Night Trippers

Dr. John was laid to rest under a star in Juba this morning. The city is the capital of South Sudan , and the good Doctor’s troops never quite managed to capture it in his 21 year struggle. But now it seems as though he has, in a way, lying under the star of night and the star of the guerilla flag.

Government troops and former guerillas were on alert. Troops were on alert. Part of the city was still burned by the rioting that accompanied the news of his death in a helicopter crash last week.

John Garang was supposed to be part of the solution. The former rebel leader had spent all of 21 days as the first vice president of a unity government in Khartoum . He took a calculated risk, and it did not work out.

He had planned to serve as Vice President for four years, and then run for president. His goal was to keep Sudan together. There will be a referendum at the six year point, according to the terms of the peace deal.

If the arrangement works out, Sudan will remain united. If it does not, and the poor people of the south are not satisfied with the progress, they can vote to opt out and form their own nation.

Maybe that will be permitted to happen. But until the situation in Darfur is resolved, and the Muslim militias are disarmed, the question is open. The rape and murder in the west is analogous to what happened in the South.

Two million are dead in the fighting Dr. John finally brought to an end. The hysteria surrounding the possibility that he was murdered, the helicopter sabotaged, seems to have died. Even if it was true, it will not bring him back.

Two million dead .

Where was the West looking while this happened? There was concern over the presence of Osama bin Laden in the north, and there is still doubt about what his agronomists were doing with their experiments on the one-acre plots there. Something wicked, without doubt, sufficient for America to lob salvos of cruise missiles into what may have been a pharmaceutical plant near Khartoum .

We still do not know for sure, but we do know that where there is strife and a weak central government, the conditions are ripe for men of evil intent to hone their skills and practice their art of destruction. The Bad Guys who want to kills us are gone from the Sudan, for the most part, moving west to the unsettled crumbling nation-states of West Africa.

They are moving into Sierra Leone and Liberia, and we need to watch those areas carefully as we support  the peace process in Sudan. Who would have thought that Africa’s time would have come again after all the horror. Can we think through the consequences of allowing the region to remain in anarchy, where the Bad Guys flourish?

Salva Kiir Mayardit is John Garang’s designated successor. He was a guerilla general officer who will follow the path to the Vice Presidency. His path may be different than John’s. he is not the same man. Perhaps the enemies of the south are counting on that.

Dr. John had world leaders on his speed-dial, and it was his efforts that brought together a broad coalition of human rights and Christian activists to publicize the horror of what was happening to his people.

Maybe he will help lead the poor of the South out of the night of despair. Perhaps he will continue the trip to the light. Perhaps the ravaged people in the west can take heart, and become day-trippers as well.

Too soon to tell. Will we pay any attention to the journey?

Or suppose John’s dream dies where he lies under the star. Will we stand by as we did when the machetes swung in Rwanda ? Or will we stand with the dreamers on their journey from the night?

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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