When he was sworn in as President, he had the perspective of three decades of postcolonial history, much of it validating the idea that reconciliation held more promise than the decidedly less charitable route that states like Zimbabwe took.
In 2001, at the first national conference of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation, held at Boston College, Bob Curley "came out" as being against capital punishment.
On the other hand, a stirring nationwide "reconciliation" has held out the promise of improved relationships.
The reconciliation talks, held under Egyptian auspices, were the first since Hamas, the Islamic militant group, took control of Gaza in June 2007, routing the Palestinian Authority forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas of the mainstream, secularist Fatah.
But if the national reconciliation conference held here on Tuesday revealed anything, it was that the deep political and religious fissures that run through this battered country are nowhere close to healing.
Two other attacks occurred in such close proximity that they might be confused: a suicide bombing that killed about thirty people at a police recruitment center in Iraq on Sunday, and one today that killed about thirty people at a reconciliation conference held in the municipality of Abu Ghraib, where the abyss has also been pretty visible.
A service of reconciliation was held not just for Scotland's capital city, but the whole nation.
The agreement by the leaders of CAR's 10 armed groups to release children in their ranks was signed during a reconciliation forum held in the capital Bangui last week as the result of a collaboration between UNICEF, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and the Government of the Central African Republic.
"Certainly many on the ground think that perhaps in certain areas local reconciliation initiatives hold some potential," he said.
Mr. Gorovoy said of the books, "They are about the idea of restoration, reconciliation, of holding things together in the face of fear of disintegration".
Bharrat Jagdeo, the Moscow-educated economist who was elected president in 2001, held reconciliation talks with Mr. Hoyte, but they broke off last year.
