

The Chief of the Defence Forces, Brigadier Michael Rosette, told SNA that “through the agreement, we get to train with the U.S. Coast Guard, which is a very experienced coast guard and have a lot of personnel experienced in different fields in regards to security at sea.”

He said that “the exercise itself was a fruitful one as the coast guard and special force officers used it as a training phase, and at the same time, it became a deterrent for other vessels to carry out illegal activities as they know that from time to time we have a presence at sea.”

Rosette explained that right after the signing of the agreement, due to events that unfolded, the U.S. Coast Guard was unable to join its Seychelles counterpart for training.

“We took advantage of the fact that Cutlass Express was taking place in Mauritius, where the US Coast Guard was taking part. Once they complete the training they came here,” said Rosette.

The U.S. Ambassador for Seychelles, Henry Jardine, who was present for the closing ceremony of the operation shared that “joint operations like the one our combined team just completed are essential to ensuring the global good that maritime security provides.”

“This patrol served to help secure Seychelles’s 1.4 million square kilometres of Exclusive Economic Zone. Narcotics trafficking, human smuggling, and illegal fishing are all threats to our collective safety and prosperity. Efforts like this operation are essential to combat these threats, together. We look forward to our continued collaboration in this arena to achieve this mutual goal,” said Jardine.

The Seychelles Defence Forces receive a second video downlink system.

Furthermore, at a small ceremony on Thursday morning at the Seychelles Air Force base at Pointe Larue, the U.S. government handed over a second Microwave Video Downlink system (MVDS) to the Seychelles Air Force.

This system enables aircraft to transmit live video and data to personnel on the ground in real-time via a reliable and secure connection. It has been effectively used by the force in a variety of military applications such as anti-narcotic operations, boarding of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) vessels, and search and rescue, to name a few.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

The Local Development Institute “FAS” won on Thursday night, in Luanda, the Social Responsibility Award category of the 9th Sirius Awards, an event that recognizes and distinguishes companies, projects and individual personalities that excell in some fields during a year in Angola.

FAS, formerly known as the Social Support Fund, won the prize from a total of six companies, for presenting the Social Protection Strengthening Programme known as ‘Kwenda”.

Kwenda has registered more than one million vulnerable households, 700,000 of whom have already benefited from monetary transfers, as disclosed by the director general of this institute, Belarmino Jelembi.

Announcing the winner of the category during the awards gala, the First Lady of the Republic and president of the Sirius Awards jury, Ana Dias Lourenço, highlighted the geographic scope, effectiveness and credibility, as well as the commitment, budget and value addition of this programme as the main criteria that contributed to attribution of this prize to FAS.

The First Lady underlined that the analysis of the numerous applications received was particularly challenging for the jury, taking into account the high quality of the projects presented by the competitors.

According to Ana Dias Lourenço, the Social Responsibility Award was one of the most prominent categories in this edition, as it registered a greater number of competitors, with a wide range of companies operating in the most varied areas of Angolan society.

Ana Lourenço considered the list of nominees for the award as a demonstration that companies/organizations are on the right track for the preservation and development of local communities.

“Currently, social responsibility must be part of the list of strategic objectives of organizations, accepting a commitment to the values of protecting society, with the aim of repaying, in a fair way, what communities offer”, the First Lady clarified.

The category recognizes companies that run, essentially, programmes aimed at education, health, the fight against hunger and poverty, contributing to the reduction of regional asymmetries to aid the country’s development.

FAS general director, Belarmino Jelembi, on his turn, said the award received is a recognition that increasingly motivates the organization to continue working hard, with a view to achieving the set goals.

Several other companies were awarded honourable mentions, such as the commercial bank BFA, Carrinho business group (with the school food delivery programme), Sociedade Mineira de Catoca, Sonangol and Unitel (e-Health mobile health programme), who were honored with the attribution of honourable mentions.

The 9th edition of the Sirius Awards recorded a total of 34 competitors, including companies/projects, managers and entrepreneurs, distributed in eight categories.

Held under the motto ‘Distinguishing excellence, promoting the future’, the Sirius Awards was launched almost five years ago, however temporarily halted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Deloitte CEO, José Barata, the initiative has resurfaced with reinforced ambition, maintaining the purpose of distinguishing and rewarding the main organisations, personalities and projects carried out during a year in Angola.

Under Deloitte promotion, the last edition (8th) of the Sirius Awards was held in November 2018, with the participation of 55 competitors (companies, managers and entrepreneurs) that competed for ten categories that were part of the event at that time.

Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)