20110501
reuters

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's president on Sunday said former Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny would head a truth and reconciliation commission, set up to heal divisions after months of conflict.

President Alassane Ouattara made the announcement at a meeting with Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu, former Irish president Mary Robinson and former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who are visiting the country to promote reconciliation.

Elections late last year that were meant draw a line under a decade of political crisis and economic stagnation instead deepened rifts in the world's top cocoa producer.

Former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to leave office after losing the November poll.

Ouattara eventually came to power after his supporters -- backed by French and U.N. helicopter gunships -- arrested Gbagbo after days of heavy fighting in the main city Abidjan.

"If you see ... Banny next to me it is because I intend, in the coming days, to name him as president of the commission for truth, reconciliation and dialogue," Ouattara said at a meeting with the visiting trio, members of the group of global "elders", which tries to solve global problems.

"I have added the word dialogue as that is part of our customs," Ouattara added.

Banny, also a former governor of the West African BCEAO central bank, served as prime minister in a transitional government that ran the country after the 2002-3 civil war split the nation in two.