Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan A Modern History of Politics and Violence Series Editor : Paul Jackson ( University of Northampton, UK) Editorial Board: Roger Griffi n ( Oxford Brookes University, UK ) Leonard Weinberg ( University of Nevada, USA ) Ramon Spaaij ( La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia ) Richard Steigmann-Gall ( Kent State University, USA ) Aristotle Kallis (Lancaster University, UK ) Matthew Feldman (University of Teesside, UK ) A Modern History of Politics and Violence is a new book series that scrutinises the diverse history of political violence in the modern world. It includes original studies, edited collections and reference works that explore the cultural settings and key actors that have allowed violent solutions to become seen as desirable somehow at certain points in history. Published: A British Fascist in the Second World War , Claudia Baldoli and Brendan Fleming (2014) British Fascist Antisemitism and Jewish Responses, 1932-40 , Daniel Tilles (2014) Forthcoming: Th e Comparative History of Fascism in Eastern Europe , Constantin Iordachi (2015) A Comparative History of Persecution and Victim Experience, Kitty Millet (2015) Colin Jordan and Britain’s Neo-Nazi Social Movement , Paul Jackson (2015) Transnational Fascism in the Twentieth Century , Matteo Albanese and Pablo del Hierro (2015) Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan Th e ‘ Khartoum Springs ’ of 1964 and 1985 W. J . B e r r i d g e Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2015 Paperback edition fi rst published 2016 © W. J. Berridge, 2015 W. J. Berridge has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-7401-5 PB: 978-1-4742-9866-7 ePDF: 978-1-4725-7402-2 ePub: 978-1-4725-7403-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: A Modern History of Politics and Violence Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain C o n t e n t s Acknowledgements vi Abbreviations vii Introduction 1 1 Th e October Revolution and its Causes 13 2 Th e 1985 Intifada : Nimeiri’s Self-Destruction? 39 3 Communists, Islamists, Ba’athists and Sectarians: Th e Political Parties in 1964 and 1985 65 4 Th e ‘Modern Forces’: Students, Professionals and Labour Unions in 1964 and 1985 95 5 Th e Armed Forces: Protectors of the People? 119 6 Th e 1964–5 Transitional Regime: A Missed Opportunity? 149 7 Th e 1985–6 Transitional Period and the Tenacity of Political Islam 175 8 Th e ‘Revenge of May’: Th e ‘Salvation Revolution’ of June 1989 197 Conclusion 215 Notes 221 Bibliography 269 Index 279 A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s First of all, I would like to convey my sincerest gratitude to the team at SUDAAK (the Sudanese Association for Archiving Knowledge) for kindly hosting me in their headquarters during my fi rst research trip to Khartoum. My warmest thanks to Badreldin el Hag Musa, Ibrahim Moneim Mansur, Fawzia Galaleldin and Muhammad al-Hasan Muhammad Abdu. I also wish to thank the team at the National Archives in Khartoum, including Awatif, Abd al-Moneim, Muhammad Azraq, Taj el Din and Hanafi , for allowing me access to their newspaper collection, which was of considerable assistance to this project. A special thanks goes to Khartoum University ’ s tireless librarian, Abbas, for fi nding and photocopying so many books for me. I am also indebted to John Ryle and Kit Kidner at the Rift Valley Institute, for providing me with employment during the fi rst of these trips to Khartoum. I could not have done without the support of Hisham Bilal, for assistance in sorting out my visa at a time when I feared I might have had to curtail one of my two research trips. Th e one person who made this project possible more than any was my tireless research assistant, Kamal Ahmad Yusif. Without his invaluable assistance in tracking down books and arranging interviews with otherwise untraceable fi gures, everything would have been a lot more challenging. I also wish to thank Tom Law, Nevena Ilic, Gareth Curless, Christopher Vaughan, Becka Glade, Brent Siegel, Noorun Khan, Rhea Schmitt and Lykke Stavnes, for their companionship in Khartoum, as well as Nicki Kindersley who prevented me from getting lost on our research trip to the Sudan Communist Party Archives in Amsterdam. Enrico Ille and Ophera McDoom were very supportive of my project and further helped to facilitate interviews for me. I must also express my gratitude to Jane Hogan and the rest of the team at the Sudan Archives in Durham for helping me access resources in Durham that proved highly valuable to this project. I must also mention Dr Cherry Leonardi and Prof. Justin Willis, who were highly supportive of this endeavour and whose advice during and aft er my PhD has continued to guide my approach towards Sudanese history up to the present. I could never have completed this monograph without the help of my parents, Geoff and Sheila Berridge, who have supported me in more ways than one during the period in which I was writing this book. Finally, I must thank the team at Bloomsbury, including Paul Jackson, Rhodri Mogford and Emma Goode, for the professional, effi cient and patient manner in which they have supported the production of this monograph. A b b r e v i a t i o n s DUP Democratic Unionist Party FO Foreign Offi ce FOO Free Offi cer Organization KUSU Khartoum University Student Union ICF Islamic Charter Front IISH Institute of International Social History (Amsterdam) IJMES International Journal of Middle East Studies ILM Islamic Liberation Movement IMF International Monetary Fund JEM Justice and Equality Movement NCP National Congress Party NIF National Islamic Front NUP National Unionist Party (Also National Umma Party) NCF National Consensus Forces NISS National Intelligence and Security Services NSO National Security Organization PCP Popular Congress Party SANU Sudan African National Union SCAF Supreme Council for the Armed Forces SCP Sudan Communist Party SLM Sudan Liberation Movement SPLA Sudan People ’ s Liberation Army SPLA-N Sudan People ’ s Liberation Army (North) SSO State Security Organization SSU Sudan Socialist Union SWTUF Sudanese Workers’ Trade Union Federation TNA Th e National Archives TMC Transitional Military Council UNF United National Front Introduction Speaking of Tunisia ’ s Jasmine Revolution in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring, the Sudanese president Umar al-Bashir declared: ‘ We are the people of intifadas and people know this. We were never imitators ’. 1 While this statement suggested that he was not afraid of alluding to the uprisings that removed his military predecessors in 1964 and 1985, he later declared that Sudan ’ s ‘ intifada ’ was the 1989 ‘ Salvation Revolution ’, the term coined by the ideologues of the National Islamic Front to describe the military coup by means of which both they and al-Bashir seized the reins of power. 2 However, for most urban Sudanese, the country ’ s real ‘ intifadas ’ were the earlier civilian uprisings that overthrew Ibrahim Abboud and Jafa ’ ar Nimeiri. Unlocking their history is crucial to conserving and understanding Sudan ’ s pre-1989 democratic heritage. Th e uprisings of 1964 and 1985 are remarkable for the fact that they overthrew entrenched military regimes by largely pacifi c civil action at a time when authoritarian governments in Africa and the Middle East could usually be replaced only by military means. It is not surprising, therefore, that they are the subject of a passionate and yet somewhat critical nostalgia amongst both oppositionists and the public in general, both within Sudan and the diaspora. Th ey are proud to have participated in such exceptional political events and yet lament the failure of these uprisings to realize the promise they off ered. While the two uprisings were treated with euphoria in the country at the time, the periods of liberal democracy that they ushered in failed to satisfy the ambitions of their engineers and were unable to prevent the re-emergence of the military in 1964 and 1985. In this regard, they off er a lesson – perhaps a warning – for the current generation of activists in both Sudan and the wider region. Th is book examines precisely why Sudan was able to produce such rare political phenomena, and attempts to explain why they eventually provoked such disappointment. Sudan and previous interpretations of regime change in the Middle East Both the October Revolution of 1964 and the April Intifada of 1985 provide signifi cant anomalies that challenge dominant perceptions of regime change and the potential for it in the Middle East. A great number of scholars in the wider fi eld of Middle Eastern studies have dealt with these anomalies by merely ignoring them.