John Garang de Mabior was a Sudanese politician and revolutionary leader.
21 Facts About John Garang
2.
John Garang, who was and is regarded as the founding father and symbol of unity in today's South Sudan, was a member of the Dinka ethnic group.
3.
John Garang was born into a poor family in Wangulei village Twic East County in the upper Nile region of Sudan.
4.
John Garang was offered another scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, but chose to return to Tanzania and study East African agricultural economics as a Thomas J Watson Fellow at the University of Dar es Salaam.
5.
However, John Garang soon decided to return to Sudan and join the rebels.
6.
In 1970, John Garang was in one of the batches of Gordon Muortat Mayen's soldiers, the then leader of the Anyanya liberation movement, sent to Israel for military training.
7.
John Garang coined the philosophy of "Sudanism" which would be the guiding philosophy to a secular and multiethnic New Sudan.
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John Garang believed, for the people of Sudan to live in cohesion, they must not separate themselves into the many existing ethnic factions present within the nation but, rather, to collectively renounce the belief that Arabness, Black African-ness, Islam or Christianity were to be the ultimate defining characteristics of Sudan.
9.
In 1983, John Garang went to Bor and southern government soldiers in Battalion 105 who were resisting being rotated to posts in the north.
10.
John Garang was a strong advocate for national unity: minorities together formed a majority and therefore should rule.
11.
SPLA-Nasir accused John Garang of ruling by force, in a "dictatorial reign of terror"; but ethnic rivalry seemed to have a part, with the Nasir faction mainly composed of Nuer, and John Garang's supporters mainly Dinka people.
12.
John Garang had refused to participate in the 1985 interim government or the 1986 elections, remaining a rebel leader.
13.
Over 15 months, starting in September 2003, Ali Osman and John Garang met in private in Naivasha.
14.
For example, according to Gill Lusk, "John Garang did not tolerate dissent and anyone who disagreed with him was either imprisoned or killed".
15.
In late July 2005, John Garang died after the Ugandan presidential Mi-172 helicopter he was flying in crashed.
16.
John Garang had been returning from a meeting in Rwakitura with long-time ally President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.
17.
John Garang did not tell the Sudanese government that he was going to this meeting and therefore did not take the presidential plane.
18.
John Garang had said he was going to spend the weekend in New Cush, a small village near the Kenyan borders founded by John Garang himself.
19.
The SPLM responded that the helicopter John Garang was taking had landed safely on an old SPLA training camp.
20.
John Garang's helicopter crashed on Friday and he remained 'missing' throughout Saturday.
21.
John Garang's body was flown to New Cush, a southern Sudanese settlement near the scene of the crash, where former rebel fighters and civilian supporters gathered to pay their respects to Garang.