Analysis: Was the secession of South Sudan a mistake?

He didn’t want to secede from Khartoum, but to overthrow the government and create a unified Sudan for all its citizens. His successors, grasping for immediate power and bowing to international influence, chose a different path. On the brink of civil war, is South Sudan now paying the price for this lack of vision?

The father of South Sudanese resistance, the late Dr John Garang, never ruled out the possibility of seceding from the north to create a new, independent state. But nor did he advocate it. For him, secession was a last resort, an option to be taken only if everything else had failed. “If we cannot rise to the challenge and move to the New Sudan, it is better that the Sudan breaks up before it breaks down,” he said in speeches delivered across the continent and the world.