Who Killed Dr. John Garang: Conspiracy vs. a Grain of Truth
3 min readBy PaanLuel Wel.
Having spent almost a year now studying Dr. John Garang, I was intrigued recently when Mabior Garang de Mabior, on his Facebook Page, wrote something to the implication that he knew who might have killed the SPLM/A late leader, Dr. John Garang.
Yet, for some of us who have spent ample time exploring the question, there is more than meet the eye, more than we can suppose, to the death of Dr. John Garang. Of course, to say that it was an accident is just pure nonsense, sacrificing the truth on the altar of STABILITY and NORMALCY. Yet, the more one learns about the circumstances and events leading to his death, the more one is left even more confused: what was the mission about and why was he alone, without any of the SPLM/A top brass on this particular trip? Look at the last picture of Garang & M7 greetings before the flight: just weird, gloomy, tensed, why?
Below is one link which appears informative but far from certain.
The claim in that anonymous “Investigative Report” as the author puts it, is just one among the three main conspiracies milling around, one of which mentioned by Mabior, related to the death of John Garang. Inasmuch as it may persuade some, beware that there are equally counterarguments, some of which are hard to dismiss — it was Museveni who came to the rescue of the Movement during the dark years of 1990s, after the Ethiopian Fiasco and the 1991 Nasir Coup. The reason cited in the “report” for the fallout is ‘trivial’
For instance, there is even now a conspiracy theory that the unfortunate plane ‘accident’ that killed Dim Deng and Justic Yac Arop is somehow part of the grand conspiracy: someone wanted to shut them up, for eternity. Implied herein is that they were somehow in-the-know and hard to be eliminated to preclude the “leak”. Yet, when John Garang passed away, the two gentlemen were — according to From Bush to Bush, a book by Steven Wondu — part of the SPLM/A group undergoing training in South Africa in readiness for the NEW SUDAN. Of course the allegation is inferred from the Minutes of the 2004 Rumbek Showdown between Garang and Salva.
Anyway, I am bringing this up, together with the link, because someone has been pestering me, wondering if Mabior Garang Mabior could be taken on his words. The point is that it is hard, still too early, to definitively name the killers of Dr. John Garang because there are so many leads pointing to (1) Khartoum, (2) Outsiders (3) Disgruntled Elements within the SPLM/A. I haven’t come across anything to validate the “accident” hypothesis. And YET, nothing is definitive; facts don’t just add up. Might take time, might take forever, but till then, we are better off speculating than ascertaining one position over the rest.
So let me advise my brother and comrade, Mabior Garang Mabior, to desist from public utterances regarding the untimely and mysterious death of Dr. John Garang, not least because it is a sensitive topic and we don’t wanna lose him but above all, we are all striving to unearth the truth no matter how long it might take us or our children’s children. John Garang is us and we are John Garang!!
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