Garang's death 'a great blow'

2005-08-02 14:32

New Site - Southern Sudan grieved on Tuesday for the loss of ex-rebel leader John Garang who personified the region's struggle against Khartoum before turning his sights on peace and negotiating a landmark deal to end Africa's longest-running civil war.

As mourners filed by a simple table where his body lay in a coffin beneath the flag of his former Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), Garang's colleagues said he would be buried on Saturday in Juba, which he chose as the capital of an autonomous southern Sudan.

"The burial of our great leader will be in Juba on Saturday August 6," SPLM/A spokesperson Pagan Amum said where Garang's remains were brought after they were recovered from the wreckage of a crashed Ugandan helicopter.

"Juba is the site of the government of southern Sudan, the capital," he said, explaining the choice.

Uncertainty over dignitaries attending

It was not immediately clear which foreign dignitaries would attend the noon service but Amum said Garang's body would first be taken on a tour of southern Sudanese towns on Friday before it arrives in Juba.

The time and location of the ceremony was adopted in accordance with the wishes of the family and the SPLM/A leadership which on Monday nominated Garang's longtime deputy Silva Kiir to assume his duties.

A delegation from Khartoum visited New Site to express their condolences from Sudanese President Omar el-Beshir and reiterate the government's commitment to following through on the deal in his absence.

"We came to New Site to bring deep condolences to the (SPLM/A) leadership for the tragic death," said Ali Nfea, Sudan's minister of federal affairs.

"We are determined to work together in partnership with the SPLM, with the new leader of the SPLM," he said, adding he believed Garang's ex-rebel group shared those sentiments.

Determined to achieve peace

"I found them united and determined more than any time before to achieve the peace and implement the agreement," Nfea said before returning to the capital which was rocked by deadly violence on Monday after Garang's death was confirmed.

As he and Amum spoke, dozens of mourners joined Garang's widow, Rebecca, in grief, singing prayers with her under a large tent erected in the shade of a tree at the SPLM/A's base in New Site.

A condolence book inscribed with words of sadness and vows for the future sat on a table outside a small house that has been converted into a quasi-mortuary and chapel where Garang's body lies.

"A great leader," wrote Garrey Idri, the director of the Nile Bank in Rumbek, the dusty town that is serving as the temporary capital of southern Sudan until Khartoum's troops withdraw from Juba as called for by the deal.

"I have known him for the whole period of the 22-year struggle as a straightforward leader of the movement," wrote Reverend Clement Janda. "His departure is a great blow to the vision of the movement."

- AFP