Powerful South Sudanese military leader dies -official
Wed Aug 22, 2012 4:53pm GMT
* Had split from southern rebels during civil war
* Died from "long illness" in Kenya -official
* Official says no divisions expected after death
JUBA, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A powerful South Sudanese army officer and former
militia leader influential in some of the country's richest oil regions
during its long civil war with the north has died, officials said on
Wednesday.
Paulino Matip, deputy commander in chief of South Sudan's national army, was
a key figure in the civil war that killed an estimated 2 million people and
left the now-independent South one of the world's least developed countries.
South Sudan seceded from Sudan a year ago under a 2005 peace deal and the
new government has been struggling to impose its authority over a country
the size of France awash with guns.
Backed by Khartoum, Matip had split from the southern rebel Sudan People's
Liberation Army (SPLA) during the war and battled factions of the rebel army
in areas of the oil-rich Unity State.
He rejoined the SPLA in 2006 under President Salva Kiir's "big tent" policy
of reconciliation to unite the South after the peace deal.
Matip "contributed a lot to the unity and reconciliation in this country,"
South Sudan's Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin told reporters
after announcing he had died in Kenya of a "long illness" while waiting to
fly to the United States for treatment.
His body is due to be flown to Juba on Friday for burial.
"I think the problems of cohesion were resolved by Paulino Matip," Benjamin
said.
Historians describe Matip as a man driven more by ambition during the war
than by ideology.
He was "the quintessential freebooter, willing to ally himself with God or
the devil, depending on which would supply him with the resources to sustain
his panache and his private army," Sudan historian Robert O. Collins wrote.
One of his main interests during the war was protecting and developing a
"small trading empire" based on cattle and sorghum in the areas near Bentiu,
capital of Unity State, according to historian Douglas Johnson.
Rebel fighting and clashes between rival communities over cattle and other
conflicts have killed hundreds of people since South Sudan's independence,
mostly in remote areas. The army is composed largely of former militias like
Matip's.
Information Minister Benjamin dismissed the suggestion that the SPLA would
see any splits or defections because of Matip's death.
"We don't foresee any division of any kind. After all what we were all
fighting for was to get our country. Here it is today," he said. (Reporting
by Mading Ngor and Alexander Dziadosz; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz;
Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
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Received on Wed Aug 22 2012 - 18:04:15 EDT
