1989 Sudanese coup d'état
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The 1989 Sudanese coup d'état was a
military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
coup that occurred in
Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
on 30 June 1989 against the democratically elected government of Prime Minister
Sadiq al-Mahdi Sadiq al-Mahdi ( ar, الصادق المهدي, aṣ-Ṣādiq al-Mahdī; 25 December 193526 November 2020), also known as Sadiq as-Siddiq, was a Sudanese political and religious figure who was Prime Minister of Sudan from 1966 to 1967 and again f ...
and President Ahmed al-Mirghani. The coup was led by military officer Omar al-Bashir who took power in its aftermath and would go on to rule the country for the next 30 years until he was overthrown in 2019.


History


Background

In 1983, a
civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...
broke out between Sudan's central government and the
Sudan People's Liberation Army The South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF), formerly the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), is the army of the Republic of South Sudan. The SPLA was founded as a guerrilla movement against the government of Sudan in 1983 and was a ...
, and it was fought at great cost to the country's civilian population. In 1989 the number of civilian casualties that resulted from
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...
alone was estimated to be as high as 250,000. By February 1989, a group of Sudanese Army officers presented an ultimatum to the incumbent Prime Minister, Sadiq al-Mahdi, in which they asked him to either end the war or give the military the means to end it, with Mahdi choosing the former. Mahdi's inability to put an end to the conflict in the months that followed, along with a crippled Sudanese economy, led to growing tension between him and the army officials. His decision on 18 June to arrest a group of 14 military officials and 50 civilians, all of whom were accused of being engaged in a plan to overthrow the government and restore former President Gaafar Nimeiry to power, may have further motivated the coup, though Nimeiry himself denied having any involvement in the plot.


Coup

On 30 June 1989, military officers under the command of then Brigadier Omar Hassan al-Bashir, with instigation and support from the
National Islamic Front The National Islamic Front ( ar, الجبهة الإسلامية القومية; transliterated: ''al-Jabhah al-Islamiyah al-Qawmiyah'') was an Islamist political organization founded in 1976 and led by Dr. Hassan al-Turabi that influenced th ...
(NIF), replaced the Sadiq al-Mahdi government with the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation (RCC), claiming to be saving the country from the "rotten political parties." That same day, Al-Bashir was declared head of state, Prime Minister, Defense Minister and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The new
military junta A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...
would consist of 15 military officers (reduced to 12 in 1991) and it was assisted by a civilian cabinet.


Aftermath

The coup put an end to the newly facilitated democratic system of government in Sudan, which was established in 1985, and replaced it with a totalitarian regime led by Omar al-Bashir, which was responsible for a series of war crimes and
human rights violations Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...
. The support which the new Sudanese government received from the NIF, which would eventually lead it to receive support from
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, enabled it to make large-scale arms purchases from
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
and the former Soviet republics, which it used to step up the still on-going civil war in the south in an effort to end it with a military victory. Under the heavy influence of the NIF, the government also banned political parties, trade unions, and other "nonreligious institutions", imposed tight controls on the press as well as strict dress and behavior codes on women. More than 78,000 people were
purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
d from the army, police and civil administration, resulting in a thorough reshaping of the state apparatus. Al-Bashir has been held responsible for the
Darfur Genocide The Darfur genocide is the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people which has occurred during the ongoing conflict in Western Sudan. It has become known as the first genocide of the 21st century. The genocide, which is being carried out agai ...
by the
International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to pro ...
, which has sought his
extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdi ...
since 2008 on charges of
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...
, war crimes, and
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
. Al-Bashir's regime was removed from power in another military coup on 11 April 2019.


See also

*
Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation The Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation (RCCNS-Sudan) was the governing body of Sudan following the June 1989 coup. It grew out of the collaboration between the Sudanese military and the National Islamic Front. It was the autho ...
*
National Islamic Front The National Islamic Front ( ar, الجبهة الإسلامية القومية; transliterated: ''al-Jabhah al-Islamiyah al-Qawmiyah'') was an Islamist political organization founded in 1976 and led by Dr. Hassan al-Turabi that influenced th ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1989 Sudanese coup d'état Military coups in Sudan Coup d'etat Sudanese coup d'etat 1980s coups d'état and coup attempts June 1989 events in Africa