The Riot

 By Dan Wise

July 30 2005

 The very fragile peace of Sudan was destroyed today by the death of John Garag. He was the opposition (SPLA) leader, and Vice President. He was in the Ugandan president’s helicopter coming from Uganda. It apparently crashed in bad weather. But many people think the government may have killed him. 

  There has been lots of rioting here in Khartoum, and my two favorite restaurants have been looted. All the roads were closed, and everyone was walking. No white faces were visible. 

  Many of our pilots were at the airport when the rioting started. I went and stood on an old 707 passenger loading stairs that was parked near the main road with some local mechanics from the hanger where we do our maintenance. From this high vantage point we could see 4 separate pillars of black smoke from burning cars, and one gas station (where I had drank a coke yesterday). About every minute a truck full of police in riot gear or an army truck would come by. The trucks all had 50 cal machine guns and all the guys in them were armed. 

  The local guys I was with were all Muslim, and when ever an army or police truck came by they would all yell and scream "ALLAHU AKBAR" (God is great) and "MARHABA" (literally "welcome", but meaning "we support you") So I joined in and yelled till my throat hurt. It felt like a Lawrence of Arabia movie. Every truck load would scream back "ALLAHU AKBAR" and "LA ILAHA ILA ALLAH" (There is only one God) and some waved their AK47s. It was so cool. I was hoping we could go burn something, but we didn't. 

  The army finally came on to the airport and made us all to go home. All the other foreign pilots had barricaded themselves in the hanger office. Wimps!! 

  The local guys I was with were concerned for me walking the 2 Kms to the house. I asked one of the army guys if he thought it was safe for me to walk since I was an obvious "ferenghi" (foreigner). He laughed and said that there were army guys with either a machine gun or AK47, every 50 meters along the road to the house. He smiled and told me that whenever there are this many guns, there is always peace.

So I just walked home. Past looted buildings and many broken windows. I said hello to most of the army guys, they smiled the relaxed smile that men with guns have when everybody else is unarmed. 

One saving grace was that the Vice President crashed in his own SPLA territory, so his own people will investigate the crash site and be able to determine if there was foul play or just the normal Russian pilots killing themselves again. There would be many more problems if the results of the crash were investigated by the government. Nobody would believe the results of a government investigation. 

  The Khartoum airport was closed, and there will probably be a few days of mourning, so my flight for tomorrow is canceled and probably the day after also. Cool. A few days off will be welcome.