The head of the Ivory Coast's newly formed truth and reconciliation panel visited the diaspora in Senegal on Sunday to explain his mission to reunite the country torn apart by post-poll violence.

"We need to talk ... we need to admit we have turned a dark page," Charles Konan Banny, a former Ivorian prime minister, told his country's nationals in Dakar.

He said the truth and reconciliation process, which will be officially launched on 28 September, needs to examine "what happened, how did it happen? How we became a country absent of dialogue, a country of lies.
"We need to know the truth, even if it isn't pretty."

Banny, who is also the former governor of the Central Bank of West African States (CBEAO) based in Dakar, said the commission would create "a new Ivory Coast, new social cohesion."

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara last week signed a decree nominating members of the "Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation Commission" which will probe the post-election violence that left over 3,000 dead.
The country has long been divided with strong ethnic tensions and after a 2002 civil war remained split into a rebel-held north and government-held south.

Elections in November 2010 meant to reunite the country descended into bloodshed as incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down after official results showed Ouattara had won.
Clashes, massacres and ethnic violence followed until Gbagbo was arrested in April. He and his wife Simone remain in detention in the north of the country.

"We no longer recognised ourselves. Nobody won, everyone lost, the country lost," Banny said of the nation's darkest moments, adding that for true reconciliation to take place "we need repentance, acceptance of wrongdoing."

He said the commission will be modeled on those such as the body which helped South Africa emerge from the trauma of apartheid, but would take into account the problems specific to Ivory Coast.

The commission will have 11 members including international footballer Didier Drogba, who currently plays for the English premier side Chelsea and will represent the Ivorian diaspora.

(AFP)