Mohamed Beshir Hamid

1979-80: Still Waiting for National Reconciliation

AFRICA
CONTEMPORARY
RECORD

Volume 12
1979-1980

Annual Survey and Documents
Sudan Chapter
Mohamed Beshir Hamid

Download the FULL 1979-1980 record as PDF

Sudan: Still Waiting for National Reconciliation

Events in ·Sudan during 1979 had a distinct aura of déjà vu: domestic policy followed a familiar pattern — alternating between reconciliation and estrangement, great expectations and grave disappointments, popular participation and public apathy, potential stability and recurring crises, the promise of economic salvation and economic deterioration.1 I Even more striking was the replication of this domestic pattern in Sudan’s external relations: the fluctuating fortunes in the attempts at national reconciliation between President Numeiry and former leaders of the National Front opposition were accompanied by ups and downs in Sudan’s relations with its neighbours.

Domestic politics continued to centre on the process of national reconciliation, the major changes in the structure and leadership of both the Government and the ruling Sudan Socialist Union (SSU), and the Government’s intensive efforts at decentralization. These developments were closely interrelated: changes in Government were explicitly meant to meet the exigencies of the decentralization policy, while the changes in leadership implied an awareness of the need to revive the reconciliation process.

President Gaafar Numeiry was promoted ·to the rank of Field Marshall on 24 May 1979, in recognition of his efforts in building national unity. ‘

 

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