The recent call by former African Heads of state including Malawi’s Bakili Muluzi for the warring parties in South Sudan to end war and engage in dialogue is a welcome development.
The call, need to be commended considering the fact that there are clear examples around the Globe where war has shown that is not a solution to resolve conflict or any misunderstandings.
Many countries as of to date, are still grappling with the effects of war which they fought many years ago.
The good examples are those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the second World war, Middle East in 1948, the 1994 Rwandan genocide and more recently Libya, Afghanistan and Syria just to mention a few.
Africa remains one of the poorest despite it being richest continent on the World in terms of mineral resources.
Most of the resources such as oil, diamond and alike are smuggled to the west by the warring functions in exchange for weapons leaving the vulnerable groups like women and children in agony and abject poverty.
It’s high time for those who still believe that the use of guns and bullets is a solution to solve conflict to change their mindset because war has proved to be not a solution in conflict resolution but rather a thing that brings destruction, loss of property, death and poverty among others.
What the World need to focus now are issues to do with climate change, poverty, diseases, economic crisis and alike.
The war in South Sudan erupted in December last year and has displaced over one million people.
In a letter dated June 9 2014, Muluzi asked South Sudan President Salva Kiir and his former Vice President Riek Mchar to engage in an exclusive peace process that brings together warring functions and communities.
The African Union (AU) reports that over half of South Sudan’s 10 million population is at risk of starvation while 223,000 children are at risk of acute malnutrition and there are fears that 50,000 of these children may not survive.
