Thus the NIF was excluding not only its Southern opponents but also its allies including Southern Coordination Council head Riek Machar and Transport Minister Lam Akol Secretary of its latest peace committee...
'Homeland'has two main aims for the NIF: to coopt and therefore neutralise El Sadig and his Umma further dividing the NDA on the model used for Riek Machar and Lam Akol; secondly to wrongfoot the United States while convincing outsiders especially European governments and businesses that it really wants peace (AC Vol 40 No 23)...
Vol 40 No 19 |
- SUDAN
- AFRICA
They've helped the NIF to recruit defectors from the SPLA: Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon Lam Akol Ajawin and sometimes the late William Nyuon Bany...
The NIF's divide-to-rule successes include 'peace agreements' in 1997 and 1998 when it co-opted dissident Sudan People's Liberation Army dissident leaders Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon and Lam Akol Ajawin plus some people dubbed faction leaders for the purpose...
Garang ran through the NIF's tactics for holding onto power stressing 'divide-to-rule' and noting that the 'peace from within' policy had brought no peace and isolated its signatories Riek Machar and Lam Akol...
* Southern Sudan Independence Army: formally allied with government since 1996; ostensibly leads Southern Sudan Defence Force; defends oil areas; Riek Machar: ‘southern President'; he broke with Garang 1991 demanding independent south; now reportedly seeks pact with Garang after government and former ally Paulino Matip' s forces sacked Ler last week...
Little by little it drew in notably Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon William Nyuon Bany (who later defected then was killed by Riek's men) Kerubino Kwanyin Bol (whose ravages were a main cause of the Bahr el Ghazal famine and who is now back in theory with the SPLA) the late Arok Thuon Arok (AC Vol 39 No 4) and Lam Akol Ajawin...
Interestingly Riek Machar prominent at Nairobi repeatedly spoke of the oil reserves as in the ‘centre' of the country...
In mid-1997 it retook Maban Blue Nile with the help of Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon's ex-Southern Sudan Independence Army...
The old Antonov-32 crashed apparently accidentally in Riek Machar's Upper Nile stronghold Nasir and also killed one of Khartoum's key southern allies Arok Thuon Arok and perhaps 26 others...
The first Nuba Advisory Council was convened by Sudan People's Liberation Army Commander Yousif Kuwa in 1992 after 400 of his troops died trying to bring ammunition into the Nuba Mountains through the battles raging to the south between the forces of John Garang and Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon...
Oppositionists note that if Khartoum wanted peace it wouldn't have based April's 'Khartoum Peace Agreement' on Garang's arch-enemy Riek Machar...