Officially, the Sudanese army announced on Tuesday, September 21, 2021, that it had thwarted a coup attempt to seize power in the country, and arrested 21 officers involved in it.
Since its independence in 1956, Sudan has been the scene of many military coups, some of which succeeded while others failed.
1957..the first failed attempt
- June 1957: A group of army officers and war students led by Ismail Kabeida led a coup against the first democratic national government after independence headed by leader Ismail al-Azhari, and the coup attempt was thwarted in its last stages.
1958..the first successful coup
- November 17, 1958: Lieutenant-General Ibrahim Abboud led the first successful coup attempt against an elected government composed of a coalition of the Umma Party and the Democratic Unionist Party (the two largest parties). At that time, Ismail al-Azhari headed the Sovereignty Council and Abdullah Khalil as prime minister.
- Documents of history and political analysis record that the coup created a favorable environment, represented by economic difficulties, a decline in hard currency reserves, and intensification of political struggles between parties.
October 1964: A popular revolution overthrew Abboud's coup regime.
1969..the second coup
The return of civil rule after the 1964 revolution was not synonymous with establishing a stable democratic authority capable of meeting the demands of the Sudanese. Rather, the political parties entered a new cycle of futile conflicts, especially since none of them was able to obtain a comfortable majority in the electoral benefits that were organized.
May 25, 1969: The "Free Officers" group led by Jaafar Nimeiri carried out a military coup, preceded by a crisis political atmosphere called conspiracies and alliances rushing for power.
- After the announcement of the government, it became clear that the political orientation of the putschists was leftist. The vast majority of the 22 ministers whose names were announced on the morning of the coup day were either communists or their comrades, or Arab nationalists, or socialists.
- Contrary to the 1958 coup, which the communist leftists were quick to condemn, this time the "comrades" were quick to support the military move, calling for its protection from the "counter-revolution", but soon differences began to erupt between Numeiri and his communist supporters.
The differences between Nimeiri and the Communist Party included internal and external aspects, as the party rejected Nimeiri's quest to join the Union of Arab Republics with Egypt and Libya, which was announced in Tripoli on December 27, 1969, while the party internally refused to dissolve itself and join the Socialist Party.
1971..a rebellion movement
- Two years after the coup, a dispute took place and its threads extended to the military establishment, leading to a new military rebellion, as officers carrying communist ideas staged the July 1971 coup, declaring their intention to fight "new colonialism" and sever the pro-Western with which they accused the Nimeiri regime.
The rebellion lasted only 3 days, as many international and regional powers intervened, led by Sadat's Egypt, Gaddafi's Libya, and a British company (Lonrho), in addition to internal support for this intervention led by a Sudanese businessman named Khalil Othman, which ended the military rebellion at record speed.
Nimeiri returned to power after eliminating the rebellion and imposing a new doctrine in the army’s ranks represented in taking an oath of loyalty to the regime instead of the nation. He also established economic branches affiliated with the army, thus transforming the military institution into a social class with interests that make it obliged to defend the existing regime.
As a result, the Sudanese army became the primary controller in supplying the country with consumer goods, and it was linked to mutual relations of interest with the merchant class, and thus ended the era in which the rebellious military groups were satisfied through agricultural concessions only.
Despite Nimeiri's keenness to end some major internal conflicts that posed challenges to his rule, such as reaching agreements with opposition parties in the north, the anger of some senior army officers was growing against him due to his persistence in imposing his dictatorship and giving the security services a free hand to suppress opposition voices.
1983: Nimeiri introduced Sharia-inspired laws, in an effort to avoid opposition from conservative political forces with religious ideas.
1985.. March uprising and April coup
March 7, 1985: The uprising against Nimeiri's rule began with the departure of Atbara railway workers in protest demonstrations due to the wave of high prices and high prices, followed by a student demonstration that came out of the University of Khartoum and reached its climax on March 26.
April 6, 1985: After other groups joined the mass civil disobedience and a series of strikes and demonstrations, the army announced the end of Nimeiri's rule, in anticipation of a march called by judges and diplomats that was supposed to take place on the same day.
- He confronted the process of removing Nimeiri, a senior military commander, Lieutenant-General Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Hassan Siwar al-Dhahab, announcing the formation of a higher military council to manage the transitional phase under his leadership, and set the duration of this period in one year, at the end of which elections will be held.
- One year after the dismissal of Nimeiri, the elections that Sewar al-Dahab insisted on taking place on the promised date, and the results of which revealed an unprecedented rise of the Islamists (the National Islamic Front), where they won 51 seats, and ranked third after each of the Federal Party (63 seats). and the Umma Party (100 seats).
1971.. Hashem al-Atta
- July 19, 1971: Officer Hashem al-Atta and a group of officers affiliated with the "Communist Party" in the Sudanese army carried out a coup.
Al-Atta managed to seize power for two days, before Nimeiri returned to power and tried the putschists. They were executed, along with a number of leaders of the "Communist Party", led by the party's leader, Abdel-Khaleq Mahjoub.
1975.. Hassan Hussein coup
September 1975: During Nimeiri's rule, army officer Hassan Hussein led a new coup attempt, but it was thwarted and the putschists were executed.
1976..Battles in the streets of Khartoum
July 1976: The political forces that were opposing Nimeiri's rule tried to seize power. Brigadier General Muhammad Nour Saad led a new coup attempt with the participation of elements that infiltrated across the border from Libya to Sudan.
- Battles took place in the streets of Khartoum between government forces and the forces of the putschists, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of the putschists, while the coup leader was later executed.
1989.. Al-Bashir coup
1989: 150 army officers issued a memorandum calling on the government to stop the economic decline, end the state of lawlessness and expand the government coalition to include all political parties.
- June 30, 1989: Under a political cover based on the Islamic trend, Brigadier General Omar al-Bashir led a coup against the elected civilian government headed by the late Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi at the time.
The putschists launched a campaign of arrests against leaders of all political parties, including Hassan al-Turabi, leader of the National Islamic Front.
- In the mid-nineties, Al-Turabi returned to be elected Speaker of Parliament, in a fragile sharing of power, after which the relationship of the two men devolved into division and discord in most of the stages of the past three decades.
28 Ramadan 1990
April 1990: Major General Abdel Qader Al Kadro and Major General Muhammad Othman led the so-called “coup of the 28th of Ramadan,” but it failed, and the Bashir regime executed 28 officers, including the leaders of the coup.
Ba'ath Party 1992
March 1992: A coup d'état led by Colonel Ahmed Khaled took place, and the coup was attributed to the "Baath Party", but the coup failed and its leaders were imprisoned.
The period of the rule of the military council
- During the period of the military council's rule that lasted from April 11 to August 17, 2019, the council announced that two coups had been thwarted.
Hashem Abdul Muttalib 2021
- July 11, 2021: The army announced that it had thwarted a coup attempt aimed at overthrowing the Military Council, and 12 officers were arrested.
- July 24, 2021: Announcing the arrest of Army Chief of Staff Hashem Abdul Muttalib Ahmed, as the leader and planner of the coup attempt.
September 2021
On September 21, 2021: Brigadier-General Taher Abu Haga, media advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, announced that a coup attempt in the country had been thwarted and that the situation was completely under control.
- Sudanese Defense Minister Lieutenant-General Yassin Ibrahim revealed that the leader of the coup attempt is Major General Abdul-Baqi Al-Hassan Othman Bakrawi, along with 22 officers of different ranks and a number of non-commissioned officers and soldiers.