News Article by AP posted on August 01, 2005 at 01:55:05: EST (-5 GMT)
Sudanese vice president John Garang, 14 others, killed in helicopter crash
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) -- Sudanese Vice President John Garang, a
former
rebel leader who is a key figure in the country's fledgling
peace deal, was
found dead early Monday near the Uganda-Sudan
border after the helicopter he
was riding in crashed, a senior
Ugandan official said.
Six of Garang's aides and eight Ugandans were also killed, the
official
said. The crash site was in southern Sudan, near the
border with northeast
Uganda, the official said on condition of
anonymity because an official
announcement hadn't yet been made.
Ugandan and Sudanese forces had been searching for Garang's
helicopter
since Sunday. Uganda's president said it had crashed in
bad weather.
Garang's death would be a heavy 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.
The 60-year-old former rebel, who was sworn in as vice president
just
three weeks ago, left on a flight from Uganda for southern
Sudan at 5:30 p.m.
Ugandan time Saturday afternoon, Sudanese and
Ugandan officials said. It was
not clear when the last contact with
his craft took place.
Garang's helicopter had attempted to land in the New Kush region
of
southern Sudan but aborted the landing because of bad weather
and headed back
south, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said early
Monday. Weather reports
showed rain in the area.
The craft was heard near Pirre, a mountainous region near the
Kenyan and
Sudanese borders on the edge of a large national park,
and was believed to
have crash-landed, Museveni said. He added that
the Kenyans had been asked to
help in the search.
Garang, who earned a doctorate from Iowa State University, is
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 seen as a
great hope for peace in Darfur.
Garang was sworn in as vice president on July 9 -- second only to
his
longtime enemy, President Omar el-Bashir. 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.
His 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.
Garang was returning home from a private visit to Uganda, flying
from the
capital Kampala to southern Sudan -- a trip that normally
takes about two
hours -- said Ugandan army spokesman 2nd Capt.
Dennis Musitwa.
"We share the anxieties of the public since it is now 24 hours
since the
estimated time of arrival of the helicopter at its
destination," Museveni,
the Ugandan president, said in his
statement.
A Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army, operates in
the area
and has shot down Ugandan military helicopters in the
past.
El-Bashir
clearly saw Garang as an important partner in sealing
the peace, ensuring the
south does not secede, and in repairing
Sudan's international reputation.
With a speed stunning to many in
Sudan, the Sudanese state media went from
describing Garang in the
darkest terms to respectively calling him "Dr.
Garang" after the
peace deal was struck.