Ibrahim Abboud - "Southern Problem"

"Southern Problem"

In spite of its weaknesses, Abboud's government might have lasted longer if not for the "southern problem." Abboud was personally popular or, at least, respected. He was even invited to the White House in 1961, where President John F. Kennedy praised the Sudan for having set a good example for living in peace with its neighbors.

In the non-Arabic, non-Muslim southern Sudan, however, the arbitrary rule of the military government produced a more negative reaction than in the north. Thus, the government's vigorous program of Arabization and Islamization in the south provoked strikes in the schools and open revolt in the countryside. Opposition to the government was met by force, and many southerners fled as refugees into the neighboring countries. By 1963 the conflict had escalated to a civil war in which the northern troops held the towns while the southern guerrillas roamed the countryside. Finally, in August 1964, in a desperate attempt to find a solution to the enervating campaign in the south, Abboud established a 25-man commission to study the problem and make recommendations for its solution. When the commission, in turn, asked for public debate on the "southern question," the students of Khartoum University initiated a series of debates that soon turned into a forum for open criticism of all aspects of the administration. The government banned these debates, precipitating student demonstrations in which one student was killed. The situation rapidly deteriorated, and within two days the civil service and the transport workers were on strike. Demonstrations followed in the provinces. Rather than suppress the opposition by armed force and bloodshed, Abboud dissolved his government on October 26, 1964, and called for the formation of a provisional cabinet to replace the Supreme Council. Abboud himself was forced to resign on November 15 in favor of a civilian provisional government, and he retreated into retirement, thus ending the Republic of the Sudan's first period of military rule.

Abboud lived in Britain for several years, but died in Khartoum on September 8, 1983, at the age of 82.