On June 5th 1977 the Butcher was the Prime Minister of the government he overthrew – a government he had only months before sworn to uphold and defend. To accomplish this betrayal, the butcher smuggled weapons into the country from Tanzania under the protective cloak that his Prime Ministerial office provided to him. He organized a group of armed thugs to overthrow his own government under the cloak of the protection that his Prime Ministerial office provided to him. He brought these thugs to a central location at his lair in San Souci and drugged them, all under the cloak of the protection that his Prime Ministerial position provided to him and which he intended to betray. The Butcher then sent his handpicked murderers to our peaceful capital city of Victoria to betray Sesel Pou Seselwa and to steal our liberty, and begin our long slow brutal enslavement and his personal enrichment at our expense. He intended to do this with the help of foreign troops that he would bring to our sacred shores to murder Seselwa Rasin – his own people, so he could have absolute power.
While the Butcher’s hand picked assassins descended on our sleepy peaceful capital, the Butcher stayed safely hidden in his lair at San Souci – he did not have the courage to join them in their mission of betrayal. If things went wrong, in the true tradition of his cowardice, the Butcher intended to disclaim any involvement in their mission which he had planned intending even then to even betray his hand picked assassins to protect his own skin. Again the Butcher hoped to rely on the protection of his Prime Ministerial office that he was betraying to escape accountability for his treason.
But unfortunately for the Seychellois people the Bucher did not fail. He succeeded spectacularly in his diabolical plans. At the time, few of us could have imagined the depth of the depravity of the Butcher’s plans. On June 5th 1977 we then began our long midnight of despair caused by the loss of our liberty and the betrayal of Sesel Pou Seselwa. We have still not recovered.
On June 4th 1977 the Butcher was in a position to know, since he was the Prime Minister, that prosperity was around the corner for the Seselwa Rasin people, the indigenous people of Seychelles. No doubt many of us were without any of the basic necessities of life. Many of us were poor beyond description. Many were mistreated to a degree no human being should have to endure. This situation mirrored those of many other people suffering under the injustices of colonization and imperialism. Our despair and poverty was not created by Seychellois against Seychellois. The Butcher knew this. He knew that any democratically elected Seychellois government would bring this injustice to a rapid end.
We Seychellois had finally thrown off the neglect of British colonialism that caused this level of poverty and mistreatment. The Butcher takes credit for his significant part in this effort to liberate the Rasin homeland from British colonial rule and make Sesel Pou Seselwa. He deserves this credit. But his motives were not to truly liberate us from this colonialism, but to be free himself from British interference with his intentions to imprison and subjugate us and to steal our patrimony.
On June 4th 1977 we Seychellois, as a united, free and independent nation, had finally begun our personal journey to make our own lives better. We had set aside our past differences. We had the embryo of a tourist industry developing – promoted by we Seselwa Rasin. For the first time, tourists were flocking to our beautiful country in significant numbers. We had begun to create for ourselves a source of earnings, a means for lifting ourselves from poverty and from colonial neglect and oppression. We were experiencing a boom that our nation had never seen before – hotels were under construction from north to south.
On June 4th 1977 we had high hopes created from the knowledge of impending prosperity and new revenues. The Butcher had the responsibility to take this new prosperity and spread it around to create a more just society. After all that was his rhetoric – we mostly wanted to believe him. We wanted to believe he had the best interest of the country at heart, and was not solely interested in self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment at our expense. We were wrong. Instead he wanted to be dictator and enrich himself and his family at the expense of the Seselwa Rasin. On June 4th 1977 the Butcher was afraid of this new economic prosperity and independence. It threatened his plans to enslave us under the yoke of his dictatorship to betray Sesel Pou Seselwa and to enrich himself at our expense.
So on June 5th 1977, with his insider knowledge that the first truly Seychellois government was about to do truly revolutionary things to lift us from poverty, the Butcher struck. The Butcher knew that once this newly developed prosperity was delivered to the Seselwa Rasin people, he could not so easily conceal his evil motives. With poverty reduced and social justice created, he could not so easily put the cloak of liberator over his guilty shoulders. Our liberty would be more precious and harder to steal. So he struck and struck fast. June 5th 1977 was his last chance to create his dictatorship.
On June 6th 1977 “disappearances” ensued, a tradition well known in the dictatorships of the day in Chile and Argentina. The Butcher’s dictatorship was to allow the Butcher to steal all the property he could find without just compensation and eventually transfer a good portion of it to his and his family’s personal pockets. It was to allow the Butcher to pad his lifestyle bringing him up to the standards of your run of the mill Latin American caudillo. The dictatorship was to allow the Butcher to imprison anyone who dared to disagree with him – or even to meet and discuss important issues of the day that contradicted the Butcher’s interests and ideas. The Butcher’s dictatorship was to exile 30% of the Seselwa Rasin population who dared demand a restoration of our liberty and replaced them with Fabrike or counterfeit Seychellois who demanded only payment, and not liberty, from the Butcher. The Butcher’s dictatorship was to allow the him to, without shame, make public announcements of his intentions to murder Seselwa Rasin like Gerard living overseas who loved liberty more that their lives.
This is what June 5th means to us Seychellois. It is not liberty. It is not liberation. It is oppression. It is murder. It is Fabrike and foreigners stealing our country from under our noses. It is political disappearances. It is imprisonment without charge. It is failed government. It is kleptocratcy and crony capitalism masquerading as fading socialism. June 5th is a day that sends chills down our collective spines. June 5th is a day for mourning, as we would mourn the most painful events in our lives - as we would mourn the death of one of our children, with the deepest sorrow.
All Seychellois, wherever in the world you may be, on this infamous date, must wear black or a black armband or black ribbon. We must mourn our lost liberty until we can fully and truly restore it. This will also remind us of our individual responsibility to provide whatever aid and comfort is necessary in restoring our freedom.
And it is our sacred duty to bring the PP Collaborators to justice for their crimes against the Seselwa Rasin people and to confiscate their ill gotten wealth and return it to the Seselwa Rasin people. It I our sacred duty to make Sesel Pou Seselwa and reverse June 5th and its betrayal.
Sesel Pou Seselwa - Long live the Seselwa Rasin People 
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