In 1971 Jaafar Nimeiry survived a pro-Soviet coup attempt, after which he forged an alliance with Mao Zedong of China, and, eventually, with the United States as well.
26 Facts About Jaafar Nimeiry
2.
Jaafar Nimeiry was ousted from power in 1985 and went into exile in Egypt.
3.
Jaafar Nimeiry returned in 1999 and unsuccessfully ran in the presidential elections in 2000.
4.
Jaafar Nimeiry traced his lineage to the city of Dongola, one of the most important places where the Nubian tribes live and spread heavily in Northern Sudan.
5.
Jaafar Nimeiry was educated at the Omdurman primary and elementary school, then in Wad Madani secondary school, and finally in Hantub school that had a British colonial character.
6.
Jaafar Nimeiry then studied at Khartoum University College, but, as he desired a military career, he eventually graduated from the War College in Omdurman in 1952.
7.
Jaafar Nimeiry earned a Master of Military Science from Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, United States in 1966.
8.
Jaafar Nimeiry was accused in 1955 of orchestrating a coup d'etat against the country's democratic system at that time, but there was lack of sufficient evidence to show that he was involved.
9.
Jaafar Nimeiry was interrogated again about a failed coup attempt led by an officer named Khalid Yusuf, but the investigation did not find anything to criminalize Nimeiry in the attempted coup.
10.
Jaafar Nimeiry was released on 9 January 1967 and transferred to command the infantry school.
11.
On 25 May 1969, together with four other officers, Colonel Jaafar Nimeiry, commanding the Khartoum Garrison, overthrew the civilian government of Ismail al-Azhari, his coup being termed the "May Revolution".
12.
Jaafar Nimeiry created and chaired the Revolutionary Command Council.
13.
Jaafar Nimeiry started a campaign aimed at reforming Sudan's economy through nationalization of banks and industries as well as some land reforms.
14.
Jaafar Nimeiry used his position to enact a number of socialist and Pan-Arabist reforms.
15.
Jaafar Nimeiry then dissolved the RCC and founded the Sudanese Socialist Union which he declared to be the only legal political organization.
16.
Jaafar Nimeiry successfully weathered a coup attempt by Sadiq al-Mahdi in 1970, and in 1971 was briefly removed from power by a Communist coup, before being restored.
17.
Sudanese collaboration with China continued even after Jaafar Nimeiry was overthrown in 1985.
18.
General Elbagir, Jaafar Nimeiry's deputy, led a counter coup that brought Jaafar Nimeiry back within few hours.
19.
In July 1978 at the Organisation of African Unity summit in Khartoum, Jaafar Nimeiry was elected Chairman of the OAU until July 1979.
20.
Jaafar Nimeiry was one of only two Arab leaders who maintained close relations with Anwar Sadat after the Camp David Accords of 1978.
21.
In 1981, Jaafar Nimeiry, pressured by his Islamic opponents, and still President of Sudan, began a dramatic shift toward Islamist political governance and allied himself with the Muslim Brotherhood.
22.
Political and economic discontent against Jaafar Nimeiry grew over several years prior to 1985, according to Sudanese interviewed by The New York Times, who said that Jaafar Nimeiry had "begun to alienate almost every sector of Sudanese society".
23.
On 6 April 1985, while Jaafar Nimeiry was on an official visit to the United States of America in the hope of gaining more financial aid from Washington, a bloodless military coup led by his defence minister Gen.
24.
Jaafar Nimeiry lived in exile in Egypt from 1985 to 1999, in a villa situated in Heliopolis, Cairo.
25.
Jaafar Nimeiry returned to Sudan in May 1999 to a rapturous welcome that surprised many of his detractors.
26.
Jaafar Nimeiry died of natural causes in his home in Omdurman on 30 May 2009.