The recent civil war may have started in 1983 but Sudan has been at war for 13 of the last 17 decades. Accompanying the 320 Bor Dinka on their journey, the UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland says that, while the world’s gaze has been on Darfur to the west, it is the south that is at a crossroads.
Can the story of happy return be consolidated into a new beginning or will the present optimism turn sour under the weight of unfulfilled promises?The south is a land for the large part without schools, hospitals, roads, jobs or a working government.Hopes of a new dawn, fuelled by a wealth of oil and gold, are tempered by fears that outbreaks of militia fighting could spill over into renewed conflict if frustration at the slow pace of change continues to fester.It wouldn’t be the first time. “I feel like the happiest man alive,” said 60-year-old Michael Garang. “I didn’t feel well in exile and today I’m returning to my land.”

Since January 2005, when the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and Khartoum’s Arab-dominated government signed the comprehensive peace agreement, many of the four million people displaced by Africa’s longest-running conflict have started returning home. It had been nearly 20 years since the Bor Dinka fled their war-ravaged homeland by the Nile in southern Sudan and now they were within hours of return. I wish I could go back but I can’t, I will not live to see us return I miss Tibet I love Tibet.”. An hour before the dawn broke, drums and song coursed through the barge.

He walked for 16 days through the high passes in the Himalayas “I am 82,” he said “I am too old to go back to Tibet now. “If you say you’re a Tibetan you should live in a country called Tibet.” But some have given up waiting Tashi Tsering fled here in 1959 with the Dalai Lama. But he says if the opportunity came, he would return there without hesitating ” Everybody wants to go,” he said. Today India is home to more than 80,000 Tibetan refugees, and more than half were born outside Tibet Tawang has never set foot in Tibet. The small Indian hill town, and the neighbouring village of McLeod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama lives, are places of sorrow for thousands of Tibetans. In Dharamsala, Tibetan exiles reacted sceptically to the news “The Chinese are lying.

Nobody believes the Chinese,” said Tenzing Thachu, who fled Tibet in 1989. “It’s great if the Dalai Lama gets to go to China, but the Chinese will never give freedom to the Tibetans,” said Jhamla Lotu, who fled here with the Dalai Lama in 1957. There were remarkable scenes in Tibet as people came on to the streets to burn tiger skins. He has been speaking openly recently of the fact he may not be around much longer. When he dies, his successor will be “discovered”, probably as a child who Tibetan Buddhists believe is a reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. That means there will be years of a power vacuum with no Tibetan leader with the authority to negotiate a settlement. The current Dalai Lama’s authority in Tibet was illustrated earlier this year after he called on Tibetans to stop wearing traditional tigerskin robes in the interests of conservation.

Both sides are believed to be eager to find a solution to the Tibet issue while the current Dalai Lama is still alive. And during his 47 years of exile, it is in India that the Dalai Lama has lived. Mr Hu’s visit comes as Mr Bush is courting India as a new ally, stressing their shared values of democracy. Already there have been several surprise moves from China that look like an attempt to soften its image. Last month it allowed a nun jailed for 15 years to seek medical treatment in the US, and dropped charges against a New York Times researcher, although he remains in jail. Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the government-in-exile, said: “If the Chinese wanted, and if his Holiness thought it appropriate to meet Chinese leaders on a visit, it would be a wonderful opportunity to explore his Holiness’s views on the issue of Tibet.” China is believed to be anxious to improve relations with the US ahead of Mr Hu’s first visit there this month, and there have been suggestions the timing of the announcement over the Dalai Lama was no coincidence.