Abel Alier

Abel Alier Kwai
First Vice President of Sudan
In office 1971–1972
Preceded by	Babiker Awadalla
Succeeded by	Mohamed Al-Baghir Ahmed
Second Vice President of Sudan
In office 1972–1982
Preceded by	Khalid Hassan Abbas
Succeeded by	Joseph Lagu
President of the High Executive Council of the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region
In office 6 April 1972 – February 1978
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Joseph Lagu
Personal details
Born	1933 (age 83–84) Bor District, Upper Nile, Sudan
Nationality	South Sudanese
Alma mater	University of Khartoum
Religion	Anglicanism
Ethnicity	Dinka

Abel Alier Kwai (born 1933) is a South Sudanese politician and judge who served as Vice President of Sudan between 1971 and 1982 and as President of the High Executive Council of the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region between 1972 and 1978. After Sudan gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1956, Southern Sudan was not left as an independent state. This led to a deadly war a year before the independence. A party in the war was Anyanya 1 Under Joseph Lagu. Abel Alier was a politician who managed to complete his college education among many Southern Sudanese. He is an internationally respected judge, human-rights lawyer and activist on behalf of Christians in the Sudan. Former Vice President of Sudan (1971–1982), he served as the first president of the High Executive Council of Southern Sudan. He sits on the Permanent Court of International Arbitration in The Hague and is recognized as Sudan's most prominent Christian lawyer. His latest book is Southern Sudan: Too Many Agreements Dishonoured.

Alier was born in 1933 in the Bor District of the Upper Nile State in the then Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (the region where he was born is now part of South Sudan). He attended the renowned Rumbek Secondary School, which educated many South Sudanese leaders. He also attended the Wad Saina School in northern Sudan. He graduated from Law School of University of Khartoum and has his own law firm prior to his appointment as magistrate, becoming the first Sudanese judge of southern origin. He was active in the Southern Front since its foundation in 1964 and was in of its representatives at the Round Table Conference in 1965. He was elected to the National Parliament from 1968 to 1969 for Bor South constituency. He subsequently held several ministerial positions in the Sudanese government.

In 1972 a peace agreement was signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Abel Alier became instrumental in that agreement which permitted Southern Sudan to have its own autonomous government in Juba. Abel Alier became a Vice President of Sudan when Numeiri was the president. Mr. Abel Alier is from the southern part of Dinka Bor. He is older than the late charismatic leader Dr. John Garang. Abel Alier never joined the Southern rebellion, but he has often been instrumental in helping negotiate a peaceful settlement between The North and Southern Sudan.

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