On Sept. 19, 2004, two ISU alumni met to have breakfast at the Hotel at Gateway Center in Ames. This was the last time the two would have a meal together.

On July 30, John Lueth’s friend, John Garang, former vice president of Sudan, died in a helicopter crash while traveling from Uganda to his home in Sudan.

Lueth recently returned from attending Garang’s funeral in Sudan. Garang’s death, however, put more than a 42-year-old friendship at stake.

John Garang was the first vice president of Sudan under the new peace agreement between the North and South regions of the country, which was implemented July 9 to end Sudan’s 22-year-long civil war. The war claimed the lives of more than 1.5 million people and sent many more fleeing.

Lueth, now an ISU enrollment services adviser, was a soldier for the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement from 1963 to 1972 and just returned Sept. 2 from Garang’s Aug. 6 burial. He said he is optimistic that the peace agreement did not die with Garang.

“It’s still on track,” Lueth said of the peace agreement. “Everything is slow but sure. The government of national unity has still not been formed, because there is a disagreement between the government of Sudan and the SPLM movement.”

The Southern Sudan Liberation Movement has opposed the northern-dominated Sudanese government since 1955. Under the new peace agreement, the South is to have a separate president who would also be Sudan’s vice president.

Lueth said the major problem in the peace agreement is in the sharing of power.

“The southern Sudanese, under the leadership of the SPLM, say they want to take the ministry of energy and mining and the Northern Sudanese say no,” Lueth said. “The government of Sudan has taken the powerful positions in the ministry, like justice, defense and finance, and they are giving the south the foreign ministry.”

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., was the author of the Sudan Peace Act, which is the bill credited in bringing the two sides to the table for a peace agreement. His spokesman, Will Adams, would not comment on the effect Garang’s death would have on the implementation of the peace agreement.

Santino Deng, junior in biochemistry, who left Sudan for Egypt in 1995 and was granted refugee status by the United States in 1998, had very strong words about the war that killed his father, who was fighting for a Southern rebel group against the Sudanese government in 1983 when he was killed.

“They want Sudan to be an Arab country,” he said of the current Sudanese government. “They defined Sudan as an Islamic state, and very much, we, the original African who inherited the province of Sudan, rejected that idea. What John Garang wanted is for Sudan to be a Sudanese country, not an Arab country.”

Ahmed Abdeltam, senior in architecture, who is a Muslim from the northern part of Sudan, said he agreed.

“The South leaders weren’t being treated equally,” he said. “They rebelled against the North government, and they were just fighting for their rights.”

Abdeltam also fled Sudan because of the civil war.

Sudan’s new vice president is Salva Kiir Mayardit, and Lueth said he is a capable leader who would continue Garang’s work in creating peace between the North and South of Sudan.

Millions of people in Africa’s largest country, which has had the longest civil war in its history, are counting on peace.