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This sounds like a replay of the Samora MACHEL infernal incident in
Southern Africa many years back.
----- Original Message -----
From: f ossia <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sunday, July 31, 2005 9:33 pm
Subject: Sudanese VP Missing Amid Crash Reports
> ** Please visit our website: http://www.africanassociation.org **
>
> MOHAMED OSMAN and TANALEE SMITH
> Associated Press Writers
>
> July 31, 2005, 10:12 PM EDT
>
> KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Ugandan and Sudanese forces searched on Monday
> for a
> missing helicopter carrying Sudan's vice president, a former rebel
> leaderwho is a key figure in a fledgling peace deal between the
> predominantly Arab
> Muslim government and the Christian south.
>
> John Garang's helicopter crashed in bad weather in Uganda near the
> Sudanborder, Uganda's president said.
>
> Garang's absence 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.
>
> His helicopter had attempted to land in the New Kush region of
> southernSudan 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.
>
> From Sudan, there were wildly contradictory reports over the
> disappearance,although there was no word of foul play.
>
> Sudanese state television reported Sunday night that Garang's
> craft had
> landed safely, but Communications Minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat
> went on TV
> hours later to deny the report. "Up to now we do not have any
> concrete new
> information about the whereabouts" of Garang's flight, he said.
>
> 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
> againstoutright 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 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 Libaration 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 shadows 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.
>
> Ugandan troops and Sudanese military planes were searching for
> Garang'scraft in the remote border region. A Ugandan rebel group,
> the Lord's
> Resistance Army, operates in the area and has shot down Ugandan
> militaryhelicopters in the past.
>
> Initially, Sudanese television said he left Sunday evening,
> heading to a
> former SPLA base called "Newsite" in southern Sudan. Then it aired
> a report
> that he had landed safely at a SPLA base in southern Sudan. But
> Sabdaratdenied that report and confirmed that it had left Uganda
> on Saturday.
>
> El-Bashir clearly saw Garang as an important partner in sealing
> the peace,
> ensuring the south does not secede, and in repairing Sudan's
> internationalreputation. 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.
>
> * __
>
> Mohamed Osman reported on this story from Khartoum, and Tanalee Smith
> reported from Kassala, Sudan.
> Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
>
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