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kEy fiGuREs in sudanEsE histoRy, CultuRE & PolitiCs 343

Paulino MatiP Nhial. Leader of Anyanya II, a southern rebel

movement that became a pro-Khartoum militia. A Bul Nuer from Upper

Nile, he allied with Riek Machar following the 1997 Khartoum Peace

Agreement. From 2001, he was the Overall Commander-in-Chief of the

primarily Nuer South Sudan Defence Force. He later formed the South

Sudan Unity Movement/Army, a Bentiu-based militia supported by the

government in Khartoum that was involved in forcibly displacing citizens

from around the oil fields. However, a year after the 2005 Comprehen-

sive Peace Agreement, he signed the Juba Declaration with Salva Kiir

Mayardit, merged his forces with the SPLA and became the SPLA Deputy

Commander-in-Chief.

RiEk MaChaR TEny DhuRGon (b.1952). Became Vice-President of

the Government of Southern Sudan in 2005. A Dok Nuer from Upper Nile,

he gained a PhD in Engineering in the UK and joined John Garang’s SPLA

shortly after it was formed and became one its most senior commanders.

In 1991 Riek Machar, alongside Lam Akol and Gordon Kong, attempted

to overthrow John Garang as leader of the SPLA, forming SPLA Nasir

faction, later renamed SPLA–United, with self-determination for southern

Sudan as its declared aim. In 1996 he signed a Peace Charter with the

northern government and then the Khartoum Peace Agreement a year

later. In 2000 he left the government and returned to the south to rejoin

the war against Khartoum. He rejoined the SPLM/A in 2002. He became

Vice-President of Southern Sudan after John Garang’s death in 2005 and

was reappointed for a second term in 2010.

Sadiq Siddiq al-Mahdi (b.1935). Politician, great-grandson of the

Mahdi and the current leader of the Umma Party. Born in Omdurman,

he attended university in Khartoum and Oxford. In 1965, aged thirty, he

won a seat in Parliament. The following year he became Sudan’s youngest

Prime Minister. However, within ten months his government collapsed.

In 1976, when he was out of the country, his supporters staged, with

Libyan backing, an unsuccessful coup attempt against Nimeiri’s govern-

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors ment. He was tried in absentia and sentenced to death. He remained

(www.riftvalley.net).