Gérard Hoarau

Gérard Hoarau (7 December 1950 – 29 November 1985) was Seychellois opposition politician who led the Movement for the Resistance (, MPR), a London-based exile group that sought the peaceful overthrow of France-Albert René, who had come to power on 5 June 1977 in a coup d'état.

Hoarau was assassinated on 29 November 1985 by an unidentified gunman on the doorstep of his home in Edgware, in North London.

Career Hoarau was an educated young Seychellois with a degree in philosophy and theology from an Italian university. Consequently, he was fluent in Latin and Italian, as well as in English and French.

After independence he worked as special assistant to President James Mancham at State House, as head of the nascent foreign ministry. He was also a great footballer and gained many caps for the Seychelles National Team. The two stayed at 680 Hotel for three days and vanished. Kenyan journalists later reported that the two were in town on behalf of Mancham, who they wanted to restore to power with the help of UK, Zimbabwe and South African mercenaries with Kenya as part of the operation base. While in Nairobi, the two were also seen at the offices of SunBird Aviation at Wilson Airport where they booked a Beechcraft Super King Air 200, registration number N 821CA. Sunbird Aviation, now AirKenya, was owned by Andrew Cole (later Lord Enniskileen), a former managing director of Kenya Airways, and a close ally of then powerful Attorney General Charles Njonjo and then Police Commissioner, Ben Gethi. The aircraft was intended to ferry Mancham and a close circle of supporters from Mombasa to Seychelles after the unsuccessful coup attempt, the shadow-cabinet posing as American tourists. Hoarau would have assumed either the name SPC Bowman or Nescott. In 1982 the South African Police found a tape made by Gerard Hoarau that was to be broadcast upon the successful outcome of the coup, Gerard was living in Durban South Africa at the time and the Seychelles Police were calling for Gerards arrest in order that he could stand trial in Seychelles, following a tip off Gerard fled South Africa and eventually ended up in UK.

Murder The British police have never solved his murder, but the René government was highly implicated.

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". Asked how he could have a communist ruler who had been accused of human rights abuses as a client, Norquist stated that René was "a guy who preferred to not have elections for a number of years," and said of René's human rights record, "there were one or two people who people were suspected done in." This was the type used by the Seychelles police.

Gérard Hoarau is buried in London, his body specially preserved in a zinc casket so that it can eventually be repatriated to the Seychelles.