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- Nov 20, 2010
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According to Major General Mohamed Ali Mortada Garang's chief bodyguard assigned to him by Khartoum, he paid Garang a visit in his office and told him that he had orders from President Omar Al Bashir to accompany him wherever he went.
Garang told him he was travelling to Juba , New Site , Uganda and to the bush to make some arrangements but he didn't need any company.
Mortada, pleaded with Garang that he was under strict orders to protect him and not doing so would mean defying president Omar Al Bashir. Even though Garang refused ,he assured Mortada that he " might need him for the future trips." Consequently, Mortada was instructed not to accompany him.
Another witness Ghazi Suleiman, a lawyer and political activist, claimed he visited the presidential palace where he met Garang.
who told him that he was travelling to Uganda on a personal matter.
But on his way out of the palace, Ghazi said he received a phone call from two Sudanese officials one of them being Bakri Hassan Saleh the minister for Defence who warned him "Ghazi if you leave your man unprotected, he will die."
When Ghazi sought to know the man they were talking about , they replied " Dr John Garang. " The two Sudanese officials went on to complain to Ghazi that Dr John Garang was going on a private trip to Uganda, something that was not proper.
According to them , taking charge of Garang's safety was their responsibility since he was now 1st vice president of the entire Sudan. " So we must accompany him wherever he goes," said the officials. " If he starts going on private trips alone he will die."
Nonetheless, John Garang chose to fly to Uganda with the official bodyguards he was entitled to as vice president. According to one of his allies , he did this because he still couldn't trust Khartoum officials. 29 July 2005.
While at Museveni's home he met British, Dutch , and American ambassadors who were there to discuss with him the question of South Sudan's minerals and oil.
According to one commentator, the reason why the Dutch were there was because Shell Oil Company is a British-Dutch firm.
However According to Prof Hassan Makki and journalist Wayne Marsden, the meeting between Garang and the Western ambassadors did not go well. "The Western powers understood they could get nothing from Sudan with Garang as president,and that he had been brainwashed in Khartoum, " observed Prof. Makki.
According to journalist Marsden, the ambassadors complained to Garang that Khartoum had granted oil concessions to the Chinese and that they wanted oil fields on the border between South Sudan and Sudan to be renegotiated in favour of Western companies in case South Sudan became independent.
At this point Garang is said to have interjected , " Wait a minute , the oil in our territory is our oil. It will be upon the South Sudanese people to decide who they sell it to." This was just a bitter pill for the three Western diplomats to swallow.
The meeting broke up, and at 6.30 pm Garang boarded the Russian-made Ugandan presidential helicopter to return to Sudan. The helicopter first flew to Entebbe to refuel before proceeding with its flight to Kush Town close to the Kenyan border. An hour later the helicopter crashed.
