From 1989, and no peace yet!!

(November 1989)।Before dawn the aircraft lifted above the serene countryside surrounding Nairobi and flew north above the great Rift Valley leaving the rich green hill country of Kenya and entering Sudanese airspace। Landing in Khartoum that day for the third time in as many weeks, our mission was the same as it would be later in the day in Addis Ababa: meet with the head of state and urge him to further the cause of peace, famine relief, and human rights in his country। Back in Nairobi we had been working with negotiating teams on efforts to conclude preliminary negotiations between Ethiopia and Eritrea, while we were preparing to begin negotiations between the government of Sudan and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. Leaving our mediation support team and the warring parties in Kenya, today's shuttle between the capitals of these three countries would mean on-board breakfast, lunch and dinner, and an intense schedule for President and Mrs. Carter and for us. In some ways our trip was a welcome interlude from the minute-by-minute frustrations of nudging the parties to agreement. On the other hand, the flights over the parched Sudanese landscape and the rich farm lands of Ethiopia served to emphasize the senseless starvation and the suffering on the ground. Landing again in Nairobi that evening after 10 o'clock, we prepared ourselves for the day ahead. Hardly pausing to savor the agreements we had received from Presidents el-Bashir and Mengistu regarding famine relief, we prepared for the eighteenth day of peace-seeking and the tedious formulations of keeping the parties at the table and working to end the suffering we had just flown over. Departing the aircraft, there was again the feeling of somber responsibility as well as the excitement of our task. Peace is a process, conceived in the mind and felt by the heart. Dayle E. Spencer William J. Spencer