Mrs Abeba Tesfagiorgis, the co-founder and Director of the Center for Human Rights and Development, in Asmara, Eritrea, another small country that has recently won its independence, but only after 30 years of bloody struggle. In a meeting, she recounted the story she tells in her book, 'A painful season, and a stubborn hope', of being imprisoned under the Marxist regime. She had been filled with a desire for revenge, but then had apologised to the prison warder she most hated. 'When we forgive, doors open,' she said - and the very next day, she had been transferred to another, better prison. 'Reconciliation and healing takes time^' Mrs Tesfagiorgis concluded, *but you win as an individual, as a family, as a nation. * At the fall of Asmara to the freedom fighters, she said, there had been no taking of revenge, indeed the troops of the Marxist regime had been cared for and then swiftly sent home. This victory and generosity had not been adequately recognized by the world media, she felt.
