EPDP Pays Tribute to a Fallen Colleague in Struggle, Dr. Bairu
2015-04-29 20:02:35 Written by EPDP Information Office Published in EPDP News Read 3541 times-
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This April has taken away from the ranks of the Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) and the wider Eritrean opposition camp an important figure in the struggle for change and democracy in Eritrea: Dr. Bairu Sium who passed away on the 19th and buried in Canada on the 23rd.
Dr. Bairu Sium symbolizes the restless and steadfast generation that carried on the uphill struggle for national liberation, and in recent decades in the struggle to remove dictatorship and replace it by a democratic system of governance. A long-time member of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and its government after 1991, the patriotic intellectual did not hesitate to join the ELF-Revolutionary Council in 2007 and struggle for change.
Between 2008 and 2011, he served as Central Council member of the Eritrean People’s Party (EPP), a successor of the ELF-RC. After merger with other forces, he continued serving the newly-born EPDP at different levels including as team member in the party’s research organ. He was also one of those who actively participated in the translation into English of the current EPDP Political Program which is due to be revised in his absence at the upcoming party congress in July.
Born in 1948 at the village of Adengoda, Karneshim district near Asmara, he completed elementary and high schools in Decamere and at the former Prince Makonnen Secondary School in Asmara where he started his student activism. His continue higher studies in Addis Ababa, Makerere Toronto universities. After obtaining his PhD in education, he served for 29 years as educator.
Just to mention a few of his activist involvements in the Eritrean struggle, Dr. Bairu Sium served as founder-leader of the Canada branch of the militant group of “Eritreans for Liberation in North America”, and later founded the Canada chapter of the Eritrean Relief Association (ERA).
Eritreans in Canada will also continue remembering him for his role in the establishment and works of the Eritrean Canadian Community Centre of Metro Toronto (ECCC). In recent years, he founded and chaired the Eri-Forum for democracy and justice.
Dr. Bairu Sium was the father of three promising children born in diaspora. The eldest daughter, Awet, is already a PhD holder and his son Aman is currently a PhD candidate. The youngest daughter, Shewit, is in school and aspiring to reach the educational level of the model educator father, Dr. Bairu Sium Ghebreselassie.
Adieu comrade-in-struggle. May your soul rest in peace
