|
|
POLITICS-SUDAN: John Garang's Successor Faces Formidable Challenges
By Noel King
KHARTOUM, Aug 21 (IPS) - The death of Sudanese vice president and former rebel leader, John Garang, on July 30, has cast doubt upon the strength of a January peace agreement that ended 21 years of civil war between north and south Sudan.
Garang's death in a helicopter crash came only three weeks after he rose from rebel leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), to the vice presidency of Sudan. Garang was also to assume the presidency of southern Sudan, which will have its own government, as part of the peace deal.
In the hours following Garang's death, the Government of Sudan, the United Nations and the SPLM, joined in calling the crash a tragic accident and in urging calm. But unsubstantiated rumours that Garang's death had been engineered by the northern government spread through Khartoum, and young southern men rioted, setting off homemade bombs and looting stores.
Police and soldiers responded with force, and when the rioting ceased, 130 people had been killed and 350 wounded in Khartoum and Juba, the south's principal city.
The rioting caused a backlash, in which northerners armed themselves and vowed retaliation and Khartoum found itself divided by ethnic tension.
"I would not go into a southern neighbourhood right now," said Mohammed Omar, a northern veterinarian, in the days after the rioting. A young southern man who declined to give his name said "red men" had attacked him in his home though he had done nothing. "Red Man" is Sudanese slang for a very light-skinned northerner.
Sudanese government and SPLM officials remained optimistic, but the rise of ethnic violence spurred worry that the peace agreement would be hobbled by clashes among Sudanese civilians.
By Aug. 6, the day of Garang's funeral, the streets of Khartoum were calm, and northern and southern Sudanese appeared eager to dismiss the rioting as a brief spasm of violence.
"The students know that they are a minority and that they can't spark any problem. I think they will be intelligent enough never to start a problem again," says James Odry, a professor of agriculture at Juba University.
In the hours after Garang's death, Sudanese and international leaders moved swiftly to keep the peace agreement afloat. Sudanese President Omar al Bashir instituted a state of emergency and an evening curfew, while urging calm in press statements and on Sudanese Television.
The United States appointed two senior envoys to Sudan and agreed to provide material support to aid in the investigation of Garang's helicopter crash.
The United States along with Norway and Britain were directly involved in the peace process, and seemed equally interested in maintaining its stability.
"I'm optimistic under the circumstances," U.S. envoy Roger Winter told reporters last week. "The deal is done. If this had happened a few months ago with an undone deal it would have been potentially a much riskier circumstance. The deal is done. It's recognised internationally. It's the deal." Winter added that no changes should be made to the agreement.
The United Nations also agreed to help in the investigation, but UN Special Representative to Sudan, Jan Pronk, appeared peeved as he urged young Sudanese men to restrain themselves.
"Garang was the government," said Pronk, countering rumours that the northern government was involved in the former rebel's death. And indeed, the legitimacy of the rioting was undermined by the fact that Garang was no longer a wanted rebel leader, but a popular government official who was living lavishly in Khartoum after a two-decade absence.
Garang's deputy in the SPLM Salva Kiir was quickly and unanimously chosen to succeed Garang. Kiir had been a popular military leader, and a member of Garang's Dinka tribe, the largest ethnic group in southern Sudan. But Kiir is a career soldier, with little political experience.
A quiet man, who reportedly does not drink alcohol or smoke, Kiir is said to have a remarkable rapport with soldiers, but is not a politician, in marked contrast to the larger-than-life Garang who was educated in the United States and moved as easily among heads of state as he did among Sudanese peasants.
"I'm confident about Salva Kiir. He's a well-liked man in the movement. In spite of the fact that he's a military man he also has a reputation for being collegial. The man is no slouch intellectually," said Winter. But he added that Kiir will probably need support from his staff in political matters as a result of his lack of experience.
"I will admit there will be a vacuum," said Abednego Acok Kachoul, Director of Juba University Centre for Peace and Development studies. "John had diplomatic, political, academic qualities. Meanwhile Kiir has the military experience. The qualities held by these two brothers are completely different. But Kiir will be guided by the peace agreement."
Kachoul says his optimism is boosted by the ascension of Riek Machar to the role of Kiir's deputy. Machar is a member of the Nuer tribe. In early 1990s power struggles between the Dinka and Nuer, and indeed between Garang and Machar, factionalised the SPLM, and led to fierce internal struggles. But with Machar's appointment, the union of Nuer and Dinka, says Kachoul, will boost confidence among the Nuer and prevent splits within the SPLM/A.
Kiir's political agenda has deviated from Garang's in at least one key aspect. As part of the January peace agreement, southern Sudanese will decide in six years if they want to remain united to northern Sudan or to secede and form their own nation. Garang wanted a unified Sudan.
In the past, Kiir has advanced a separatist agenda, which parallels the desires of most southern Sudanese who, after decades of civil war, want their own nation. At his inauguration on Aug. 11 Kirr began to echo Garang's call for a unified Sudan.
"This is the last chance for Sudanese unity and it is incumbent upon us to work towards realising it," said Kiir at his swearing in ceremony Thursday. But it is not yet possible to tell how Kiir will address the question of a united Sudan in the future.
Prior to Garang's death, the Sudanese Peace Agreement had been harshly criticised for being an exclusive deal between the SPLM and the northern government. Leading northern opposition parties claim they are entirely left out of the agreement. The raging ethnic conflict in Darfur, one of the world's largest humanitarian crises, and smaller uprisings in eastern Sudan were not addressed in the agreement.
Members of the Sudan Libertion Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the largest Darfuri rebel factions were not included in the peace process, nor were members of the smaller, but equally angry Beja Congress, who rioted in eastern Sudan immediately after the signing of the agreement, claiming to have been marginalised.
A cursory investigation of the peace agreement reveals that the lion's share of power in the Government of National Unity will be held by the SPLM and President Omar Al Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP.) The NCP will get 52 percent of the seats in Sudan's National Assembly, and the SPLM 28 percent. All other opposition parties throughout Sudan will share the remaining 20 percent. The exclusion has led to an outcry from opposition parties.
"This peace agreement is not comprehensive. There are serious things interwoven into the agreement itself, that unless revisited in a national way, rather than in the partisan interest of the two parties will strangle the peace agreement from within," said Miriam al Mahdi, spokeswoman for the UMMA party, one of the largest northern opposition parties. "The power and wealth were divided between the two armed groups only. There is an imbalance."
Al Mahdi added that several critical issues remained unaddressed by the peace agreement. Tribal and ethnic conflicts have often led to violence in Sudan, yet no steps for the mediation of ethnic tensions were laid out in the peace process.
Additionally, while Sudan's northern Islamist government currently boycotts the state of Israel; many southern Sudanese are Christian and have shown a desire to work with Israelis.
The Israeli question was not addressed in the agreement. And while the Sudanese government has attempted to use the framework of the north-south agreement to end the Darfur conflict, Darfuri rebels say that agreement is not relevant to their struggle.
Garang was intended to have mediated in Darfur, and given his popularity many had high hopes for successful negotiations.
"Garang would have given credibility to efforts to end the Darfur crisis," said al Mahdi. "Garang had more credibility than the old symbols of the regime. He (President al Bashir) has talked about resolving Darfur issue from the start, but it is just speeches at festivals."
But al Mahdi, like many others suggests that Kiir's lack of experience may help him. Kiir has an opportunity to shape his own reputation. "He has got many challenges, but he has got many opportunities, because a lot of the enemies of Dr. John will now be more willing to cooperate. He has strength by being himself."
Kiir's small, subdued inaugural ceremony, which took place last week, stood in marked contrast to Garang's jubilant celebration one month before, and reminded everyone that the new first vice president of Sudan faces a formidable challenge - to insure the unity of the troubled nation he has just begun to lead. (END/2005)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
What is RSS?
