A Sudanese committee set up to probe the death of first vice president and former rebel leader John Garang, which triggered days of deadly rioting, began its investigations yesterday. âThe committee held its first meeting under the chairmanship of Sayyed Abel Alier,â said Siraj Eddin Hamid, a member of the committee and a former Sudanese ambassador to Uganda.Garang died on July 30 when a Ugandan presidential helicopter on which he was traveling crashed on its way to south Sudan from Uganda, just three weeks after he became vice president under a landmark peace deal he helped craft. His death raised fears about the peace process in the war-ravaged country and sparked deadly riots in Khartoum and towns in southern Sudan, with some southerners claiming the government may have had a hand in it.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has suggested that the crash, initially blamed on bad weather in the mountainous region of south Sudan, may not have been an accident. Sudanese President Omar Bashir issued a decree on Aug. 8 establishing the seven-member committee and named former vice president Alier, a southerner, who like Garang hails from the Dinka tribe, to head the panel. The panel also includes six aviation experts â three from the Sudanese government and three from the former rebel group that Garang headed, the Sudan Peopleâs Liberation Movement.