Sudan Civilian Regime Ousted by Army Coup

Army officers staged a bloodless coup in Sudan on Friday, toppling the civilian government of Prime Minister Sadek Mahdi and imposing martial law in what had been one of Africa’s few democracies.

A statement signed by Brig. Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, the leader of the pre-dawn coup, said the army seized control in order to end “the conflicts, partisan chaos and . . . anarchy” that have increasingly plagued Sudanese politics since Mahdi took office three years ago.

Bashir, who later named himself prime minister, defense minister and armed forces chief of staff, issued a number of sweeping decrees effectively abolishing what had been a genuine, if freewheeling, form of democracy in Sudan, Africa’s largest country.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said: “We regret the military is taking action to overthrow (a) democratically elected government. We urge an early return to democracy.”

The new government, calling itself the National Salvation Revolution Council, announced that it was suspending the constitution, disbanding Parliament, imposing press censorship and dissolving all of Sudan’s political parties and professional associations. Evidently anticipating some opposition, it also banned all public gatherings and warned that any attempt to protest or resist the new regime by force would be punishable by death.

Reached by telephone from Cairo, diplomats in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, said that troops were out in force but that the city remained quiet throughout the day, with no apparent signs of opposition to the new regime.

They added that most of the members of Mahdi’s Cabinet had either been taken into custody or placed under house arrest. Some senior military officers, including army commander Gen. Fathi Ahmed Ali, were also reportedly arrested. Mahdi’s own whereabouts were less certain, however.

A correspondent based in Khartoum for the British news agency Reuters reported seeing Mahdi and some of his ministers under heavy guard in a convoy of cars driving in the vicinity of Kobar prison, the capital’s main jail. But diplomats said they had no confirmation that the prime minister had been arrested, and rumors were circulating in Khartoum that Mahdi had escaped and taken refuge in neighboring Libya.

Another figure whose whereabouts are now the subject of intense speculation is former Sudanese President Jaafar Numeiri, who has been living in Egypt since he was deposed by a military coup four years ago.

Activities Restricted

Numeiri, whose political activities had until recently been tightly restricted by the Egyptians, had been accused by Mahdi of trying to stage a coup through his followers in Khartoum last month.

Shortly after that coup attempt was foiled, Numeiri’s aides in Cairo told reporters that the former president had left Egypt en route to an African country they refused to identify. However, there is no record of Numeiri’s actually having left Egypt, or of his having arrived anywhere else, and rumors are rife in Cairo that he is still here and being held incommunicado by Egyptian authorities.

Egypt, whose formerly close relations with Sudan began to deteriorate after Numeiri’s ouster, has been watching the growing political turmoil in its southern neighbor with increasing alarm.

While it is considered extremely unlikely that Egypt would want to see Numeiri return to power in Khartoum, the strategic interest that Cairo has in maintaining stability there has given rise to speculation that it may have had foreknowledge of Friday’s coup.

Little is known about Bashir, the new Sudanese leader, other than that he was the third-ranking officer in the paratroop corps of the Sudanese army before the coup.

However, in statements read over Radio Omdurman, Sudan’s state broadcasting service, he clearly identified himself as one of the officers--said now to constitute a majority in the Sudanese armed forces--who have grown deeply disillusioned with the civilian government’s haphazard prosecution of a six-year-long civil war against Christian secessionist rebels in southern Sudan.

Their discontent has been obvious since last February, when senior officers told Mahdi to either make peace with the rebels or give the military more weapons with which to fight them.

Judging from the new government’s initial pronouncements, Bashir seems to be from a faction in the armed forces that favors negotiating a political settlement between the largely Muslim north and the mostly Christian and animist southern half of the country.

In Washington, Tutwiler said that “it is critical that whoever is in control take immediate steps to find a peaceful solution to the war.” She added that the new leadership should intensify its efforts to cooperate with international relief agencies working to ease the threat of starvation, a situation much magnified by the civil war.

Blaming Mahdi for the economic and political collapse of Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, Bashir accused the prime minister of needlessly continuing “the tragedy of the south” by forcing “the sons of one people to carry weapons against each other.”

Christening his coup the “June Revolution,” he told Sudanese that the armed forces “have come to carry out a tremendous revolution for the sake of change after suffering which included deterioration in everything to the extent that your lives have become paralyzed.”

“The people are fed up with politics and partisanship,” he said.

Witnesses in the Sudanese capital said the coup began overnight when troops and tanks seized the presidential palace and barricaded the bridges over the Blue and White branches of the Nile River, which converge in Khartoum. Khartoum Airport and Sudanese airspace were also closed.

The fact that the takeover appears to have been well planned and executed, with troops moving to apparently pre-assigned points throughout the city, suggested to some observers that Bashir, who is not a senior ranking officer, might have had some outside assistance.

This, combined with Cairo’s obvious interests in seeing a more stable and pro-Egyptian government come to power in Khartoum, has fueled speculation of Egyptian involvement. Egyptian officials, however, had no immediate comment on the coup.

Mahdi, who came to power in May, 1986, headed Sudan’s first democratically elected government in 18 years.

BEHIND THE OVERTHROW

Sudan’s Political History

Declared independence in 1956. Gen. Jaafar Numeiri seized power in a bloodless coup in 1969. He abolished the multi-party system and later decreed strict sharia (Islamic law) in 1983, triggering strong resentment in the animist-Christian south and fueling the rebellion over a

deteriorating economy. Army overthrew Numeiri in 1985, but in 1986, following the country’s first elections in 18 years, surrendered power to a civilian government led by Sadek Mahdi. In May of this year, under intense pressure from the army, he opened preliminary peace talks with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which has been fighting the government for six years.

The Economy

Mainly agricultural, including cotton and rice. Annual per capita income is $440. Hit by drought, famine and rebellion, Sudan is one of the world’s poorest countries. Foreign debt stands at $13 billion, and the civil war has been costing the Khartoum government about $1 million daily. Inflation is running at an annual rate of more than 80%. Austerity measures introduced in 1986 by Mahdi have failed to check the economic decline.

The People

About 16 million of Sudan’s nearly 25 million people live in the mainly Muslim north. There are about 6 million in the strife-torn south, 95% of them animist, the rest Christian. Since the civil war began in 1983, hundreds of thousands have died, either from the fighting or from hunger, and an estimated 2 million have fled the region.