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kEy fiGuREs in sudanEsE histoRy, CultuRE & PolitiCs 335

political group calling for the unity of the Nile Valley. He became Sudan’s

first Prime Minister in 1954 and, in a reversal of his earlier support for

union with Egypt, led the country to independence in January 1956. He

was forced to resign as Prime Minister when 21 members of his National

Union Party defected to form a new party. In 1965, a year after the collapse

of General Abboud’s military regime, al-Azhari was appointed to the

largely symbolic position of President of Sudan, but was overthrown by

Nimeiri’s coup in 1969. He died later that year.

JaafaR NimEiRi (1930–2009). Politician, born in Omdurman, the son

of a postman. After graduating from military college in 1952, Jaafar Nimeiri

joined a group of officers committed to socialism and pan-Arabism. As

leader of the Free Officers who seized power in a military coup in 1969,

Nimeiri ruled Sudan for the next 16 years. He won acclaim in 1972 when

he signed the Addis Ababa Agreement, which ended the first civil war

and granted semi-autonomy to a new Southern Region. But Nimeiri is

also remembered for his increasingly authoritarian rule and unscrupu-

lous political pragmatism. At first affiliated to the communist party and

a proponent of secular government, by the early 1980s he had become

increasingly isolated and unpopular and shifted towards the Islamist

movement. In 1983 he passed the ‘September Laws’, which introduced

sharia criminal law. He was deposed in 1985 following popular protests

against rising fuel and food prices and a general strike that paralyzed the

country. In 1999, Nimeiri returned to Sudan, from exile in Egypt, at the

invitation of President Omar al-Bashir. He died ten years later.

John GaRanG dE MabioR (1945–2005). Leader of the Sudan People’s

Liberation Army and Movement, principal rebel group in Sudan’s second

civil war. A Dinka, born in Kongor County, he completed his secondary

school education in Tanzania, from where he won a scholarship to

Grinnell College in Iowa to study economics. When he returned to

Sudan, he joined the Anyanya guerrilla movement not long before the

end of the first civil war. After the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement he was

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors integrated into the Sudanese Army. He returned to Iowa to complete a

(www.riftvalley.net).