Footnote to the preceding

Updated It seems that in Sudan, it's true that no good deed goes unpunished - and no good hope goes unquashed.

Ugandan and Sudanese forces were searching for John Garang, the southern rebel leader-turned-vice president who is seen as crucial to Sudan's fledgling peace deal, early Monday after his helicopter disappeared amid reports it crashed in bad weather in northern Uganda.

Garang founded the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which he then lead for the 21 years of civil war in Sudan between the Muslim north and Christian and animist south which ended with a peace and power-sharing deal in January. As part of that deal, Garang was sworn in as vice-president on July 9,

second only to his longtime enemy, President Omar el-Bashir. He and el-Bashir were to work on setting up a power-sharing government and on elevating Garang's rebel troops to an equal status with the Sudanese military.

And now he's missing. While no one has raised any questions of foul play, Garang is regarded as

the sole figure with the weight to give southern Sudanese a role in the Khartoum government, which they deeply mistrust. ...

There is no other leader of Garang's stature in the former rebel movement....

That is, he was the counterweight to the political power of the north. If it turns out he has been killed, I truly wonder if the peace deal, which provoked national celebrations, will survive.

Updated with the late news that just after 11pm, AFP reported that a diplomatic source in Nairobi, Kenya has said that officials of the SPLM/A have told diplomats that they believe that Garang was killed in the crash. This is not good. Garang was by no means an angel - but he was for this moment the piton from which hopes for peace and some sort of justice dangled. No, this is not good.