The Sudan Handbook

sudan’s fRaGilE statE, 1956–1989 153

With the situation still unresolved and national politics in disarray

Sudan suffered its first military takeover. In late 1958, the army – under

the leadership of General Abboud – stepped in, apparently with the

agreement of Prime Minister Khalil who felt that the political scene was

descending towards chaos. The American aid package was accepted; and

there was an initial sense of relief that a more decisive style of govern-

ment would now be established.

The First Military Regime, 1958–1964

Abboud’s regime was a classic military ‘caretaker’ regime. It was led by

the country’s most senior military figure and saw its task as a conser-

vative restoration of order. Abboud’s government achieved a level of

acceptability on those grounds. It eventually included both Mahdist and

Khatmiyya leaders. It also made efforts to restructure local and regional

government as part of a new non-party system. There was a fresh impetus

to economic development, including an agreement on the Nile waters

with Egypt; extensions of the national railway network to the west and

south; and expansion of the cotton growing Gezira scheme. In the early

1960s, however, the government began to run out of ideas, and from

1963 southern Sudan, no better represented under the military than it

had been under the previous elected governments, saw the beginnings

of civil war. The response of the military regime was violent repression,

together with measures to encourage Islam in the region and restrict

Christianity. Predictably these moves encountered further resistance and

a cycle of rising violence ensued.

In 1964 a growing awareness in the north of what was happening in the

south triggered a series of demonstrations in Khartoum and its environs

that led to an uprising which became known as the ‘October Revolution’.

Tired and dispirited, with civil war growing in the south and doubts

about the willingness of the forces to suppress the uprising, Abboud and

his colleagues caved in with scarcely a shot being fired and a new transi-

tional government was appointed. Briefly it appeared that there might

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors be a new constitution, and a more radical approach to Sudan’s endemic

(www.riftvalley.net).