VIP welcome for Garang in campaign for peace agreement
by Lucas Barasa
RUMBEK, Sudan, June 14, 2004 (The Nation) — As Dr John Garang, the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement/Army chairman, alights from a plane, he is welcomed by several men tightly holding down a white bull on its back.
An elderly man then plunges a sharp spear into the bull’s neck before the “chairman,” as Dr Garang is popularly known, jumps over the animal followed by his wife, Rebecca, an army commander, to chants of traditional tunes.
The bull is later dragged away for slaughter in this Sudanese ritual of welcoming home a prominent person.
At least 20 bulls were slaughtered between last Tuesday and Saturday as Dr Garang visited various parts of the war-torn region to campaign for the peace deal recently signed by the SPLM/A and the Khartoum government in Kenya.
Between the town of Rumbek – SPLA’s stronghold – and Dr Garang’s home, which is six kilometres away, three bulls were slaughtered and the same fate will befall many more before his tour ends later this week.
“The tradition was established all over Sudan by our ancestors,” said Mr Michael Makumei, the Attorney General for Southern Sudan, now known locally as New Sudan.
“It is a sign of leaving everything, good or bad that might have befallen a person behind, and crossing peacefully into a new life. It is also a sign of respect for a very important person,” Mr Makumei said at Rumbek.
Symbol of peace
“Tem (the shedding of blood) is done for a person who has stayed away from home for long. The bull’s meat is then eaten, but the person who jumps over it does not eat it.”
The bull, he said, is usually slaughtered by the eldest person in the community.
A white bull is preferred, because it symbolises peace and good health among Sudan’s pastoral communities.
“A black bull cannot be slaughtered as black signifies bad omen,” said Mr Makumei, who is also Commissioner for Legal Affairs and Constitutional Debate.
In fact, Dr Garang’s nickname, de Mabior, means a white bull in his Dinka community.
Thousands of people turned up to welcome Dr Garang in Yei, Pandat and Rumbek towns, which he was visiting for the first time since the start of peace talks in Kenya two years ago.
Chanting “Welcome CIC (commander-in-chief)”, the crowds happily shook hands with Dr Garang, a revered hero in southern Sudan.
“SPLA hoyee!” Dr Garang responded.
“Kumapitana (the SPLA government is strong),” the crowd roared back.
The mobs displayed placards, which listed priority issues following the prospects of peace.
Top on the agenda was free education, health, employment opportunities and improvement of roads.
Southern Sudan, with an area the same size as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda combined, has never had a tarmac road, says Dr Garang, “since God created the Sudan, not because of war, but because the government never bothered.”
It has no electricity supply although it enjoys huge wind and hydro-electric potential.
Its 300 primary and 26 secondary schools are understaffed. It has no university.
Virtually everybody we met in the vast region. The ruins of war were conspicuous wherever we visited.
The towns in southern Sudanese, for instance Yei or Rumbek, the second largest after Juba, which is still under government control, can only be likened to Kenya’s remotest and least developed market centres. They have no electricity, water supply, telephone services and banks. Buildings are grass-thatched and it is normal for people to walk naked.
In his speeches, Dr Garang said he had come to bring peace, justice and equality for all Sudanese in a country that has been at war for 38 of its 48 years of independence.
Saluting “heroes and martyrs” who fell during the struggle, Dr Garang said: “They did not die in vain. The fight has seen the birth of the New Sudan, which will ensure justice, democracy and human rights.”
The crowds observed a minute of silence in honour of the estimated two million people who have died in the war.
“We should understand where we are coming from as sometimes it is necessary to go back in order to go forward,” Dr Garang said.
The first protocol signed in Machakos in 2002 exempted southern Sudan from being governed by the Islamic Sharia law.
The other protocols that have been signed are on security, wealth and power-sharing. Only a comprehensive ceasefire agreement and implementation modalities remain.
Under the deal, Dr Garang becomes first vice-president in the larger President Omar el-Bashir’s government.
The south and the north will have separate armies, unlike in the 1972 Addis Ababa agreement where rebel troops were absorbed by the national army. There will also be a joint army and a national petroleum commission to be co-chaired by the President and an SPLA representative.
The sharing out of revenue from oil and non-oil products has been agreed upon.
The SPLM/A and the Khartoum government also agreed on one currency and two houses of Parliament.
In the contentious Nuba Mountains, the ruling congress will get 55 seats and SPLM/A 45. Leadership will be rotational.
Residents of Southern Blue Nile will be allowed to decide whether to deal with the SPLM/A or Khartoum. A referendum will be conducted in Abyei mountains for the people to decide whether to remain in the north or go to southern Sudan.
Sudan will have four levels of government – Local Government, State, Government of Southern Sudan and Central Government.
After six years, Sudanese people will decide in a referendum whether to remain a united nation or all the south to secede.
“The task is huge for those who want unity of the country. The girl called unity must be made attractive to be supported,” Dr Garang said.
However, Dr Garang says the peace agreement was not the SPLM/A’s objective for launching an aggression against the Government in 1983.
“We went to the bush to achieve New Sudan and the right of self-determination and until we achieve these, we have a lot to do,” said Dr Garang. “Peace is not also about papers we sign in Naivasha. It is what it means to individuals; what it brings to them.”
He said the Muslims were wrong in claiming that Sudan was their ancestral land and seeking to exclude other communities.
“The Arabs only migrated there in 17th century,” Dr Garang said. “Kingdoms and kingdoms have disappeared in the now geographical Sudan.”
Seventy per cent of the people in Sudan were indigenous Africans, he said and appealed to the Government to respect different religious and ethnic groups “so that they can say this is our government”.
Dr Garang said the ethnic cleansing in Darfur resulted from marginalisation and neglect and promised “to work as government to ensure the war was ended”.
“It is a sad case. It was bound to happen. Darfur is burning,” Dr Garang lamented.
Dr Garang denies claims of mistrust between the northerners and southerners despite the signing of the protocols, saying: “The problem was created by the Government in Khartoum to rule and destroy.”
The current peace, he said, was a result SPLA pressure. “We would have taken the war to the capital if the Government did not concede,” he said.
Most people in the south, have welcomed the peace prospects.
“They can now walk tall in Khartoum without being intimidated,” Dr Garang said.
A workshop for 300 tribal chiefs has been organised to sensitise them on the six protocols.
In the interim period, Dr Garang said, SPLM/A will strengthen the unity of the people of Southern Sudan and reconcile and include other political forces opposed to the movement by allocating them a 30 per cent stake in the Government.
He warned SPLA forces against going to government controlled areas on unauthorised missions.
Surviving fighters and widows have already formed welfare associations and are engaging in income generating activities. Homes for war orphans have sprung up.
Thousands of people who had deserted their homes have returned and have started rebuilding their huts. At various markets centres, business is booming with former soldiers now trying their luck in trade.
Leisure joints, including videos and card playing areas, have not been left behind.
And what does Dr Garang, whose former college mates Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, Democratic Republic of Congo Desire Kabila, Tanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame all ended up to the top seat, envisage for Sudan?
“Possibility of making Sudan a model for Africa. It has the resources including oil and ideas to do that “and occupies a strategic political situation in Africa.”