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As Cote d’Ivoire
becomes the latest African country to subject itself to a truth and
reconciliation commission, the lesson it can learn from past efforts is
two-fold: it is going to hurt, and it could take years.

Experience from
post-apartheid South Africa to post-war Sierra Leone shows such
exercises can help a country draw a line under the past, even when many
victims are left dissatisfied.

But Ivorien
President Alassane Ouattara must ensure all sides are heard and must
avoid rushing the pace for the sake of political expediency if he is to
heal wounds ripped open for the second time in a decade.

“Although the truth
side of it is very important, very often what actually happened is
known by many people,” said Yasmin Jusu-Sheriff, first executive
secretary of Sierra Leone’s 2002-2004 Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC).

“It’s how you deal
with it, and how you live with it after it happens … While it can’t
go on for ever, it shouldn’t be too much of a time-bound process,” she
told Reuters.

Yet Ouattara seems
to be in a hurry to get things going after the April 11 ousting from
power of rival Laurent Gbagbo, whose refusal to accept defeat in a
November election triggered a fourth-month power struggle in which
thousands died.

He has pledged to set up a South African-style TRC within two weeks and has already filled the key post of chairman.

“It is positive
that the President has announced plans for a commission, but we urge
him not to rush,” Desmond Tutu, who chaired South Africa’s TRC in the
1990s, warned after talks with Ouattara in Cote d’Ivoire this week.

Curing Ivorien ills

The mandate,
structure and aims of Cote d’Ivoire’s TRC process will all help
determine whether it can succeed in rooting out an ill which may prove
harder to diagnose and cure than the trauma of apartheid inflicted on
millions of South Africans.

Although Ivoriens
rubbed along for years following independence from France in 1960, a
debate over nationality exploded in 1999, culminating in a 2002-2003
civil war marked by ethnic bloodshed and which split the country
between north and south.

The November 28
election was hoped to seal reunification but the southerner Gbagbo’s
refusal to accept the victory of Ouattara, a northerner, only made
matters worse.

When pro-Ouattara
troops headed south to Abidjan in late-March, hundreds died in an orgy
of ethnically-motivated violence still not fully explained.

Ouattara’s choice
for TRC chairman of ex-premier Charles Konan Banny appears designed to
show neutrality. Ex-banker Banny is an uncontroversial figure from the
central Baoule ethnicity and will be flanked by one Christian and one
Muslim deputy.

But the TRC’s mandate has not yet been publicly defined. It is not
clear whether Banny will have the right to subpoena alleged wrongdoers
to give testimony, nor what will happen to them afterwards —
forgiveness or criminal proceedings.