Sudan: Bringing Down Father

In many unspectacular ways, the six-year military dictatorship of Lieut. General Ibrahim Abboud was a Pan-African success story. When he seized power in 1958, the Sudan had suffered under three bungling governments in less than three years of independence.

Pledging his regime to “realization of the country’s paramount interests,” Abboud dragged the country out of economic chaos. He brought in massive industrial capital, pushed ahead with ambitious hydroelectric projects, doubled the Sudan’s rich cotton lands by expanding the vast, British-built Gezira irrigation complex.

The Sudanese, historically renowned for their martial prowess, revered Abboud as the greatest warrior of them all. Sandhurst-trained, anglicized down to his swagger stick and Bond Street shoes, Abboud in World War II led the Sudan Defense Force into battle against Rommel’s Afrika Korps, wound up with two dozen combat ribbons on his chest.

A benign, incorruptible, father figure, Abboud alone could have rallied his freedom-loving, free-and-easy country men to his own austere goals of discipline and diligence.

Single Vestige. In the end, he betrayed their faith. Despite repeated promises to restore civilian government, he could not bring himself to relax tight control of the press, prohibition of political activity, heavyhanded restriction of assembly, discussion and the press.

Last week the lid blew off.

Led by a hastily formed national front of students, professional men, labor unions and the old political parties, the Sudanese arose barehanded and, in a week of bloodshed, drove the military back to their barracks. By the time it was all over, at least 30 Sudanese had lost their lives and parliamentary rule was restored. Only one vestige remained from the old Abboud regime: the portly, dusky figure of Ibrahim Abboud, 64, who stayed on as President, though shorn of effective power.

Savage Reprisals. Paradoxically, it was Abboud’s first experiment with democracy that led to his downfall. Since the days of the ancient Arab slave traders, the Sudan has been split into two inherently hostile ethnic and religious groups: the sophisticated, dominant Arabs of the Moslem north, 9,000,000 strong; and, south of the 12th parallel, some 4,000,000 backward Negro tribesmen without a political voice. Abboud met frequent black incursions with stern, often savage military reprisals that only fed the flames.

Last month, as rebellion flared through the three Negro provinces, Abboud reached a curious decision. Without calling off his troops, he created a special commission to listen to the rebels’ grievances; then, for good measure, he encouraged press and public alike to debate the Sudan’s southern problem. The free discussion touched off a student riot, which started the revolution, which restored’ democratic rule to the Sudan. The nation may not, in fact, be ready yet for Western-style democracy. The obvious alternative is Ibrahim Abboud.