C.Africa launches its truth and reconciliation commission

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The Central African Republic's parliament has endorsed a bill to create a long-awaited commission aimed at healing wounds from conflict and civil wars spanning six decades.

The government on Friday said a vote in parliament the night before approved the creation of a Justice, Truth, Reparation and Reconciliation Commission, or CJVRR to give its French initials.

The impoverished, landlocked country remains deeply troubled despite a peace accord struck in February 2019.

"The commission's prime mission is to encourage reflection nationally about events which gravely affected Central Africans and their country, from the death of President Barthelemy Boganda on March 29 1959 until 2019," said Virginie Baikoua, the minister for humanitarian action and national reconciliation.

Boganda, a charismatic nationalist leader who campaigned for independence from France, was set to become the country's first post-colonial president when he died in a plane crash on a domestic flight.

His death shocked the emerging country and remains unexplained today, and several theories circulate that the plane was deliberately blown up.

Baikoua said the panel would sit for four years, with a possible two-year extension, and comprise 11 commissioners, three of them women.

The commission has been eagerly awaited in a country ravaged by three civil wars in 20 years and remains prey to violence from armed groups that control two-thirds of the country.

It "will offer a place for listening, a space where the memory of victims will be honoured and the painful experience of thousands of compatriots will be acknowledged by society, with the ultimate aim of achieving lasting healing together," Baikoua said.

The drafting of the bill had been preceded by national consultation launched in June 2019, but only a limited number of citizens were able to take part because of insecurity.

In 2003, a similar commission had been set up following a coup by François Bozize, who had just overthrown the regime of President Ange-Felix Patasse.

Stripped of means to investigate crimes committed by rebel and loyalist forces, the 2003 commission failed to restore peace to the country.

The same year a new rebellion erupted that marked the start of the first civil war.

Today, near half of the 4.7 million de Central Africans have been forced to flee their homes, and the country is listed as one of the poorest in the world.