>> john garang was extremely personally impressive and charming. now we all know - i'm sure you've interviewed impressive and charming dictators around the world. >> alex de waal has spent his career studying sudan. he said on the ground, many saw a different man. >> he was completely ruthless, he was utterly centralized, he was completely intolerant of dissent. in demonizing khartoum, one of the sideeffects of that was to promote the spla as heros and as angels. they were neither of those things. the human rights record of the spla throughout the entire war has at no time been any better than the human rights record of the sudan government. >> whatever the truth about that record, there is no doubt that garang's rebel army grew stronger with the backing of its us friends. at the same time, another movement was also gaining power in washington. >> this is a passage in the bible from isaiah 18 that's talking about sudan. whoa to the land of whirring wings, along the rivers of cush ...which sends envoys by sea in papyrus boats, over the water. go swi