By Canute Tangwa (The Post, August 11, 2005)
John Garang de Mabior, a dark-skinned, burly, physically-intimidating Dinka from Southern Sudan, was a big man indeed. He was the quintessential member of the club of Africa's Big Men who sought justice for their people through the barrel of the gun in the bush, neighbourhoods or countryside.
A holder of a Ph.D in Agricultural Economics from the Iowa State University, USA and a product of one of America's finest military academies, Fort Benning in Georgia, John Garang spurned orders from his superiors in the Sudanese army to crush mutinous southern soldiers.
Instead, he encouraged them to rise up against the government that was bent on implementing the Islamic sharia code nationwide. This, he materialised by creating the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, SPLM/A, that fought the Sudanese army for over 22 years.
Most African post independent liberation big men attended elite schools in America, Europe and Africa. These include Jonas Savimbi, Charles Taylor, Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame, Alfonso Dhlkama, Meles Zenawi, Issayas Aferweki, Hassan Tourabi, Abassi Madani. Some ended up seizing power through the argument of force.
This is the case of Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame, Charles Taylor, Meles Zenawi, Issayas Aferweki, Joseph Kabila Sr and so on. Others acceded to power by way of negotiations or died in the bushes holding steadfast to their ideologies, or negotiated their exiles. Garang, Savimbi and Taylor, respectively fall under this category.
After almost 22 years in the bush, Garang negotiated his future and the future of the people he was fighting for.
The Sudanese government's U-turn was allegedly due to pressure exerted by the Bush administration that was virtually assailed by the American religious right and the Black Caucus in the USA; though the lure of black gold (oil), and the nebulous tentacles of El-Qaeda may have influenced American actions.
He got the position of First Vice President in a Sudan that had not seen the last of the janjaweed, a notorious ragtag government-sponsored militia that makes life extremely difficult (killing and mayhem) for black Muslim Sudanese in Darfur.
Garang negotiated and signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the Sudanese government early this year.
This is what he gave his people: a highly decentralised Sudanese Republic; referendum on self-determination after six years; national electoral commission; population census council; Joint Defence Board that would coordinate the Sudanese Armed Forces and the SPLA; governors of southern states would be appointed by the President of the Government of Southern Sudan in consultation with the Vice President of the Government of Southern Sudan and governors of the northern states shall be appointed by the President of the Republic, in consultation with the First Vice President;
the President of the Government of Southern Sudan shall appoint judges of supreme, appeal courts etc, of South Sudan; a 50 percent transfer of net revenues (oil) in foreign currency through the Bank of Southern Sudan to the Government of Southern Sudan; establishment of a boundary commission; state legislatures and so on.
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