“Everything comes too late for those who only wait.”

“The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you ”
(American and Trappist Monk t Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Trappist, Kentucky, 1915-1968)

By Abebe Gellaw

Opening the conference, Dr Worku Negash, who moderated the dialogue without taking sides on behalf of the Stanford Ethiopian Forum, noted that the unique gathering was a beginning in the right direction to normalize the toxic relations between Ethiopians and Eritreans, who have been through so much conflicts and pains due to their tragic past.


Eritrean Professor Mesfin Araya of City University of New York said that the Eritrean middle class that blindly rallied around Isaias Afeworki and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front committed a “collective suicide in post-independence Eritrea.”


Another Eritrean scholar, Professor Tesfatsion Medhanie, who teaches politics and law at Bremen University, Germany, on his part tried to analyse why Ethiopia and Eritrea were separated and how they can start a process of reunification that can lead up to federation. According to him, the main cause of the conflict between the Ethiopian state and Eritrean nationalists was mainly a result of the decision taken by Emperor Haile Selassie to dissolve Eritrea’s federal status in 1962.


Historian Dr Daniel Kindie, argued that federation, in stead of confederation, was much more plausible than confederation given the history of the two nations. Dr Daniel laced his argument with a historical context by emphasising on the root causes of tensions and conflicts that were deliberately created and sustained by colonial powers especially the British Empire that has deliberately sowed deadly divisions and conflicts among the people of Africa.


One of the founders of the Tigray People Liberation Front, Dr. Aregawi Berhe, who resides in The Hague and is currently a researcher at Leiden University, spoke about the “horrendous looting and plundering” being committed by Meles Zenawi and his cronies. According to Dr. Aregawi, the main obstacles for peace, reconciliation and unity in the Horn of Africa are the ruthless rulers robbing and messing up the poor people.
He said that the most important precondition for co-operation and reconciliation between the oppressed people of Ethiopia and Eritrea is freedom. “Under these dictatorial regimes, neither confederation nor federation can be viable alternatives,” he noted.



Obang pointed out that there was an urgent need for healing among Ethiopians and Eritreans who have been subjected to extremely traumatic suffering and bloodshed. He said that people should go through four phases of transitions: awareness of the truth, transformation, healing and embracing one another with wholehearted compassion and forgiveness.

Source Abugida