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Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›Late Jaafar Nimeiri – Reflections on his Life

Late Jaafar Nimeiri – Reflections on his Life

By Alex de Waal
May 31, 2009
4200
2

Former president Jaafar Mohammed Nimeiri died this week, forty years after his historic “May Revolution” in which, as a young army colonel in the model of Gamal Abdel Nasser, he seized power and promised “everything must change.” For sixteen dramatic years he led Sudan on an extraordinary political dance which reached every corner of the political spectrum, from close alignment with the Communists, to aggressive secular developmentalism, peace with the south, embrace of the conservative sectarian parties he had deposed, an eccentric version of radical Islamism, and””in his final days in power””the hints of yet another twist. In his time in power, first espousing Nasserite revolution, Nimeiri savagely crushed the Ansar and Muslim Brothers, then turned on his former Communist allies, and survived repeated coup attempts and invasions. He switched sides in the Cold War, and tore up his greatest achievement””peace in the south and what appeared to be a durable solution to the challenge of national identity””with a return to war. In his early vigour and idealism, Nimeiri was a breath of fresh air, a stimulus to the confidence of ordinary Sudanese that they could build their nation anew. The disillusion that came later was all the more bitter.

If nothing else, Nimeiri made Sudanese politics interesting. He began his rule as a modest, even austere colonel, driving his own car and shunning the pomp of the palace. But under his rule, Sudan borrowed massively and indiscriminately from whoever would lend the country money””even the Ministry of Finance didn’t know what debts had been incurred when the IMF was finally called in to bail out Sudan””and he ended up as a semi-recluse, surrounded by fabulous corruption, reportedly taking instructions from his dreams, cutting clandestine deals with the CIA and Israel, with starving people from Kordofan and Darfur trekking to Omdurman while their president denied that there was any shortage of food.

The slogan of radical change came to naught. On Nimeiri’s downfall, in the peaceful 1985 Popular Uprising, Sudanese politics reverted to precisely where it had been at the time of his coup: a sectarian-led parliamentary regime, fatally divided over the question of Islam, fighting an unwinnable war in the south, grappling with an unmanageable economic crisis, fated to fall in a military coup. The sectarians were the Bourbons to Nimeiri’s Napoleon, learning nothing and forgetting nothing.

As with his presidency, Nimeiri’s subsequent life embodied the contradictions of Sudanese political life. Nimeiri escaped prosecution for his corruption and abuses because he was in exile (several of his lieutenants were not so lucky) and years later he negotiated an amnesty with Pres. Bashir and returned home in 1999. He contested the 2000 presidential elections and””extraordinarily””won 7% of the vote. For the last decade, Sudan has had three former heads of state or government living peaceably in its capital””Gen. Abdel Rahman Suwar al Dahab, Sadiq al Mahdi, and Nimeiri. (A fourth, Hassan al Turabi, de facto head of government from 1989 to 1999, lives in Khartoum, though not exactly peaceably.)

Did the Sudanese people forgive Nimeiri for his years of misrule? It’s hard to say. Memories of the bloodshed of 1970 and 1971, the southerners’ sense of bitter betrayal in 1981-83, the westerners’ hunger of 1984, and horror at the execution of Ustaz Mahmoud Mohammed Taha in 1985, will not easily be eradicated. But as the years have passed and Nimeiri’s successors have done no better in governing their unruly nation, many Sudanese I have spoken with have become more understanding, perhaps more fatalistic, about what to expect from their rulers. Even Nimeiri’s fiercest critics often speak of him with a hint of affection. And in characteristic magnanimity, Sudanese are now giving Nimeiri’s achievements equal standing with his failures.

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Alex de Waal

Alex de Waal is Research Professor and Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. He was the founding editor of the African Arguments book series. He is the author of The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa: Money, War and the Business of Power.

2 comments

  1. Hafiz Mohamed 31 May, 2009 at 11:22

    Jaafar Mohammed Nimeiri main legacy was the raising of the Islamists, he them gave free hand to control the country from 1978 to 1985, while he was implementing the IMF prescription ( the Structure Adjustment Progamme) in 1978 , the opened the first Islamic Bank Faisal Islamic Bank with a free hand which allowed them to ignore the central Bank credit policy and made huge amount of profit at the same time their supporters to control the country economy, that help them to make political gains in 1986 elections and orchestrated the 30 June 1989 military coup which brought the current regime to power. The only beneficiaries from Nimeri regime are the Islamists that why they allowed him and his cronies from his political party (The Alliance of People Working Force) to join the NCP and they appointed numbers of them as ministers and Ambassadors.
    For other Sudanese there were many losers due to his failed economic policies, he borrowed huge sum of money from the international financial institutions for the so called development projects in the earlier 70s, most to those projects failed due to bad management and corruption and left the country with huge debts.
    I think he must be remembered with the Following:
    1- The country indebted with around 14 billions US Dollars and more the 4 billion Sudanese pounds budget deficit in 1985. His regime introduced the deficit finance policies which allowed the government of print banknote to finance its expenditures.
    2- Inflation Rate of more than 100% per year for the last 5 years of his presidency.
    3- Sudanese currency lost almost 90% of its value against the major international currencies.
    4- More than 7 million Sudanese starving in Darfur and Kordfan at the time when he was denying that there was famine.
    5- Sending the Flasha Jewish from Ethiopia to Israel to occupy the Palestine Arab lands.
    6- Destroying Addis Abba agreement which he helped in achieving it and that due to his authoritarian behavior, and let to another 20 years of war cost around 2 millions lives.

    We are hearing many commenter’s who portioning Nimiari as a legend and a hero, Sudanese have very short memories, and most of the time they were not honest in writing their history, they always want to present fine pictures about their past and not to talk honestly about what went wrong and learn from the mistakes of the past, that why they continually repeating the same mistakes. I am not asking them to point the finger of blame just to recognize the past mistakes and try to put things rights.
    At time when the country is facing threat to it’s co-existent we have to find out what went wrong which led the country slide into the pave of self destruction.

  2. Mohanad Elbalal 31 May, 2009 at 19:24

    No one in sudan is under any illusion over nemiris legacy it was a particularly dark period in sudanese history with the economy even today still not fully recovered to pre nemiri times. But it has been almost thirty years since nemiri was removed from power and while I doubt the communists would have mellowed towards nemiri and if they actually believed in a hell I imagine they would be wishing him there. most sudanese have moved on and realised the futility and point lessness of holding on to anger. some may even bring them selves to look back over his era with foundness after all he was one of Sudans longest serving presidents.

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