Sudan Independence Day
A polling process was carried out resulting in composition of a democratic parliament and Ismail al-Azhari was elected first Prime Minister and led the first modern Sudanese government. On 1 January 1956, in a special ceremony held at the People’s Palace, the Egyptian and British flags were lowered and the new Sudanese flag, composed of green, blue and yellow stripes, was raised in their place by the prime minister Ismail al-Azhari.
Dissatisfaction culminated in a second coup d’état on 25 May 1969. The coup leader, Col. Gaafar Nimeiry, became prime minister, and the new regime abolished parliament and outlawed all political parties.
Disputes between Marxist and non-Marxist elements within the ruling military coalition resulted in a briefly successful coup in July 1971, led by the Sudanese Communist Party. Several days later, anti-communist military elements restored Nimeiry to power.
In 1972, the Addis Ababa Agreement led to a cessation of the north-south civil war and a degree of self-rule. This led to ten years hiatus in the civil war.
Until the early 1970s, Sudan’s agricultural output was mostly dedicated to internal consumption. In 1972, the Sudanese government became more pro-Western, and made plans to export food and cash crops. However, commodity prices declined throughout the 1970s causing economic problems for Sudan. At the same time, debt servicing costs, from the money spent mechanizing agriculture, rose. In 1978, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) negotiated a Structural Adjustment Program with the government. This further promoted the mechanized export agriculture sector. This caused great economic problems for the pastoralists of Sudan (See Nuba Peoples).
In 1976, the Ansars mounted a bloody but unsuccessful coup attempt. In July 1977, President Nimeiry met with Ansar leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, opening the way for reconciliation. Hundreds of political prisoners were released, and in August a general amnesty was announced for all opponents of Nimeiry’s government.
On 30 June 1989, Colonel Omar al-Bashir led a bloodless military coup. The new military government suspended political parties and introduced an Islamic legal code on the national level. Later al-Bashir carried out purges and executions in the upper ranks of the army, the banning of associations, political parties, and independent newspapers, and the imprisonment of leading political figures and journalists. On 16 October 1993, al-Bashir appointed himself “President” and disbanded the Revolutionary Command Council. The executive and legislative powers of the council were taken by al-Bashir.
In the 1996 general election he was the only candidate by law to run for election. Sudan became a one-party state under the National Congress Party (NCP).[33] During the 1990s, Hassan al-Turabi, then Speaker of the National Assembly, reached out to Islamic fundamentalist groups, invited Osama bin Laden to the country. The United States subsequently listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. bombed Sudan in 1998, targeting the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory. Later, al-Turabi’s influence waned, in favor of more pragmatic leaders who focused on trying to change international isolation. Sudan worked to appease its critics by expelling members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and encouraging bin Laden to leave.
Before the 2000 presidential election, al-Turabi introduced a bill to reduce the President’s powers, prompting al-Bashir to dissolve parliament and declare a state of emergency. When al-Turabi urged a boycott of the President’s re-election campaign and signed an agreement with Sudan People’s Liberation Army, al-Bashir suspected they were plotting to overthrow him and the government, which resulted in the jailing of Hassan al-Turabi that same year.
In February 2003, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) groups in Darfur took up arms, accusing the Sudanese government of oppressing non-Arab Sudanese in favor of Sudanese Arabs, precipitating the War in Darfur. The conflict has since been described as a genocide, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued two arrest warrants for al-Bashir.Arabic-speaking nomads militias known as the Janjaweed have been accused of many atrocities.
On 9 January 2005, the Nairobi Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the government, with the objective of ending the Second Sudanese Civil War. The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) was established under the UN Security Council Resolution 1590 to support its implementation. The peace agreement led to the 2011 referendum which resulted in the secession of South Sudan; the region of Abyei is to hold its own referendum in the future.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) was the primary member of the Eastern Front, a coalition of rebel groups operating in eastern Sudan. After the peace agreement, their place was taken in February 2004 after the merger of the larger Hausa and Beja Congress with the smaller Rashaida Free Lions. A peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Eastern Front was signed on 14 October 2006, in Asmara.
On 5 May 2006, the Darfur Peace Agreement was signed, aiming at ending the three-year-long conflict. The Chad–Sudan Conflict (2005–2007) erupted after the Battle of Adré, which led to the declaration of war by Chad. The leaders of Sudan and Chad signed an agreement in Saudi Arabia on 3 May 2007 to stop fighting from the Darfur conflict along their countries’ 1,000-kilometre (600 mi) border.
In July 2007 the country was hit by flooding, with over 400,000 people being directly affected. Since 2009, a series of ongoing conflicts between rival nomadic tribes in Sudan and South Sudan have resulted in a large number of casualties. The Sudan internal conflict in the early 2010s between the Army of Sudan and the Sudan Revolutionary Front started as a dispute over the oil-rich region of Abyei in the months leading up to South Sudanese independence, though it is also related to the nominally resolved war in Darfur.