How military chopper crashed in valley

the monitor
Publication Date: 8/2/2005







Dr John Garang met his death in Kidepo valley, which stretches from Uganda to Sudan and is known for its captivating scenery and wildlife park straddling the countries.
The helicopter, a Russian built Mi-72 presidential chopper owned by the Ugandan military, crashed into the mountainous terrain, killing all 14 people on board. The others were six companions and seven crew.






Dr John Garang Dr Garang had flown to Uganda last Friday for a two-day visit where he held talks with President Yoweri Museveni. He flew to Uganda from Nairobi's Wilson airport in a private chartered plane.
From Entebbe, he got into the presidential chopper which flew him to Rwakitura in Mbarara, the president's rural home where he stayed overnight. Sources said their talks touched on Dr Garang's vision of how he was going to govern Southern Sudan and its reconstruction.
He left Entebbe on Saturday at 5.25pm on the same presidential helicopter after giving an ultimatum to Joseph Kony's Lords Resistance Army rebel group to leave Southern Sudan.
The helicopter, which flew him from Mbarara, had stopped in Entebbe at 4.55pm to refuel on the way to Dr Garang's New Site camp in Southern Sudan.
According to reports from Kampala, the radar at Entebbe recorded the helicopter flying over Karenga and Kapedo areas, north of Kidepo Valley National Park in north-eastern Uganda at about 6.30pm. The area is close to the Kenyan border.
Then information was radioed back to Entebbe that the helicopter had encountered bad weather and that the pilot wanted to turn back.
Thereafter the pilot attempted to land at a place known as New Kush but aborted landing due to bad weather and headed south.
Minutes later, Entebbe lost communication with the helicopter crew.
It was at 7.25pm that an official of the Presidential Guard Brigade manning the desk at Entebbe's VIP lounge telephoned Rwakitura in Mbarara to inform President Museveni's officials about the missing helicopter.
Though it was clear that the helicopter had run into bad weather, there were also unconfirmed reports that it might have run out of fuel, probably after circling the valley trying to locate a suitable landing site.
Reports indicated that the wreckage of the chopper was discovered in the valley by villagers.
A combined search team of Ugandan, Kenyan and Sudanese military recovered the bodies.
Yesterday, President Museveni announced that he would form a committee of three experts to probe the accident.
He indicated that he had contacted another country, which he did not name, to carry out investigations on the aircraft to rule out terrorism.

Death that came at the end of war

Story by PETER KIMANI
Publication Date: 8/2/2005








Dr John Garang de Mabior, the rebel who symbolised the Southern Sudan cause, and died a statesman only three weeks into its liberation, after 22 years of struggle, bequeaths his country a legacy of uncertainty — just as he found it.
His towering figure cast a huge presence in the region as Southern Sudan waged a blistering war for self-determination, a campaign that Garang engineered from scratch and orchestrated to the end.






Dr John Garang and former Sudan First Vice president Osman Taha (left) lift their copies of the newly-signed power sharing agreement in Nairobi in June. His birth to a Christian family in a village near Bor, Southern Sudan on June 23, 1943, followed by early education in Tanzania, later at Dar es Saalam University and long sojourn in Kenya, established the regional links that he would need in future to give leverage to his cause.
He had arrived in colonial Kenya in shackles — arrested for being in the country illegally — and left in glory after signing a peace agreement that would see a rebirth of his beloved Sudan.
"My presence here in Khartoum is a true signal that the war is truly over," he proclaimed last month after returning to Khartoum after 22 years. "Nobody will take us for granted - we have come to stay."
He did not stay long, and fears are rife that the fragile peace that he helped foster could be equally short-lived. But such misgivings only help to express the serious shortcomings that movements face when figureheads turn to be their lifeline.
If Yasser Arafat was the face of Palestine, John Garang represented the Sudanese People Liberation Movement (SPLM) and its military wing, Sudanese People Liberation Army (SPLA) — and the cause of Southern Sudan.
But it's hard to decipher the movement's amorphous identity, which kept shifting in tandem with Garang's many ideological shifts: First his dalliance with Marxism, and later with Christian fundamentalists in the US and Britain.
The man himself has attributed his political stand-point from his student days in the US.
"Maybe it's the liberal values of Grinwell College that have been talking in me," Garang is quoted saying during a visit to his alma mater. He later earned a doctorate in Agricultural Economics from Iowa State University. He also received military training at Fort Benning, Georgia.
His life journey, however, remained consistent, pursuing a military solution to counter Khartoum's marginalisation of the South, and which climaxed with the Islamisation of Sudan by the Salvation Revolution under the leadership of Omar Al-Bashier and ideologue Hassan Al-Turabi in 1989.
But this only exploded the faultlines that had been thawing for years earlier, when Garang abandoned government forces to join the mutineers he had been sent to crush in the South as an army colonel.
That was in 1983, the period that saw the birth of SPLM (A), winning instant support from Libya, Uganda and Ethiopia.
Kenya, which had to shoulder the burden of hosting thousands of Sudanese refugees over the years, pursued peace through negotiation, which finally bore fruit in January this year through the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the document that defines Sudan's future political dispensation.
Garang was many things to different people. There are those who were drawn to his charisma, while others saw in him a fierce pride and an inability to tolerate dissent.
"He has this cold outlook, giving you this idea that he's above everybody." said Peter Moszynski, a Sudan specialist who covered the war for many years.
"He's very much a professional military man, a man who believes he's clever," said Gill Lusk, deputy editor of Africa Confidential and a Sudan specialist who interviewed the ex-guerrilla leader several times over the years. "He likes grand ideas, and has a great sense of humour — at least among his people."
But Garang's greatest tribute lay in his ability to hold together SPLM's disparate voices, and whose split between 1989 and 1995 jeopardised everything.
He was solely credited with the growth of SPLA, whose force was estimated at 12,500 by 1986, organised into 12 battalions and equipped with small arms and a few mortars, and which had risen to around 50,000 to 60,000 men and women in 1991, hinting at the movement's popularity and threat to Khartoum.
The bruising struggle between North and South left two million dead and stunted Sudan's growth, and its enormous potential remains largely unexplored.
Garang carried the aspirations of his people, and the tumultuous welcome that greeted his return last month suggests that his death on the brink of grand success has left many heart-broken.
It is, indeed, an ironic twist of fate that a man who spent a life-time dodging bullets, could die in peace-time in a freak accident. Many attempts had been made on Garang's life, either from external forces or intra-SPLM's fighting, the most dramatic coming in November 1988.
Then his home in Nairobi's Lavington suburb was raided by men who exchanged fire with his security agents, and a man was killed in the fight.
Garang was a man of many moods, at home in church pews and trenches in the battle front. He was also a committed family man, married to Rebecca, a senior official with SPLM with whom he raised six children, three of whom school in Kenya, his adopted home.

Split feared in race for successor

Story by ALFRED TABAN
Publication Date: 8/2/2005







Dr John Dr Garang died three weeks after being installed as first vice president of Sudan in a power-sharing system with the government of president Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
And his death is likely to have far reaching consequences.
First is the fate of the agreement. Southerners have always been suspicious of Northern Sudanese following decades of what they see as an unjust rule in which Northerners monopolised power in Khartoum.
And the Southerners are grateful to Dr Garang for signing an agreement that they consider fair.
The deal, signed on January 9 in Nairobi, gives almost total control of the South to Southern Sudanese, a thing the Southerners have always wanted and three Kenyans - former president Daniel Arap Moi, Cabinet minister Kalanzo Musyoka and Lazarus Sumbeiywo played a key role during the negotiations.
The deal also gives almost one third of government seats in Khartoum, including that of first vice president which Dr Garang occupied, to Southerners.
Now that he is dead, Southerners are going to be very suspicious of Northerners and the government in Khartoum. And the peace agreement is likely to be undermined.
Most Southern Sudanese, who have complained of being marginalised for decades by Northerners, are now likely to doubt the secession they hoped the peace agreement would bring.
The immediate problem is, however, likely to be among the Southerners themselves. Replacing Dr Garang is going to cause a major split within the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) and its armed wing, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army( SPLA).
Dr Garang wielded so much power he left very limited authority in the hands of his immediate assistants. He was not only the first vice president, but was also president of Southern Sudan, leader of the SPLM, and commander-in-chief of the SPLA.
He recently dissolved most of the institutions in Southern Sudan and appointed most of his rivals as caretaker administrators.
The person likely to stake a claim over the post of leader of the SPLM is Mr Salva Kiir, Dr Garang's number two for many years. He was recently made vice president of Southern Sudan. He is a Dinka, like Dr Garang and that could help, as the tribe is the largest ethnic group in Southern Sudan.
But he was recently removed from the powerful position of commander-in-chief of the SPLA. That post is now occupied by Lt-Gen Oyai Deng from the Shulluk region. A brother in law of Dr Garang, he was recently promoted to lieutenant general, while Dr Garang made himself first lieutenant general. Only President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has the higher rank of field marshal.
Mr Salva was flown from Nairobi by the Kenyan authorities to the scene of the crash that killed Dr Garang.
Other rivals to Mr Salva and Lt-Gen Oyai are: Dr Riek Machar, the caretaker administrator for Western Equatoria State; Dr Lam Akol, the administrator for Western Bahr al-Ghazal State, and; Mr James Wani, the administrator for Upper Nile State.
Dr Machar, who comes from the Nuer tribe, the second largest ethnic group in Southern Sudan had in the past tried to topple Dr Garang. Dr Akol also participated in attempts to overthrow Dr Garang. He comes from the Shulluk tribe. The other contender for the job, Mr Wani, the vice president and secretary-general of the SPLM, is a Bari, a large tribe from Equatoria.
All three were made caretaker administrators in areas they do not come from. Dr Garang is believed to have done this purposely to isolate them from their power bases and render them harmless.

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