Rest in Peace?

As mourners gathered in southern Sudan to bid farewell to John Garang, many Sudanese were still struggling to understand what his death means for their country.

Garang led the southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (splm) during its 21-year war against the northern Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, and helped to negotiate the power-sharing agreement between the north and the south that brought the conflict to a close early this year. Three weeks ago, 60-year-old Garang arrived in Khartoum to take up his new job as Sudan's Vice President. He died last week when his helicopter crashed in bad weather on the way back from a meeting in Uganda.

With the south's most powerful leader gone, many fear that the deal will founder; their fears deepened when hundreds of southerners living in Khartoum, some believing that Garang's helicopter had been deliberately downed, rioted, smashing cars and killing northern Arabs. Reprisal attacks followed and more than 100 people were killed.

But both the government and the splm restated their commitment to the peace deal. To ensure stability, the splm quickly named Salva Kiir, the party's No. 2, as its new leader. Kiir also took over as the country's Vice President. Despite the show of continuity, Garang's death will change the dynamics of the détente. Kiir advocates secession for the south, a point on which Garang equivocated. Under the deal, southerners will vote in about six years whether to secede. Northern hard-liners, who had to be strong-armed into signing the deal, now have more reason to be wary of southern intentions. "In the north, Garang was perceived to be somebody that supported the view that voluntary union might be possible," says David Mozersky, a senior analyst on Sudan at the International Crisis Group in Nairobi. "Without Garang there, those elements may try to undermine [the deal] because they see its full implementation as a threat to the regime."