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| Africa: Horn |
| SPLA to select Garang's successor |
| 2005-08-01 |
| Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir said on Monday the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) will choose the successor of late Sudanese Vice-President John Garang according to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Al-Bashir said in a speech at the cabinet's extraordinary session there would be continuous cooperation with the SPLA and other concerned parties in a wider scale. SPLA leaders started numerous meetings today to discuss the arrangement of Garang's funeral. An official, who preferred anonymity, told KUNA three meetings for SPLA leaders are currently taking place in Rumbek in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and also in a southern town in Sudan. The source said the movement is capable of choosing its new leader, strongly refuting reports that SPLA leaders were incapable of reaching agreement on this point. Garang was born in 1945 to a Christian family in Bor, a southern Sudanese town that is home to one of the top tribes in the south. His family later moved to Tanzania where he got his high school degree and was sent to the US to continue his studies at Cornell University in Iowa. Garang, a former southern rebel leader, was sworn in as first vice president on July 9 after he played a key role in reaching the peace deal earlier this year, which ended 21 years of civil war that killed more than two million people. Many hoped that his role in the transitional government would bring peace to other volatile regions in Sudan, including Darfur. |
| Posted by:Fred |