Sudan, 1981 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 19 March 1981, during a period of mounting opposition to President Gaafar Nimeiry of Sudan as his popularity waned in the early 1980s. Nimeiry, who had seized power in 1969, had become the only Arab leader to support Egyptian President Sadat's peace with Israel, alienating much Sudanese and Arab opinion, and he was increasingly dictatorial, censoring the press, closing universities, and imprisoning opponents. The 1977 National Reconciliation with Sadiq al-Mahdi's National Front had faltered, and Libya under Gaddafi continued to harbor Sudanese opposition groups and stockpile weapons for them, having previously backed the bloody 1976 attempt to overthrow Nimeiry.
It is in this context of Islamist, Ansar, and Libyan-backed opposition that anti-Nimeiry conspiracies recurred. The March 1981 coding sits in this period of plotting against the increasingly unpopular and repressive Nimeiry regime, several years before his eventual overthrow in a 1985 coup.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
62503191981
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Nimeiry survived plots into the early 1980s but was overthrown in a 1985 military coup.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Globe and Mail
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →