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NEWS & LETTERS, September-October 2005Our Life and Times by Kevin A. BarryDeath of John GarangWe mourn the death of John Garang, founder of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which fought for two decades against the genocidal Islamist regime, led in recent years by General Omar al-Bashir. Before Garang’s accidental death in a plane crash in August, the SPLM had won a measure of autonomy for southern Sudan, where two million African people have died from war, famine, and disease during repeated military assaults from northern forces seeking to impose Islamic Shari'a law on a region where most people adhere to forms of Christianity or indigenous African religions. Garang’s successor, Salva Kiir, will be no pushover for the northern generals, since he has been even more suspicious of their intentions. The greatest tragedy facing Sudan today is not Garang’s death, however, but the situation in the western Darfur region, where Muslim but non-Arab African peoples have come under attack by government-backed janjaweed militia forces. Some 180,000 people have died and a million have been driven from their homes. According to a July report by UN Commissioner for Human Rights Louis Arbour, "Rape and gang rape continue to be perpetrated by armed elements in Darfur, some of whom are members of law enforcement agencies and the armed forces." This situation recalls the worst days of the Bosnian war. |
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