Abel Alier

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Abel Alier Kwai (born June 23, 1933) is a South Sudanese lawyer, judge and politician. He served as First Vice President of Sudan from 1971 to 1972 and as Second Vice President from 1972 to 1982. He also led Southern Sudan as the President of the High Executive Council from 1972 to 1978.

He was born in Bor District, Upper Nile (now in South Sudan). He attended Rumbek Secondary School and Wad Saina School, then earned a law degree from the University of Khartoum. He became a magistrate and was the first Sudanese judge of southern origin. He was active in the Southern Front and represented it at the Round Table Conference in 1965. He was elected to Sudan’s National Parliament for Bor South from 1968 to 1969 and later held various ministerial posts.

Alier helped create the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement, which gave Southern Sudan its own regional government with its capital in Juba. He later served as a vice president under President Gaafar Nimeiry. He sits on the Permanent Court of International Arbitration in The Hague and is recognized as Sudan’s leading Christian lawyer. He wrote the book Southern Sudan: Too Many Agreements Dishonoured.

In 2005 he headed a committee to investigate the death of John Garang after a helicopter crash. He has lived in the Netherlands in his later years.