Nominate John Garang for Nobel Peace Prize
By Melha Rout Biel
September 3, 2006 — On 30 July 2006, almost two years after the death of the Sudanese Leader and Liberator Dr. John Garang de Mabior, Sudanese, Africans, Arabs and the world community as a whole have joined hands everywhere to mourn his passing. The former Sudanese First Vice President died in a helicopter crash on his way back to Sudan from Uganda, where he was visiting his friend Yoweri Museveni, the Ugandan president.
What does the world remember about the former SPLM/SPLA leader?
1- John Garang will be remembered as a man who fought for twenty-two years for the liberation of South Sudan.
2- John Garang will be remembered as the liberator of the marginalised people of East, South, North and West Sudan.
3- John Garang will be remembered as a man with a vision for a New Sudan of equality, justice, secularisation, and freedom of worship.
4- John Garang will be remembered throughout the world as the Martin Luther King of the Sudan.
5- John Garang will be remembered as a great leader which the country of Sudan had never had before.
6- John Garang will be remembered as the man who was able to unite Southerners and Northerners behind him.
7- John Garang will be remembered as the leader and coordinator of the National Democratic Alliance.
8- John Garang will be remembered as the man who brought peace to Sudan through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the war between North and South Sudan, which killed three million people and displaced over six million Sudanese.
9- John Garang will be remembered as the first First Vice President of the Republic of Sudan who came from the marginalised South.
10- John Garang will be remembered as a man loved by most of Sudanese, from East, North, West and South.
11- John Garang will be remembered as a man with great charisma.
12- John Garang will be remembered by his enemies as a very tough political player.
13- John Garang will also be remembered as the man under whose leadership of the SPLM/SPLA thousands of Sudanese in both the South and North died.
14- However, Sudanese on both sides have forgiven him because of the peace and reconciliation he brought to Sudan.
Since the birth of the Sudan as a nation, no other Sudanese leader, including the leaders of the so-called great sectarian parties (DUP, UMMA, and NIF), was received in Khartoum by a crowd of seven million Sudanese, Muslims, Christians, Pagans, Arabs, and Africans.
John Garang signed the CPA because the international community wanted it to happen. Previously, he had not signed a peace agreement with Khartoum because he feared his vision of the New Sudan would not be fulfilled if he joined a coalition government with the National Congress.
John Garang would not have signed the peace agreement with Khartoum if his colleague, the Second Vice President of Sudan, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, was not also interested in peace. Otherwise, the CPA would not have been signed in January 2005.
John Garang cannot be compared to other rebel leaders. He is a unique man. He has brought change to the Sudanese people in all regions. He has shown that a united Sudan can be achieved, if there is a willingness to share both power and resources. Many Sudanese in all parts of the country regard him as a great national leader, which Sudan had never had before. They wish he could have lived longer to see his “New Sudan” develop.
John Garang signed the CPA out of respect for the will of the international community, which stood firmly on the side of the peace-loving Sudanese. He died because he signed the peace agreement in January 2005.
Should not John Garang be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize?
I believe, yes, he should, with the will of the international community that helped him and his colleague Ali Taha to sign peace. Dr. John Garang de Mabior deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. The question is, who will have the courage to nominate him?
* Melha Rout Biel is a senior lecturer at the University of Applied sciences in Erfurt. He teaches intercultural dimensions in the Social Sciences and development cooperation between African and Europeean Countries. For comment on this paper, please contact him at [email protected]