36 killed in Sudan riots after vice president dies

Crash over his own area
But the chief mediator during Sudan’s peace negotiations, Kenyan retired general Lazaro Sumbeiywo, said he was sure there was no foul play in Garang’s death because he flew over an area he controlled.

“I totally disregard that (foul play theory) completely because the area he was flying into was an area he controlled,” Sumbeiywo said.

Garang’s movement and the government vowed to move ahead with the peace process. But the charismatic leader’s death strikes a blow to the January peace deal that ended a 21-year civil war between the mostly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south, in which some 2 million people died.

Asked if there were doubts over the cause of the crash, Garang spokesman Yasser Arman told The Associated Press that the group was awaiting an “intensive investigation to determine the cause.”

Gave southern Sudanese weight with Khartoum
Garang, who earned a doctorate from Iowa State University, was seen as the sole figure with the weight to give southern Sudanese a role in the Khartoum government, which they deeply mistrust. He also was a strong voice against outright secession by the south, calling instead for autonomy and power-sharing.

Sudanese have celebrated the power-sharing agreement — and a new constitution signed afterward — as opening a new chapter of peace and as a chance to resolve other bloody conflicts in Sudan, including the humanitarian crisis in the western region of Darfur. Garang was also seen as a great hope for peace in Darfur.

“The (Sudanese) president has appealed to the people to be calm, expressing that although the loss is great but the peace process will continue because peace has now become the property of the Sudanese people and peace-loving people around the world,” the Sudanese statement said.

Key to power-sharing deal
Garang, 60, was sworn in as vice president on July 9 — second only to el-Bashir, his longtime enemy. He and el-Bashir were to work on setting up a power-sharing government and on elevating Garang’s rebel troops to an equal status with the Sudanese military.

There is no other leader of Garang’s stature in the former rebel movement, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which he founded and dominated for 21 years. His arrival in Khartoum on July 8 to take the vice president’s post brought millions of southerners and northerners to the streets in celebration.

The flight’s disappearance brought up the specter of the 1994 downing of the airplane of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, who had been trying to implement a power-sharing deal between his fellow Hutus and the rival Tutsis. His death opened the doors to the Rwandan genocide in which more than 500,000 people were killed.

That genocide took place after months of preparation by Hutu militants — something that has not taken place in Sudan amid the good feelings over the peace deal.

Opposed Muslim government
For more than two decades, Garang dominated the scene in the south, using what critics and admirers alike called his ability “to juggle a stone and an egg.” He held together his often fractious Sudan People’s Liberation Army through force of personality, and wheeling and dealing among the south’s multiple tribes. His critics accused him of wielding dictatorial control over the rebel movement.

His rebels’ “human rights record is poor because of the lack of accountability,” Jemera Rone of Human Rights Watch once said. “That has led to a lot of abuses that have never been punished, including summary executions, disappearances, prolonged arbitrary detentions, corrupt transactions and the taking of food from civilians.”

Garang, in a 2003 interview with The AP, dismissed such allegations.

“A movement that has lasted 20 years will have its critics,” he said. “Which leader never gets criticized? ... Our (human rights) record is available for scrutiny by history.”

Garang insisted throughout that his goal was not to break the south away from Sudan but to create a secular state where southerners’ rights were respected. Successive Khartoum governments sought to impose Islamic law in Sudan.

“Did you ever see a government pray?” Garang would often ask his troops, sparking rounds of laughter. “A government never goes to church and it never goes to mosque.”

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