Sudan coup attempt fails

Press, 23 December 1988, Page 10

Sudan coup attempt fails

NZPA-Reuter Khartoum

Sudan yesterday said it had foiled a coup attempt by former army officers but the coalition Government of Sadeq al-Mahdi’s appeared on the brink of collapse over a dispute on how to end a civil war in the south. The Defence Minister, Abdul-Maged Hamed Kahlil, said in a statement that the failed coup was led by retired servicemen and civilians who had served under a former President, Jaafar Nimeiri, himself ousted in a military coup in 1985.

Mr Nimeiri now lives in exile in Egypt. Mr Khalil said the authorities had detained some members of Nimeiri’s “regime,” a military officer and some retired military personnel involved in the plot.

The Defence Minister pledged that the Armed Forces would safeguard democracy and foil any move to undermine Sudan’s political system. Having survived the coup attempt, Mr Mahdi’s coalition Government received a blow from its main partner, the Democratic Unionist Party, (D.U.P.) following a Parliamentary vote on Mr Mahdi’s proposal to end the war in the south. Mohammed Tawfiq, a

leading member of the D.U.P., said the party had decided to quit the seven-month-old Government. “The decision has already been made to pull out from the Government,” he said. Mr Tawfiq did not say when the D.U.P. decision to quit the Government was made or when it will take effect.

A former Foreign Minister, Mr Tawfiq, spoke after the D.U.P. voted in Parliament against a proposal by Mr Mahdi that he should be given a mandate to convene a constitutional conference on December 31 as part of the search for a peace settlement.

Mr Mahdi’s proposal, introduced last Wednesday, was eventually passed by a comfortable majority at the end of a stormy debate which lasted seven hours. Mr Mahdi, who took office in May, 1986, appealed to the D.U.P. in yesterday’s Parliamentary debate to join him in the search for peace. The militant National Islamic Front (N.1.F.) Party, third largest coalition partner after Mr Mahdi’s U.M.M.A. party and the D.U.P., voted for Mr Mahdi’s proposal. It has strongly opposed the D.U.P.-S.P.L.A. agreement, calling it a surrender.