Anxiety over peace in the south

Josephine Mangera, 24, was a member of the choir that sang on Saturday at the burial of Sudan's First Vice President, John Garang, in the southern town of Juba. "All we want now is peace," she said. "I don't know much about Salva [Kiir Mayardit, Garang's successor], but I say to him - stick to the agreement and give us the peace." For Alfred Sule, a 20-year-old Dinka man bearing traditional scarification on his face, Garang's death in a helicopter crash on 30 July marked a turning point in relations with Sudan's north. "Now we want a free, Christian south," he said. Mangera and Sule may have been speaking out of emotion, but following Garang's death, many in southern Sudan reacted with a mixture of sorrow, anger, uncertainty and general resentment. In the capital, Khartoum, and in several southern towns such as Juba and Malakal, news of the crash triggered riots by southerners in which at least 130 people were killed. Garang was killed near the Uganda-Sudan border as he flew back to his base in New Site, southern Sudan, after a meeting with Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni. The Ugandan government-owned MI-72 helicopter came down in bad weather, killing all people on board. Until 9 January, when the SPLM/A signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) with Khartoum, Garang had led the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in a 21-year war against the Sudanese government. As part of the CPA, Garang was sworn into office as Sudan's First Vice-President on 9 July. "It [Garang's death] has the potential to create turmoil," John Prendergast, a special advisor to the International Crisis Group, a global think tank, told IRIN. "It is a setback to the CPA," he added. "Garang was so central to the negotiations, and many of the provisions were his." The CPA was signed in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, after several years of talks mediated by Lt Gen Lazarus Sumbeiywo, a retired Kenyan army officer. Sumbeiywo described Garang's death, as "shocking, the loss of a visionary leader". "My prayer is that the Sudanese will remain level-headed," he told reporters in Nairobi. Sudan's President Umar al-Bashir has pledged to work with the SPLM/A to continue to implement the peace agreement. "We are confident that the peace agreement will proceed," Bashir said on Sudanese television. According to analysts, Garang had always maintained that southern Sudan should remain politically joined to the north. In the south, his policy met with popular opposition, but it found support among northern rebel movements still fighting the Khartoum government. JUBA RIOTS Juba is the largest town in southern Sudan, and although under government control, it was the proposed administrative capital for the new SPLM/A-led southern Sudan government. Upon hearing news of the crash, gangs of marauding youths took to the streets, mainly targeting northern Arab traders. They looted shops and burnt down the market, prompting many of the traders to flee the town or seek refugee in army barracks. "We have to get rid of the Arabs," Sule said as he walked through the ruins of shops in Juba market. The mayhem brought the garrison town of 40,000 to 80,000 northern troops to a standstill. Despite the government's imposition of a dusk-to-dawn curfew and its deployment of armed soldiers to patrol the streets, unrest persisted until after Garang's burial. The International Committee of the Red Cross in Juba said at least 18 people had died in the town during the week of riots. As traders fled aboard any available bus or car, Juba's transport system slowly ground to a halt. Many of the traders camped at the city's heavily guarded airport, hoping for a flight to take them to Khartoum. Several cargo planes that flew in from Khartoum ahead of Garang's state funeral carried back terrified traders and their families. "We do not know why they are targeting us," one trader told reporters at the airport. "We were not responsible [for the crash]." "I couldn't care less," Mangera said. "The new SPLM/A leaders must move quickly to diffuse the tensions," a Nairobi-based analyst said. "They must amplify the message that Rebecca [Garang's widow] has been shouting - that people must remain calm." In Juba, however, people continued to discuss conspiracy theories. In whispers, they told each other the crash was no accident. As they awaited the report of a government-appointed inquiry into the crash, they continued to disbelieve statements from Khartoum that the crash was most likely an accident. Other analysts, however, said the SPLM/A needed to sort itself out quickly, assume leadership and bring hope to the south. "Within the SPLM/A, there is a long history of divisions, and unless they can thrash out their differences quickly [...] some people, lone-rangers and spoilers who always felt left out, will try to exploit the situation," Prendergast said. Ahead of Kiir's swearing in as Sudan's First Vice President and President of southern Sudan on Thursday, the vice president of the southern Sudan government, Riek Machar, told reporters on Monday the SPLM/A had outstanding issues to settle. He said these included the naming of candidates to the government of national unity and to the national assembly, and the drafting of a constitution for southern Sudan. FINAL JOURNEY Garang was buried high on a hill on the outer edge of town, overlooking the lush green Jebel Kuyu mountains, in an emotional ceremony in which hundreds of volunteers carried bricks, shovelled sand and mixed cement under the supervision of SPLM/A architects who designed the mausoleum. Speaking at Juba cathedral, Archbishop Joseph Marona compared Garang to several biblical prophets, particularly Moses, for "leading the people of Sudan towards peace and stability". Kiir reiterated the southerners' commitment to the CPA. Bashir, speaking in Arabic, said he intended to continue implementing the letter, spirit and calendar of the CPA. In a final, customary Dinka tribute, a white bull was slaughtered next to the tomb in "Garang gardens". As the 21-cannon-salute resounded in the hills, the skies opened up and rain - considered a good omen in the Dinka tradition - showered the crowd. "The rain may have been a good omen, but for the tension to die down, the people here need to see tangible signs that Garang's vision has remained alive and strong," an aid worker in Juba said on Tuesday. "For that they need some kind of reassurance that peace is here to stay," he added. "Juba is calm since the burial, but plenty of anxiety runs below the surface."