Ambassadors for peace in the Horn of Africa.

The Horn of Africa has been plagued by conflicts for the past 50 years, exacerbating famine and creating millions of refugees. So when a travelling group of four, including two senior diplomats, visited six European capitals in May, they appealed for the world community not to forget their region. Their visit to Europe, organized by MRA's Agenda for Reconciliation programme, coincided with a renewed outbreak of a bloody border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

`Development cannot take place without the end of these conflicts,' said Bethuel Kiplagat, former Permanent Secretary to Kenya's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaking at a public meeting in MRA's London centre. `We need a commitment to peace and reconciliation. If there are no signs of hope we need to create them. We must not say that the task is so big that we cannot start.' He suggested that the International Court of Justice in The Hague could play a part in settling the border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Since 1986 Kiplagat has been working, through the World Council of Churches, to help bring an end to the 30-year civil war in Sudan, `and I am not going to give up', he said. He saw signs of movement towards peace between the eight different rebel groups in Sudan and believed that `there is a commitment by the people themselves'.

Mammo Wudneh, President of the Ethiopian Writers Association, said that the greatest need was to cure bitterness, hatred and revenge. `This is the time to work for peace. Our appeal and intent is for the coming generations.' When the movement for an independent Eritrea, then the northern province of Ethiopia, had first begun he had prayed to God to use his pen to help solve the issue `by peaceful means'.

Speaking alongside Wudneh, Fessaha Fre Weri, an Eritrean business consultant and peace activist, acknowledged Wudneh's courageous articles in the Ethiopian press. They were outspoken against the oppression of the Eritreans and written `at great risk to himself'.

The spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness, advocated by MRA, had come to Fre `as a challenge which I did not want to face. In 1971, the Ethiopian army massacred 25 of my close relatives.' They had been herded into the village Mosque and machine-gunned. They included his sisters and their children. `The choice before me was to overcome my bitterness or to carry a Kalashnikov [rifle]. I decided to join the fight for the hearts and minds of the people. We shouldn't be fighting over our borders, but over the borders in our hearts.'

He added that corruption had been a part of his life when he was a young customs officer. He had had to overcome this too, if he was to master his bitterness. `My corrupt life and my bitterness were very connected and, wanting to get rid of bitterness and hatred, I also had to get rid of my corrupt behaviour.'

`Your war is our war; your peace is our peace,' said Yusuf Al-Azhari, Somalia's former Ambassador to the USA, addressing his travelling colleagues. `The cause of war is injustice. When injustice prevails the whole system collapses,' he said. He spoke about his six years of solitary confinement and harrowing torture as a political prisoner under Somalia's previous Marxist regime. `Ever since, I have vowed that I will help my people to overcome their hatred; to help to heal the wounds of those who have been the victims of oppression and injustice.' Al-Azhari is now working with others to establish a national government in Somalia, following the civil war.

Kiplagat urged people to `think for the long-term healing processes', to prevent the cycle of conflicts re-erupting. `Once relative peace has come we relax when we should be working hard to cure the bitterness in people's hearts. There is no future without forgiving the past,' he said. `We can work on the structures and on the hearts of the people. We must avoid demonizing people. You cannot talk to a demon. My fundamental belief is that human beings can change and do change.'

Highlights of the meeting can be seen on a 7-minute video from: MRA Productions, 24 Greencoat Place, London SW1p 1RD, UK, price [pounds sterling] 9.50 inc VAT and p&p.