[LINK] South Sudan, again?

[rfmcdonald]

Via All Africa, we seem to have confirmation that south Sudanese leader John Garang has died in a helicopter crash.

Reports at dawn on Monday indicate that New Sudan's First Vice President John Garang died when a Ugandan military helicopter he was travelling in crashed on Saturday night.

Ugandan authorities lost contact with the helicopter carrying him to Juba, after a weekend meeting with President Yoweri Museveni.

The Ugandan military last night could only say that they had located a signal of the presidential helicopter carrying Colonel Garang after it lost contact in bad weather, at a spot on the border between Uganda and Sudan. However, they were yet to reach the site.

Adding to the confusion, late last night sources from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) indicated he had been located and attempts were being made to take him to Nairobi. There was no information about his condition.

The Ugandan military lost contact with the helicopter carrying Colonel Garang to Rumbek in Southern Sudan late on Saturday, sending the biggest political scare of recent months in Eastern Africa.

Military search parties were yesterday morning sent to the north of Uganda where the helicopter carrying Colonel Garang and four of his aides was said to have either landed or crashed.

tI goes without saying that this is bad news, since the inclusion of the south Sudanese leader in the highest echelons of the Sudanese government was the most visible sign of the tentative reconciliation of Southern Sudan to inclusion in a Sudan dominated by Muslim Arabophones. The Sudanese state was never likely to function even in the best of situations, but the odds have just become even more remote now.