Unsettled in Sudan
Editorial, The Boston Globe
August 7, 2005 — Dozens died in rioting last week in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. The rioters, from southern Sudan, suspected foul play in the helicopter accident last weekend that took the life of John Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. Whether Garang was the victim of political murder or bad luck, there are few more pressing peace-building missions in the world today than to preserve the peace agreement he signed for southern Sudan in January, formally ending 21 years of warfare that pitted the central government in Khartoum against Christian and animist tribal groups of southern Sudan.
The death toll in that conflict surpassed 2 million. Its causes included a push by the Khartoum regime to Islamize the Dinka and Nuer peoples of the south as well as a southern desire for independence and a dispute over the rights to Sudan’s recently exploited oil reserves. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in January represents an arduously wrought set of compromises. It calls for northerners and southerners to share power, free and fair elections, and self-government in the south for an interim period of six years. At the end of that period, a referendum is to be held that would allow the peoples of the south to vote for independence.
Even before Garang’s death, there were worries that the peace accord might never be implemented. The National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum has been noticeably slow to move toward the power-sharing and elections mandated by the January agreement.
Now that Garang is gone, there is a greater need than ever for the parties to the conflict and the international community to make sure the agreement is implemented. Garang’s successor, his chief deputy, Salva Kiir, will have to oversee the difficult transformation of the SPLM’s secessionist fighting force into a political party. In so doing, he will have to delegate more authority than Garang did and consult more with other leaders.
The regime in Khartoum will have to rein in its proxy militia in the south, known as the South Sudan Defense Forces. That militia must be demobilized, just as Khartoum’s murderous proxy militia in Darfur, the Janjaweed, will have to be shut down if the ongoing genocide in that region of Sudan is to be stopped.
The UN mission in southern Sudan should swiftly spread its peacekeepers throughout the region. They are needed to cut off arms supplies to militias, protect the civilian population, and intervene quickly wherever militias initiate violence. The world has a chance to help end the most lethal conflict of the past two decades. Garang’s death must not become an excuse for allowing southern Sudan to relapse into the disasters of war.