Abstract

This essay recounts one of postcolonial Africa's bloodiest civil wars, in Sierra Leone in the 1990s, and provides thoughts on an unusual «Interreligious Council» for the solution of the conflict and the «reconstruction» of social and political life after the war. The «Council», based on the alliance between various religious denominations - Catholic and Protestant, Islamic and traditional components - acts through many contacts and talks with enemy parties, relying on the authority of the element of confession. The «Council» also contributes to the formation of a «Truth and Reconciliation Commission» similar to the model already tried in South Africa after the end of Apartheid during the period from 1991 to 1994, and in Rwanda after the genocide in 1994; the goal is to start a process of «national reconciliation» through the testimony of the victims and the confessions of the executioners. Despite some contradictory aspects, the work of the TRC provides a basis for an effective civil reconstruction.