Guinea names religious leaders to lead reconciliation

CONAKRY (AFP) - Guinea's President Alpha Conde has named the imam of Conakry's grand mosque and the city's Roman Catholic archbishop to head a panel to work on national reconciliation.

El Hadj Mamadou Saliou Camara and Archbishop Vincent Koulibaly will co-chair a "provisional commission of reflection on the conditions needed for the undertaking and achievement of national reconciliation," Prime Minister Mohamed Said Fofana said in a text read out on national radio and television late Wednesday.

Fofana said the commission would go to work at once and would notably "meet the elders and the well-informed members of different communities and people from all social levels in Guinea, then put to government, as soon as possible, concrete proposals in view of national reconciliation."

In December 2010, Conde, the first democratically elected president of the west African country, said he wanted a "truth and reconciliation commission so that Guineans can tell each other the truth" about crimes committed since independence in 1958.

Until Conde came to power, the country was ruled by a succession of dictatorial civilian and military regimes, held responsible for countless breaches of human rights, including the killing of thousands of people and torture and imprisonment without trial.

The reconciliation commission is to work with Conde to "find a formula suitable to Guinea's specific case," in contrast to others already tried out in various African countries.

Fofana pointed out that Conde believes that "Guinea is not South Africa", in a reference to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in that country by former president Nelson Mandela after he came to power in the 1994 elections that ended the apartheid era.

Fofana said "we have more than half a century of a heavy burden to take on, and Guineans must be psychologically ready and capable of accepting the truth and of then forgiving one another."

The United Nations has expressed support for Conde's plans for reconciliation in Guinea.