EDITORIAL
Every once in awhile a pivotal moment appears, a tiny blip on the
radar screen that, given the right conditions, can signal the start of
a major sea change. Such is the case in the United States, where a
president, policy-makers, priests, and the press are preaching peace
in Sudan. The volume of peace rhetoric has been steadily increasing
over the past few months, with heavyweights such as U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell indicating that finding a solution to Sudan s long-
standing civil war is a top priority for the U.S.
However, as of yet, there does not appear to be a clear way forward,
reports AFRICANEWS staffer Matthias Muindi. First, U.S. policymakers
need to figure out whether their primary policy goal is to end the war
in Sudan or to continue what the Clinton administration started, that
is, to bring down the National Islamic Front government and back the
Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), notes AFRICANEWS correspondent
Linda Frommer. Two think-tanks have taken centre stage on the debate.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has been
calling upon the Bush administration to "explicitly concentrate U.S.
policy toward Sudan on the single, overriding objective of ending the
war." Meanwhile, the Committee on Religious Freedom in the United
States says that Bush should build upon what Clinton started, writes
Frommer.
For the people of the Nuba Mountains in Central Sudan, another pivotal
moment has just occurred: the death of their leader Yusuf Kuwa Makki.
From an early age, Kuwa developed a strong sense of Nuba identity as
he challenged the repression of the Nuba and Southern Sudanese by the
Islamic educational and political system. When he joined the SPLA in
1983, Kuwa was immediately ranked in the High Command, the SPLA s
central committee for political planning. He went on to become
Governor of Southern Kordofan. Kuwa died of cancer on April 2 in the
U.K. AFRICANEWS correspondent Stephen Amin interviewed Kuwa just
before he left for medical treatment in the U.K.
A major sea of change is happening in Ghana, where President John
Agyekum Kufuor is inviting all those who fled the former regime to
return back and start anew, reports AFRICANEWS correspondent Amos
Safo. A "Homecoming Summit" scheduled for May this year aims to
convince all Ghanaian professionals working abroad to come home and
invest in the economy to create jobs for the unemployed and launch the
country into a middle-incoming earning country by the year 2010. High-
powered government delegations are already touring the United States,
Canada, Britain and other European countries to market the idea,
writes Safo.
AIDS continues to cut its cruel path through families, communities,
and countries, striking down an alarming number of people in their
productive years. This pandemic has serious implications for the
labour supplies, and ultimately the economies, of those countries in
the Southern African Development Community (SADC), reports our
correspondents Amos Chanda and Newton Sibanda. But governments and
companies are starting to tackle the problem head-on. Sadly, in
Malawi, one sub-economy is actually profiting from the pandemic: the
coffin business, observes AFRICANEWS correspondent Brian Ligomeka.
From Zimbabwe, Rodrick Mukumbira takes a look at the Chinese herb
business in the country to see if claims of an AIDS cure are true.
Back to AFRICANEWS homepage