Gaafar Nimeiry
Prime Minister of Sudan | |
---|---|
In office 28 October 1969 – 11 August 1976 | |
President | Himself |
Preceded by | Babiker Awadalla |
Succeeded by | Rashid Bakr |
In office 10 September 1977 – 6 April 1985 | |
President | Himself |
Preceded by | Rashid Bakr |
Succeeded by | Al-Jazuli Daf'allah |
Personal details | |
Born | Wad Nubawi, Omdurman, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan | 1 January 1930
Died | 30 May 2009 Omdurman, Sudan | (aged 79)
Political party |
|
Military service | |
Allegiance | Field Marshal |
Gaafar Muhammad an-Nimeiry (otherwise spelled in English as Gaafar Nimeiry, Jaafar Nimeiry, or Ja'far Muhammad Numayri;
A military officer, he came to power after a
In 1972 he signed the Addis Ababa Agreement, ending the First Sudanese Civil War. In his last years in power he also adopted aspects of Islamism, and in 1983 he imposed Sharia law throughout the country, precipitating the Second Sudanese Civil War. He was ousted from power in 1985 and went into exile in Egypt. He returned in 1999 and unsuccessfully ran in the presidential elections in 2000.
Early life and education
Nimeiry was educated at the Omdurman primary and elementary school, then in
Nimeiri moved on to different positions in the
On 28 December 1966, Lieutenant Hussein Osman with other young Communist officers tried to seize the presidential palace and the central post office, but failed. Among the 400 people arrested after the coup attempt failed was Colonel Gaafar Nimeiry, then commanding the Eastern Command. He was released on 9 January 1967 and transferred to command the infantry school.[9]
1969–1980
Early years in power and socialist reforms
On 25 May 1969, together with four other officers, Colonel Nimeiry, commanding the Khartoum Garrison, overthrew the civilian government of Ismail al-Azhari, his coup being termed the "May Revolution". He created and chaired the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). Edgar O'Ballance, writing in 1977, said that the 14 seniormost officers of the Sudanese Armed Forces were all out of the country at the time "either on official or private visits," so the "time chosen was opportune."[10] On 26 May, he suspended the constitution, dissolved the Supreme Council, the National Assembly, and the Civil Service Commission, and ordered that all political parties disband. That day he also promoted himself to major-general, retired 22 serving officers, mostly senior to himself, dismissed over 30, and appointed 14 new officers to the most important posts.[11]
Nimeiry became
In March–April 1970 Nimeiry ordered an aerial bombardment on
Later in 1971, he was elected President winning a referendum with 98.6 per cent of the votes. He then dissolved the RCC and founded the Sudanese Socialist Union[7] which he declared to be the only legal political organization.[12] In 1972 he signed the Addis Ababa Agreement whereby autonomy was granted to the non-Muslim southern region of Sudan, which ended the First Sudanese Civil War and ushered in an 11-year period of peace and stability to the region. In 1973 he drafted a new constitution which declared Sudan to be a democratic, socialist state and gave considerable power to the office of President.[12]
Coup attempts and alliance with China and the West
In 1970 Nimeiry successfully weathered a coup attempt by former Prime Minister and Umma Party leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, and in 1971 was briefly removed from power by a Communist coup, before being restored. During the 1971 coup attempt, Nimeiry jumped out the window of the place where he was incarcerated when his supporters came to rescue him.[4]
After this coup, he started to move away from Soviet influence and began to receive arms from the US and Maoist China.[4][14] In April 1972, he signed an agreement with China, by which Chinese military advisers began training the Sudanese Army, and further providing for Chinese sale of MiG-19 fighter aircraft; Mao Zedong also provided Sudan with interest-free loans, and Chinese state companies began constructing a number of public works in Sudan, including factories, roads, bridges and conference centers.[15] Sudanese collaboration with China continued even after Nimeiry was overthrown in 1985.
In late 1975, a military coup by Communist members of the armed forces, led by Brigadier Hassan Hussein Osman, failed to remove Nimeiry from power. General Elbagir, Nimeiry's deputy, led a counter coup that brought Nimeiry back within few hours. Brigadier Osman was wounded and later court martialed and executed.[16]
In the mid-1970s, he launched several initiatives to develop agriculture and industry in Sudan and he invited foreign Western and Chinese companies to explore for oil.[12] Chevron would discover oil reserves in South-Central Sudan in 1979. In general he began a more moderate economic policy, where some banks and industries were returned to private ownership (although the state was still in control of much of the economy) and foreign investment was encouraged, as evidenced by a number of bilateral investment treaties: with the Netherlands 22 August 1970, Switzerland 17 February 1974, Egypt 28 May 1977, and France 31 July 1978. In July 1978 at the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in Khartoum, Nimeiry was elected Chairman of the OAU until July 1979.
1976 Sudanese coup d'état attempt
In 1976, a force of one thousand insurgents under Sadiq al Mahdi, armed and trained by Libya, crossed the border from Ma'tan as-Sarra. After passing through Darfur and Kordofan, the insurgents engaged in three days of house-to-house fighting in Khartoum and Omdurman that killed some 3,000 people and sparked national resentment against the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Nimeiry and his government were narrowly saved after a column of army tanks entered the city.[17] Ninety-eight people implicated in the plot were executed.[4]
National Reconciliation
1980–1985
Second term as president
Nimeiry was one of only two
In 1981, Nimeiry, pressured by his Islamic opponents, began a dramatic shift toward
In 1984 and 1985, after a period of drought, several million people were threatened by famine, particularly in western Sudan. The government tried to hide the situation internationally.[22]
Inflation
Between 1980 and 1985, the Sudanese pound lost 80 percent of its value due to inflation and renewed civil war.[citation needed]
1985 Revolution
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Political and economic discontent against Nimeiry had been growing for several years prior to 1985. According to a Sudanese individual interviewed by
Exile and return
On 6 April 1985, while Nimeiry was on an official visit to the United States of America in the hope of gaining more financial aid from Washington, a bloodless military coup led by his defence minister General Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab ousted him from power. During the subsequent elections the pro-Islamist leader, Sadiq al-Mahdi was elected Prime Minister.
Nimeiry lived in exile in Egypt from 1985 to 1999, in a villa situated in
Nimeiry died of natural causes in his home in Omdurman on 30 May 2009. Tens of thousands turned up to his official funeral including members of Sudan's political forces that had opposed his rule. After Nimeiry's death in May 2009, former Revolutionary Command Council member Khaled Hassan Abbass was elected head of the Alliance of Peoples' Working Forces. Splits occurred amongst the supporters of Nimeiry with some endorsing the partnership with the National Congress and others alleging that the National Congress reneged on the merger agreement and did not properly implement it. The splinter groups formed the May Socialist Union which took part in the parliamentary elections in Sudan in 2010. Another group led by Professor Dr. Fatima Abdel Mahmoud set up the Sudanese Socialist Democratic Union Party as the successor party of the Sudanese Socialist Union. Abdel Mahmoud was the first woman cabinet Minister in Sudan in the 1970s, and the first Sudanese woman to contest the presidency in the 2010 Sudanese election.
References
- ^ Sudan: A Country Study "Role in Government" United States Library of Congress. Accessed on 10 September 2007.
- ^ "المشير. جعفر محمد نميري". Archived from the original on 5 December 2018. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
- ISBN 9781134264902.
- ^ a b c d e Dennis Hevesi (11 June 2009). "Gaafar al-Nimeiry, a Sudan Leader With Shifting Politics, Dies at 79". The New York Times.
- ^ "Gaafar al-Nimeiry". The Telegraph. 1 June 2009. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
- ^ "?????". Archived from the original on 27 June 2014. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
- ^ ISBN 9780313281129.
- ISBN 978-0-9502755-0-5.
- ^ O'Ballance, Secret War in the Sudan, F&F, 1973, 93.
- ^ OBallance 1977, p. 103.
- ^ OBallance 1977, p. 104.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8225-9096-5. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
- ^ OBallance 1977, p. 107.
- Human Right Watch. 2003. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
- ^ Ismail Debeche, The role of China in international relations: the impact of ideology on foreign policy with special reference to Sino-African relations (1949-1986), pp. 851-858, 1987, University of York
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
- ISBN 1-55876-405-4, p. 111
- ^ "Sudan - National Reconciliation". countrystudies.us. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
- JSTOR 4328194.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
- ^ OCLC 58791298.
- ^ Le Monde Diplomatique (in French). Archivedfrom the original on 16 October 2019. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
- ^ Miller, Judith (7 April 1985). "Sudan's president is ousted in coup by military chief". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 24 May 2015. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
- O'Ballance, Edgar (1977). The Secret War in the Sudan: 1955–1972. London: ISBN 0-571-10768-0.
External links
- Media related to Gaafar Nimeiry at Wikimedia Commons