According to the CIA, on August 1,2005, the family and clan members of John Garang, convened in Lavington Nairobi to begin burial arrangements.
The discussion centred around Garang’s final resting place. According to the American spy agency, just before his death, Garang prepared a will in which he expressed his desire to be buried in his ancestral home in Wangulei in case he died.
However the SPLA/A leadership was making attempts to influence Garang’s family to have him buried in a location better suited to erecting a memorial in his honour. The place they were proposing was Juba.
The CIA also claimed that Garang’s helicopter left Museveni’s ranch at approximately 1530 hours, headed to Entebbe where it refuelled before departing for Gulu where it made another stopover . It departed at 1700 hours and made its way to South Sudan.
The helicopter was seen over New Cush Town , where according to the CIA it landed or attempted to London. It then changed course suddenly towards the Southeast and disappeared.
The Toposa who were grazing their cattle and had observed the helicopter flying overhead, later saw smoke on Mt Zulia and informed the SPLA of a possible crash.
The SPLM/A then tried to reach Garang through his assistant , Majer, who was also on the ill-fated helicopter. But his satellite would ring and immediately divert to voicemail. Even though the crash was yet to be confirmed, the CIA claimed that as early as the morning of 31 July ,Jacob Malith, a senior SPLM/A commander had already leaked the information to Non-Governmental Organisations at Koboko Uganda that Garang was dead.
Salva Kiir Mayardit who was in Nairobi at the time of the crash, met Mwai Kibaki in the evening of 31 July and briefed him about the situation. The Kenyan Government responded by releasing three Kenya Air Force puma helicopters to ferry Kiir and Garang’s family to South Sudan.
That was all propaganda to divert public attention and to keep M7 silent, considering he was travelling aboard a UPDF helicopter. Museveni had no interest in having Garang dead. Infact the opposite is true. They just had a successful meeting … they where in very good terms. Guess who was not so happy about Garang tho’. Kenya government (specifically NIS) and the Brits (MI6). The man had back tracked on some of the agreements they had made prior to him becoming president and were considered of strategic importance. Its not a coincidence; they had Salva Kirr on stand by. They know what happened to Garang. Not M7. They were fed bad intel and tricked to change course and directly to the line of fire deeper in UG and away from K.E borders. Confirmed hit … by spec ops deep behind enemy territory. And they were out. M7 was left do deal with it. Admitting it was a takedown; would look bad for him. He couldn’t point fingers either. He had to accept checkmate on this one. The man crossed the line. He had to go.
what were some of those agreements? About oil? Kenya south Sudan boundary?
i read somewhere he seemed to favor unification of Sudan rather than cessation. I believe that was the angle.as for Museveni, I guess his interest was about the boundary too. Under salva kirr Uganda demarcated her border successfully with south sudan and an agreement was signed.Garang seemed hard core about the lado enclave.
it would have been disastrous for uganda to have an islamist state as a neighbour on her northen boundary,i guese our ideas about jubaland were borrowed from uganda.
Oil deals for the Brits likely and the Ilemi triangle issue for us were probably high motivators. Museveni was baited to look bad either way. His best option was to let it slide. The UG/S.Sudan border dispute does not have the complexities of the Ilemi triangle. It’s a national security issue for us rather than a dispute over not demarcated or defined border area.
The opposite seems true. I saw a clip he was explaining that he told the sudanese they are first Africans then other things but they couldn’t listen and insisted they are Arabs, so that broke their country into two. But again, considering his country is landlocked, you might be right. He could have been thinking a railway from port Sudan direct to Kampala and lake Victoria was a big advantage instead of south Sudan sitting in between.
