Gérard Hoarau

Who was Gérard Hoarau?

Gérard Hoarau was an exiled opposition leader from the Seychelles and was head of the Mouvement Pour La Resistance that sought the peaceful overthrow of the France-Albert René regime which had come to power on 5 June 1977 in a bloody coup d'état. The opposition was based in London. He was assassinated on 29 November 1985 by an unidentified gunman, on the doorstep of his London home.

The British police have never solved his murder, but the France-Albert René government were highly implicated. As well as the hired hit-man, British police also believed that there was another individual - believed to be a Seychellois - who knew Hoarau and was able to identify him to the foreign assassin. Neither Hoarau’s assassin nor his accomplice has been caught. British police did arrest a number of individuals who confessed to working for an Irish private detective, Ian Withers, and were responsible for tapping Hoarau’s telephone line. Mr. René admitted that Withers was employed by his government.James Mancham stated that "we know for a fact that the house of many exile groups were broken into and bugged by agents of the René government and now if they are prepared to pay agents to bug our houses so they should able to do a lot more". He went on to say that " he was very disturbed, once madness starts you don`t know where it stops". The murder was headline news in the UK and Mike Cobb, a senior Metropolitan police press officer at Scotland Yard stated "the fact that it was being dealt with by the anti-terrorist branch at Scotland Yard obviously suggests that there is some political background to the shooting". Charles Meynell, editor of African Confidential, explained that " judging by recent history in the Seychelles where a lot of people have disappeared, I think it`s highly likely that the René government is behind this. René has himself said that the leader of the opposition over here, Mr Hoarau was public enemy number one so I think it would be very hard to come to any other conclusion at this stage" He further indicated that "much more likely is a straight forward political assassination whereby somebody is given a large amount of money and told to get on with it". Paul Chow, the Secretary General Of the Seychelles National Movement, boldly stated that "there is no doubt it is Mr René, the Marxist President of Seychelles. Only last month his party congress passed a resolution to the effect that he should take action against enemies of the revolution in Seychelles and abroad".