APPPENDIX E: ELECTED GOVERNORS OF TEN SOUTHERN STATES87
1. Kwac Makuei, Aweil, Northern Bahr El Ghazal: Kwac, a Dinka from the area, was in Anyanya II and joined the SPLA early on. He went to Ethiopia for training; in Ethiopia he protested that the manifesto of the SPLA had been written by a minority, and should be rewritten. On behalf of SPLA Commander-in-Chief John Garang, Kerubino arrested Kwac, Lt. Col. Victor Bol Agolom, and others at the same time. They were in an SPLA prison without trial from 1984 until 1992.
Kwac and others, including Martin Majier Gai, were freed from their jail in Kaya, Eastern Equatoria, in 1992 by mutinous SPLA soldiers. Kwac went with some of them to the Central African Republic. Majier, who went back to the SPLA, was later summarily executed by the SPLA, which claimed he and others were killed trying to escape from jail.88
After his escape, Kwac went to Nairobi, where he was sympathetic to Riek and Kerubino but was not in the Kerubino Bahr El Ghazal fighting force. After the Political Charter was signed, Kwac went from Nairobi to Aweil and was important in mobilizing the intellectuals in Aweil to support the Political Charter and Peace Agreement. He also commanded troops there, and successfully fought off the SPLA/Kerubino attack on Aweil on January 28-29, 1998.
2. Charles Julu Kyopo, a Jur (Luo), was elected governor of Western Bahr El Ghazal, had been a lecturer in Juba University, based in Khartoum since 1987. After the Peace Agreement he moved back to his home in Wau and became a politician. Both Kerubino and Riek regarded him as their candidate.
3. Taban Deng Gai, a Jikany Ching Nuer from near Bentiu, was elected governor of Wihda or Unity state. He joined the SPLA and was camp coordinator of Itang refugee camp in Ethiopia from 1989 to 1991 when the camp was evacuated. He joined with Riek in the split from the SPLA in 1991.
4. Riek Gai Kok, governor of Jonglei, was a pharmacist who joined the SPLA in 1987. He trained in Bonga and was sent to Kapoeta to run the medical dispensary for the SPLA. He stayed there until 1992, when he joined with William Nyuon, a Nuer commander, in his defection from the SPLA to Riek=s forces. When William switched sides again to the SPLA, Riek Gai stayed with SSIM, where he was at one time director of the Relief Association of South Sudan (RASS), the relief arm of SSIM. In 1995 he participated in the fighting in Waat by Riek=s forces against SPLA forces led by William Nyuon and John Luk (both Lou Nuer).
5. Henry Jada was elected governor of Bahr El Jabal, is a Bari. He was never with the SPLM/A or SSIM/A. He retired as a colonel in the Sudanese army, and before the December 1997 election was a government-appointed speaker in the Juba state assembly. All the candidates for governor in Juba had been with the government for a long time. No others put themselves forward as candidates.
6. Abdalla Kapelo, a young Toposa man, was elected governor of Eastern Equatoria. A NIF member and never associated with the SPLM/A or SSIM/A, he defeated SSIM candidate Dr. Thomas Abol Shidi, a Latuka from the Lango section, in the election.
7. Arop Achier Akol, a Dinka from Gogrial, was elected governor of Warab state (Gogrial, a garrison town, is the only part of Warab in government hands). Originally he was in Anyanya II and then joined the SPLA. Garang arrested him and held him in Bilpam, from which he escaped before the August 1991 break between Riek and Garang. He then joined Anyanya II and remained with it after the Peace Agreement was signed. He is pro-separation and Riek forces consider him pro-SSIM. (His stepbrother George Kongor is a former Sudan army officer who is now second vice president of Sudan and served as governor of Bahr El Ghazal in the early 1990s.) In the election, he defeated the Kerubino candidate, Faustino Atem Gualdit.
8. Nikora Magar Achiek, a Dinka from Rumbek, was elected governor of Lakes (Buheirat). (All Lakes territory, including the capital Yirol, is in SPLA hands.) He was part of the Kerubino Bahr El Ghazal militia. The Peace Agreement was signed in his presence.
9. Dr. Timothy Tutlam , elected Upper Nile governor, was a Nuer educated as a medical doctor. He was in the SPLA before he joined SSIM in 1992, where he served as director of RASS.89 He died in the plane crash in Nasir on February 12, 1998, with many other government officials including Sudan=s first vice president.
10. Isaiah Paul won the election in Western Equatoria. He was with Anyanya and was incorporated into the Sudan army after the first civil war was settled. A Zande, he became a Sudan army general and fought the SPLA for a long time. The Riek forces believe him to be a supporter of self-determination for and separation of the south from Sudan.
87 Human Rights Watch interviews in Nairobi and Lokichokkio, Kenya; Bahr El Ghazal, Sudan; and Washington, DC, including Biel Torkech Rambang, U.S. representative of United Democratic Salvation Forces, Washington, DC, December 14, 1998.
88 See Human Rights Watch/Africa, Civilian Devastation, p. 225. Since publication of that report, Human Rights Watch has received additional information from a number of sources that Martin Majier Gai, Martin Makur Aleu, and Martin Kajiboro (referred to as Athe three Martins@) were executed by an SPLA officer while in custody.
89 A brief account of his escape before capture by the SPLA appears in Human Rights Watch/Africa, Civilian Devastation, p. 136.