Khartoum — Rioters burned cars and threw stones in Sudan's capital Monday after a helicopter crash killed the country's Vice-President, who until recently was a southern rebel leader.
Sudanese leaders appealed for calm and said the nation's peace process would remain on track. But some southern Sudanese were suspicious about the circumstances of the death of John Garang, who was a key figure in the fledgling peace deal between the predominantly Arab Muslim government and the Christian south.
Anti-riot police were deployed to several areas of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, where crowds pelted passers-by with stones and smashed car windows. At least 10 private and government-owned cars were set on fire.
Khartoum's governor ordered a 6 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew and the city's streets were empty of people and traffic an hour before the order took effect.
Witnesses reported at least two people had been killed during clashes in the capital. There was no official confirmation.
The U.S. embassy in Khartoum said there were reports of violence in southern Sudan and issued a reminder of its warnings to Americans to avoid nonessential travel to the country. There were no details on the southern violence.
The violence and widespread grief surrounding Mr. Garang's death forced most in the capital to lock themselves inside their homes. Shop owners shuttered their stores.
“Murderers! Murderers!” yelled some southern Sudanese protesters who alleged that the government, which had battled Mr. Garang's rebel force for two decades before this year's peace deals, might have been behind the crash.
“We lost Garang at a time when we needed him the most, but we think that we have made great strides toward peace and we believe that that peace process should continue,” Garang aide Nihal Deng said during an emergency cabinet meeting.
Mr. Garang's longtime deputy, Silva Kiir, was quickly named to succeed him as head of his Sudan People's Liberation Army and as president of south Sudan, spokesman Yasser Arman told the Associated Press.
Mr. Kiir said he called the Sudan People's Liberation Movement's top decision-making body to assemble for an emergency meeting. The SPLM became part of the national unity government in July, when Mr. Garang became Vice-President.
“I call upon all members of the SPLM and the entire Sudanese nation to remain calm and vigilant,” Mr. Kiir said.
Mr. Garang died when the helicopter he was flying in crashed into a mountain in southern Sudan in bad weather, killing him and the other 13 people on board, the government said Monday.
Senior SPLM official Deng Alor, speaking from the southern Sudanese town of New Site where Mr. Garang's remains were taken, appealed for calm and promised an investigation into the deaths.
Mr. Alor said weather was bad in the area where the crash occurred and stressed that the SPLM was not blaming the Sudanese government of Omar el-Bashir.
“People have got to restrain themselves. People should not begin to point fingers at anybody,” Mr. Alor told AP by telephone.
In the capital of neighbouring Kenya, groups of southern Sudanese men huddled to discuss the death. Nairobi has been the base for his southern Sudan liberation movement and is home to thousands of southern Sudanese.
One Sudanese man in Nairobi, Atem Maper, 30, said younger southern Sudanese were suspicious of the circumstances of Mr. Garang's death.
“People are worried that the war will continue,” Mr. Maper said. “They didn't understand the way he died. We are going to see.”
But the chief mediator during Sudan's peace negotiations, retired Kenyan General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, said he was sure there was no foul play because Mr. Garang was flying over an SPLM area.
“I totally disregard that (foul-play theory) completely, because the area he was flying into was an area he controlled,” Gen. Sumbeiywo said.
The charismatic leader's death struck a blow to the January peace deal that ended a 21-year civil war in which some 2 million people died.
The crash of Mr. Garang's flight brought up the spectre of the 1994 downing of the airplane of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, who had been trying to implement a power-sharing deal between his fellow Hutus and the rival Tutsis. His death opened the doors to the Rwandan genocide in which more than 500,000 people were killed.
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