(Ha'aretz) Danna Harman - When he landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport in 1969, the Israeli officers receiving him said: "Welcome, Gen. Joseph Lagu. We have been waiting for you." When the South Sudanese commander, now 81 and retired, returned home from his clandestine Israel mission, he carried with him Prime Minister Golda Meir's promise of weapons and training - critical help, he says today, that subsequently turned the south's struggle for freedom around. "It helped set us on the path to where we are today," he says, "and that will never be forgotten." Last week the people of South Sudan voted overwhelmingly for independence in a historic referendum after half a century of on-and-off civil war. Soon after his visit, a shipment of weapons reached Juba in South Sudan via Uganda - mortars, anti-tank missiles and light machine guns taken from Arab countries during the 1967 war. "They did not give us new weapons, or ones that were manufactured in Israel," Lagu explains, "as they did not want to be publicly known to be helping us." Later, an Israeli military advisor, a technician and a doctor joined the rebels in the bush. The Israeli assistance, Lagu explains, was what tipped the scales: "This helped transform my movement, and we became a force to be reckoned with."
2011-01-28 08:30:58Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive