Several people were killed and many others were wounded on Monday in rioting that broke out in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, following the announcement of southern leader John Garang’s death in an air crash, a Khartoum-based diplomat said.
Anti-Arab riots also erupted on Monday in Juba, the main city in southern Sudan.
Thousands of southerners, alleging the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum may have had a hand in Garang’s death, attacked shops and other businesses in Juba owned by northern Arab Sudanese.
”They burned down all their shops,” Juba resident Mary Keji said on the phone. ”We can still see smoke rising from the city’s main market.”
The protesters ignored appeals by leaders of the former southern rebel group that Garang headed, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), and ransacked the town, vandalising property owned by Arab traders.
”They only targeted Arab businesses,” Keji said, adding that government forces intervened in a bid to restore order.
No casualties were immediately reported as the rioters appeared to spare residents and were only targeting Arab property.
Garang’s SPLM fought against successive governments in the north for more than two decades, demanding greater autonomy for the animist and Christian south from the Arab-dominated Muslim north.
He returned to Khartoum last July after a landmark north-south peace deal that saw him take up the post of first vice-president in a national unity government with former arch-foe President Omar al-Beshir.
Death leaves ‘enormous vacuum’
The African Union said on Monday the death of Garang leaves an ”enormous vacuum” in efforts to implement the peace deal that ended the continent’s longest-running civil war in January.
AU Commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare said Garang’s demise came ”at a critical time” for the north-south peace agreement and urged the Sudanese people to rise to the challenge of his loss.
”Dr Garang’s passing away … has come at a critical time in the efforts to fundamentally reconstruct the social, political and economic landscape of the Sudan and the Sudanese people through the sustained implementation of the [peace accord],” he said.
”While Dr Garang has left behind a great and enduring legacy, his death has also left an enormous vacuum,” Konare said in a statement. ”This is the challenge to which we urge the government of the Sudan and his comrades in the movement to rise.”
He urged the SPLM, the Khartoum government and the international community ”to recommit themselves to the vision Dr Garang pursued in his lifetime and the causes in active pursuit of which he so tragically perished”.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has extended condolences to Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed el-Bashir, and the leadership of the SPLM in particular.
”It is with great shock and sadness that the government and people of South Africa learned of the death of Dr John Garang de Mabior, the First Vice-President of the Republic of Sudan and the chair of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/Army,” Mbeki said.
Garang played a major role in bringing about peace and an end to more than two decades of fighting between the government of Sudan and the SPLM.
It is especially tragic that Garang’s death came only three weeks after his inauguration as first vice-president on July 9.
”South Africa would like to encourage the parties in the Sudan to exercise restraint and remain committed to the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement, including the establishment of the government of national unity in Khartoum on August 9 2005, as a legacy to the work and commitment of Dr Garang to a peaceful Sudan.
”On behalf of the government and people of South Africa, I wish to extend our condolences to Your Excellency, the government and people of Sudan, especially to Dr Garang’s family and friends during this time of great sorrow and bereavement,” Mbeki said.
‘Remain calm and vigilant’
In Nairobi, Kenya, women wailed and men cried silently as news of Garang’s death reached exiles.
Garang’s January peace deal with the government he had fought had raised hopes of returning home among the thousands of southern Sudanese living in Kenya, where the SPLM had long been based. On Monday, grief and uncertainty vied with that hope — among leaders in the region as well as among the Sudanese.
”I call upon all members of the SPLM and the entire Sudanese nation to remain calm and vigilant,” Garang’s long-time deputy, Salva Kiir, told reporters in Nairobi, adding he was on his way to an emergency meeting he had called of the SPLM’s top decision-making body. Kiir later flew to Sudan.
Kiir was quickly named to succeed Garang as head of his movement and as president of south Sudan, Garang spokesperson Yasser Arman said in Nairobi. Arman indicated Kiir will also take Garang’s post as First Vice-President in the national government, but there was no immediate confirmation from Khartoum.
In Nairobi on Monday, wailing mourners gathered outside his movement’s headquarters. Groups of southern Sudanese men huddled on Nairobi’s main street, Kenyatta Avenue, discussing Garang’s death.
Atem Maper (30) said that younger exiles are suspicious of the circumstances surrounding Garang’s death.
”People are worried that the war will continue,” Maper said. ”They didn’t understand the way he died. We are going to see.”
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki said Garang had been key to the peace, but expressed ”hope and optimism that every effort will be taken to ensure that the physical absence of Dr Garang will not in any way jeopardise the gains made towards durable peace”.
Kibaki ordered the Kenyan flag flown at half-mast for the next three days in honour of Garang, whom he praised as a patient, energetic and skilled negotiator ready to make sacrifices.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, called on all parties in Sudan to pursue the peace ”Garang was working toward”.
Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and government spokesperson Marwan al-Muasher expressed Jordan’s condolences. Arabs, particularly neighbouring Egypt with its history of intervening in Sudan, have closely watched the Sudanese peace process, fearful of the possibility an Arab neighbor could be split.
John Duom (67), an SPLM official who had known Garang since childhood, compared him to Moses.
”He has shown us the direction to follow,” said Duom, wiping tears from his eyes. ”We wish God had spared his life until after six years, after the referendum.” — Sapa-AP, Sapa-AFP, Sapa