Wind of Change and The Seychelles Police

The declarations made by the Seychelles Police Commissioner on Friday 7th March before 65 participants of a two-week workshop on human rights and before “facilitators from the East African Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation (EAPCCO), the Ombudsman, and senior officials from the police force and the legal profession” and as reported in the Nation of 11th March were startling, at least to me.
· It is only through proper practices in law enforcement that the police force will enhance the
eradication of corruption
· It is sad that the impact of the good work of devoted police officers is lost due to criminal
elements who do not have the public interest at heart
· ( The Police has ) to focus (our) efforts on the fight against corruption equally as we direct
attention on abuses of human rights. They are both detrimental to good governance

Were these borne from his personal and careful appraisal of Policing and his role in ensuring that it is correctly done? Or were they another series of declaration made from reading a speech prepared by someone else, with the aim of uttering the right –sounding phrases and exhorting the right sentiments in interested listeners?

Enhancing the efficiency, professionalism and performance of the Police will not be achieved on the sole declaration of good intentions from good –sounding speeches. It requires a solid knowledge and respect of Laws, Rights, Freedoms, Policing, Procedures and all the other Codes and Good Practices of Professional Policing.

Often enough, we have found this sadly lacking in the local Police Force, from the Police Commissioner himself, down. The Judge Riley report of January 2008 made that clear enough.
In denouncing “criminal elements who do not have the public interest at heart” and who therefore damage the “good work of other devoted police officers”, the Police Commissioner could not have missed the parallel with his own reported inadequacies and incompetence, that combined, contribute to giving the local Police a bad name.

That the Police Commissioner made the right –sounding declarations against corruption and human right abuses as “detrimental to good governance” is remarkable enough! However, one cannot help but be suspicious before the wonderful implications of this declaration.
The implications seem to me to be more than the recognition and acceptance that corruption and abuse of human rights are endemic in the Police Force.

While this is quite remarkable in itself, the declaration also goes further to recognise that eliminating corruption and abuse of human rights “is a basic requirement for peace, security, and sustainable political and socio-economic development”. That’s the bit where I got suspicious.
Things cannot be what they sound to be when a Police Commissioner start talking about stuffs that go far beyond Policing, into the preserves of national policy strategists. To me therefore, the words uttered were bereft of sincerity. They were merely the usual empty –sounding speeches delivered to fill in a moment of formal protocol before a no-risk audience.

But could I be wrong? Of course! There are as many interpretations of what a Public Officer says as there are persons who hear it. In my case, I may have missed the point that the Police Commissioner may just have managed to read the writing on the wall. A writing which seems to be spelling out the end of authority without responsibility so dear to those in office who are yet to be confronted with the need to be accountable for the actions they undertake during public office tenure.
The wind of change is wafting over the land and one can take heart that change will come in our time. The change to accountability, transparency and respect of human rights, on which the President himself dwelt lengthily in his 2008 State of the Nation Address.

If the Police Commissioner missed those messages and was locked into the usual lip-service declarations, then it was a blessing for us all that the Nation carried his statements. We may one day have to repeat his words and invite him to account for himself