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Can John Garang’s Legacy Hold?

Former Southern Sudan leader John Garang. Image via the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Sudan, 2006.

As the sun set at the South Sudan Army base in Juba last night, the giant statue of Dr. John Garang was guarded by two young soldiers.

“This was the leader who brought peace to Sudan” one of the soldiers said, referring to Garang’s role as the leader of the southern rebel group, the SPLA, that signed a 2005 peace agreement to end 22 years of civil war with the Sudanese government.

Garang died in a helicopter crash in 2005, just 21 days after he became the vice president of Sudan in a  power-sharing arrangement reached under the peace agreement. At the time, many feared the death of the south’s charismatic leader would herald the end of the peace agreement he had signed. Yet, despite faltering at crucial points, the parties have largely managed to hold on for peace. Now though, many southern Sudanese are wondering if that peace can be maintained until the formal separation of Sudan into two countries on July 9.

Inside the base, Lt. Gen. James Hoth Moi, the army’s chief of staff, laid his four cell phones out on the table in front of him and began to answer my questions about the Sudanese government’s seizure of the contested Abyei area over the weekend—the most significant breach yet of the 2005 peace agreement.

“It is not a surprise,” said Moi wearily.

One of the most uncomfortable parts of being here to report on the Abyei violence is the sense of inevitability about it all. This is perhaps the most clearly forecast crisis in history. And the march towards it is certainly the most well-documented. The Satellite Sentinel Project, a joint venture of the U.S. advocacy group, Enough, and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, has been releasing images over the past three months showing the increasing military build-up near the Abyei area. For the Ngok Dinka who live in Abyei year-round, this was what they feared—that the north would try to control Abyei by force in advance of the July 9 formal separation.

At a press conference in Juba yesterday afternoon, South Sudan President Salva Kiir issued a plea to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. "I am calling upon my president to pull out his forces from Abyei," said Kiir. He was also on message that the south would not use force in the region, and called for the United Nations to protect civilians. It is a line the South Sudan government is trying very hard to maintain, hoping to avoid any move that would risk the date of their independent nationhood.