Mutiny leader testifies at national reconciliation talks, seeks forgiveness

A former Central African Republic (CAR) military official, Anicet Sollet, testified on Thursday before a plenary session of the on-going national reconciliation talks, and asked the public to forgive him over a mutiny he led in November 1997. "For all the misdeeds that my men committed, I ask, from the bottom of my heart, for the CAR people’s forgiveness," he said. Sollet, 43, said that he and 50 other army officers had contacted several leading CAR figures - including then Bangui Roman Catholic Archbishop Joachim Ndayen, former Prime Minister Paul Ngoupande and former national assembly Speaker Hugues Dobozendi - asking them to become president when the coup succeeded, but all rejected the offer. The mutiny was crushed by French troops who were stationed in the country and was followed by an agreement between rebels and President Ange-Felix Patasse’s administration. Two other mutinies took place in the CAR in 1996, with the military demanding payment of salary arrears. Sollet is a Yakoma, the ethnic group of former President Andre Kolingba. He was among 21 convicts of the 21 May 2001 failed coup that Kolingba allegedly organised. He spent two years in exile in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the town of Gbadolite. He returned home in May after CAR leader Francois Bozize granted the coup convicts an amnesty. Despite efforts to reconcile the nation through the talks, Sollet said, the integration of former mutineers was slow, and that ethnicity continued in the army. "Unfortunately, what we reproached during Patasse’s administration persists under the current administration," he told IRIN on Thursday. He added that Yakoma soldiers returning from exile were facing "administrative hardships" in their integration. "I spent three months before integration into the public service," Sollet, who is now officer in charge of special duties in the Ministry of Territorial Administration, said. The testimony by public figures before the national talks is considered the most crucial phase of the talks, as controversial personalities address the truth commission, one of five committees set up by the 350 delegates attending the talks. "These testimonies will contribute to the manifestation of truth, a condition for reconciliation," Andre Denamsse-Kette, chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation commission, told IRIN. He said former Patasse collaborators would also be invited to testify. After Sollet, former chief prosecutor Joseph Bindoumi, who prosecuted at least 800 former soldiers over the May 2001 coup, spoke to the commission. Bindoumi once headed an investigative commission that in November 2001 summoned Bozize over alleged involvement in the plotting of another coup. This marked the beginning of Bozize’s rebellion that ended on 15 March when he overthrew Patasse. "My mission as a magistrate was to prosecute those who had violated the law," Bindoumi said. Other prominent CAR personalities, including former constitutional Court President Edouard Frank; former deputy army chief of staff and former Patasse’s military adviser, Gen Andre Mazi; and the son of Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa, Jean Serge Bokassa, also testified before the commission. More testimonies continue on Friday. The Rassemblement democratique centrafrique has announced the return, "in a few days" of its founder and chairman Kolingba, now in exile in Uganda. He is also scheduled to speak at the commission. Initiated in November 2002 by Patasse, the national dialogue is aimed at reconciling the war-torn country. The various commissions have completed their work and are due to present their recommendations during the plenary sessions. Patasse, in exile in Togo, has been excluded from the talks, which are due to end on 6 October.