US to send experts to Garang crash site
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-08 09:02

The United States is sending experts to help investigate the helicopter crash that killed Sudan's First Vice President and former rebel leader John Garang, U.S. officials said on Sunday, reported Reuters.

Roger Winter, the U.S. deputy secretary of state's special envoy for Sudan, also said he was optimistic Garang's death would not derail the implementation of a peace deal he signed in January to end Africa's longest civil war.

Winter attended Garang's funeral in the southern town of Juba on Saturday with Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Constance Newman.

Garang's death in a helicopter crash last weekend, just three weeks after becoming first vice president, shocked the nation and sparked riots in which 130 people were killed.

Newman said the United States had been requested to help with the investigation into the July 30 crash.

"The U.S. has agreed and in Nairobi already are five experts from the National Transportation Safety Board -- the best that we have -- ready to move to the site to carry out the investigation," she said.

The experts will feed information to a joint investigation commission to be formed this week by the government in Khartoum and Garangs's former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), she said.

The Ugandan presidential helicopter Garang was traveling in went down in bad weather in mountainous terrain and his supporters have said they do not suspect foul play.

But Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Friday the cause of the crash was unclear and he could not rule out the possibility it was not an accident.

ARCHITECT OF PEACE DEAL

The 21-year civil war broadly pitted the Islamist Khartoum-based government against the mostly Christian, animist south, complicated by issues of ethnicity, oil and ideology. It claimed 2 million lives, mostly through famine and disease.

Garang was the architect of the January peace agreement, which set up a power-sharing government and allowed southerners to vote on independence in six years, and his death raised fears it may collapse.

But Winter told reporters in Khartoum: "The deal is done ... If this had happened a few months ago with an undone deal, it would have been a potentially much riskier circumstance."

He added the SPLM was strong and that new leader Salva Kiir, Garang's deputy and military chief, enjoyed a broad following within the group.

"He (Kiir) has a reputation for being collegial in the way he does business ... we all know that wasn't always Dr John's trait," Winter said.

Winter said he was not worried by Kiir's separatist tendencies, while Garang was vocal in his support for unity, because Kiir represented the majority view in the south.

"Something like 96 percent of the people of the south don't support unity," he said. "I'm not sure the hill is any higher -- it was high in the first place because the stats show that Dr John was almost alone with his (support for) unity," he said.

Newman and Winter said U.S. attention also remained focused on a separate conflict in the western region of Darfur, which has killed tens of thousands over the past 2-1/2 years.

The United States has called the Darfur violence genocide, a charge the government denies.

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