Garang death threatens to wreck fledgling peace

NAIROBI, Tuesday (AFP,Reuters) The death of Sudanese Vice President and ex-rebel leader John Garang has dealt a huge blow to a fledgling reconciliation process and leaves the country on the brink of fresh turmoil, analysts said.

Suspicions among the southern Sudanese population that the old regime could have had a hand in Saturday's plane crash triggered rioting in Khartoum and the southern capital Juba, signalling that the implementation of the north-south peace agreement could be plagued by fresh disrust.

With Garang's death, the landmark January peace agreement also loses its living symbol and southerners their undisputed historic leader, leaving a vacuum in his movement's leadership that could lead to internecine divisions.

"The situation that the people of southern Sudan and the whole of Sudan is in now is unprecedented ... for now, there is no ready-made solution for the problems facing that country," Nairobi-based political scientist Opiyo Oketch told AFP.

Garang "was the only credible interlocutor, representing southern Sudan before the world community and the rest are non quantities," he said.

Meanwhile more than 20 people were killed in riots that erupted in the Sudanese capital following the official announcement of the death of Vice President and former rebel leader John Garang in a helicopter crash, the region's governor said.

"More than 20 people died in the riots while dozens of citizens were injured," Governor Abdel Halim al-Mutaafi said on the state-run Sudan television.

Meanwhile the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) named Salva Kiir to succeed its leader John Garang who died in a helicopter crash.

"The SPLM leadership and the SPLA military command joint meeting ... unanimously affirmed General Salva Kiir Mayardit as the chairman of the SPLM and commander in chief of the SPLA," SPLM's senior official Pagan Amun told reporters on Monday.

"Therefore he is the nominee to the position of the 1st vice president of the republic of Sudan and the president of the government of South Sudan." Kiir was Garang's deputy and played a major role in negotiating the early stages of the peace deal which this year ended 21 years of north-south civil war. He was officially appointed deputy president of the government of Southern Sudan on July 16 by Garang.