John Garang de Mabior

Who is John Garang de Mabior?

John Garang de Mabior was born on 23 June 1945 in Wangulei village, Twic East County, in what is now South Sudan, and was orphaned by around age ten. A member of the Dinka ethnic group, he pursued his education with the help of relatives and, while later serving in the Sudanese army, went on to earn a PhD in agricultural economics from Iowa State University in the United States. On 16 May 1983 he founded the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in Ethiopia, becoming its commander-in-chief and leading it through the Second Sudanese Civil War against the government in Khartoum. Rather than campaigning only for southern secession, Garang for years championed a vision of a united, secular "New Sudan" free of imposed religious law, though the movement he built ultimately carried South Sudan toward independence. He was the chief SPLM/A signatory of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005, which ended the 22-year civil war, and was sworn in as First Vice President of Sudan and President of the new autonomous Government of Southern Sudan that July. Just three weeks later, on 30 July 2005, he was killed when a Ugandan helicopter carrying him crashed near the Sudan-Uganda border. He is widely regarded as the founding father of South Sudan, which became independent in 2011, six years after his death.

Sources: Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, founding documents (1983) · Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM/A (2005) · Reports on the death of John Garang, BBC News and Sudan Tribune (July-August 2005)