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Sudan seeks peace post-Garang, riots kill 36

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 August 2005, 04:56 CDT

By Katie Nguyen

NEW SITE, Sudan (Reuters) - Grieving southern Sudanese paid respects to ex-rebel boss John Garang on Tuesday as diplomatic moves began to ensure the peace deal he struck would hold despite riots over his death that killed 36 people.

Two senior U.S. envoys were on their way to Sudan to encourage a smooth transition in Garang's former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) to new leader Salva Kiir. A delegation from Khartoum also went south to pay respects.

Garang -- who just three weeks ago became Sudan's vice-president as part of a January peace accord hailed as a rare success for the continent -- died when a Ugandan helicopter he was traveling in went down in bad weather at the weekend.

There has been no suggestion of foul play.

Fellow ex-fighters, supporters and relatives gathered in New Site, a small settlement in the remote bush of southern Sudan, where Garang's body was laid in a wooden casket with a flag.

Scented charcoal burned in the modest room where the casket rested. Outside, men in green combat fatigues sat under thorn trees, some holding rifles.

The SPLM announced five days of mourning starting on Tuesday and said they would transport the corpse to Juba, also in the south, for a funeral. The body would not go to Khartoum for viewing because of the riots, the SPLM said.

Seeking to confound predictions from some of a messy succession fight, the SPLM moved swiftly on Monday evening to choose a senior Garang ally, Kiir, to succeed him.

The SPLM expects Kiir to take Garang's post as first vice president in the new power-sharing government set up in the January accord that ended two decades of north-south conflict, Africa's longest-running civil war.

Some southerners, who have long complained of discrimination by the Islamic authorities based in the north, fear their position may be weakened without Garang.

His death prompted some of them to rampage through the streets of Khartoum on Monday in some of the worst riots in the capital in years. Police said at least 36 people were killed.

After a 6 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew overnight, Sudanese armored vehicles deployed at strategic points around the capital, which was dotted with burned-out shops and smashed vehicles.

"GARANG'S VISION STILL ALIVE"

The United Nations, the United States and a host of other international figures and bodies called Garang's death a great loss and urged respect for the peace process he began.

The United States dispatched two top diplomats -- Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Connie Newman and the U.S. special envoy to Sudan Roger Winter -- to the country.

"The United States is determined to maintain our commitment to the peace process in Sudan," President Bush said.

Analysts say Kiir may bring a more collegial style to southern politics which Garang had long dominated.

"John Garang was a special person, very charismatic and visionary. He was different from Salva Kiir who is calm, composed and calculative, so each one has his own traits," said Kenya's Lieutenant-General Lazarus Sumbeiywo Kenyan, who was the chief mediator in the Sudan peace talks.

"We hope he will be able to fit into the shoes of Dr John Garang, certainly he is a leader in his own right. He is more of a politician than a soldier."

Members of the SPLM and the government in Khartoum -- bitter enemies during the conflict -- promised to maintain the peace agreement Garang helped bring about. Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir sent a delegation from Khartoum, led by Federal Affairs Minister Nafie Ali Nafie, to New Site on Tuesday morning.

"We want to affirm here that we will work together with the leadership of the SPLM so that we can implement all the steps," Nafie said, standing next to Kiir.

Some southerners, however, fear Garang's absence could weaken their hand in governing Africa's largest country, divided between an Arabised Muslim north and the south, which is a mix of African ethnicities with Christians, animists and Muslims.

The peace deal included giving southerners the right to vote on secession after a six-year interim period and also shared out Sudan's oil wealth between north and south roughly equally.

Garang's death stunned the region, where Sudan's neighbors helped negotiate an end to the civil war. Neighbors Kenya and Uganda declared three days of mourning.

The conflict in south Sudan began in 1983 when the Islamist Khartoum government tried to impose sharia Islamic law. Two million people were killed, mainly by hunger and disease.

Garang's wife Rebecca added her voice to the pleas for calm.

"This was his day and I accept that God has come to collect him," she told Reuters in New Site. "It is just my husband who has died. His vision is still alive."

(Additional reporting by Khaled Abdel-Aziz in Khartoum and Wangui Kanina in Nairobi)

Source: REUTERS

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