BBC News
Obituary: John Garang
By Gray Phombeah
BBC News website
John Garang was a government army officer sent to quell a mutiny of 500 southern troops who were resisting orders to be shipped north. It took him 21 years to come back.
Thus began the story of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, which fought one of Africa's longest-running wars between the Christian and animist South and the Muslim, Arab-speaking North.
Instead of following his superiors' orders, Mr Garang went on to encourage mutinies in other garrisons and set himself at the head of the rebellion against the Khartoum government.
Between 1983 and the peace agreement signed in January 2005, Sudan's civil war took nearly two million lives and left millions more displaced.
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