The Foreign Service Journal, October 2021

84 OCTOBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Dane F. Smith Jr. is a retired FSO who served as deputy chief of mission in Khartoum (1986-1989), as U.S. ambassador to Guinea (1990-1993) and as U.S. ambassador to Senegal (1996-1999), among other assignments. He is now executive director of the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of the Sudans (AFRECS). S adiq al-Mahdi loomed large over Sudan from the mid-1960s until his recent death at 84 in the United Arab Emirates, where he was being treated for COVID-19. Great grandson of Muhammad Ahmed—the Mahdi who led the first Islamic revolt against British colonialism in the 19th century—he was an attractive figure for international leaders. With degrees in politics fromOxford, Sadiq was well spoken in both English and Arabic. Tall, powerfully built and athletic, he was a compelling personality. In 1966, at the age of 35, Sadiq became prime minister. His Umma Party was the political vehicle for the Ansar, the Sufi collective linked by allegiance to the Mahdi. His term lasted less than a year before defections in his own party led to his ouster. Twenty years later, after a public upris- ing resulted in the overthrow of military dictator Jaafar Nimeiry (1969-1985), the Umma Party won fair elections in 1986, when Sadiq again became prime minister. There were high expectations that he would end the civil war in the South, which had rekindled in 1983, and bring about economic reforms to put Sudan on the road to prosperity. He did neither. Spending his time in political maneu- vering, Sadiq sought to arrive at coordi- nated positions supported by the opposi- Sadiq al-Mahdi: A Recollection BY DANE F. SM I TH J R . tion Democratic Unionist Party, led by Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani and his brother-in-law Hassan al-Turabi, chief of the National Islamic Front. He feared that decisive action to end shar’ia (Islamic law) imposed by Nimeiri in 1983—an essential step to negotiating peace with John Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army—would lead to another ouster. The “Father of Talk” Nevertheless, the period of his rule was one of free-wheeling democracy— with freedom of the press, no political prisoners and vigorous political debate. It was a pleasant and stimulating time to work in Sudan. Sadiq’s dithering, however, gave time for Turabi to plot with elements of the army to overthrow his regime, which occurred at the end of June 1989, just 10 days before my assign- ment ended as deputy chief of mission at U.S. Embassy Khartoum. Sadiq was imprisoned along with other political leaders but soon released, and contin- ued to lead the greatly weakened Umma Party under Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s autocratic government. During the 1986-1989 period, I had several meetings with Sadiq, sometimes accompanying Ambassador Norman Anderson and other times on my own as chargé d’affaires. I vividly remember one particular meeting. I had received an instruction from Washington to meet urgently with the prime minister to inform him that the U.S. government was “outraged” about statements that he had recently made supporting positions taken by Libya’s Muamar al-Qadhafi. Always cordial, Sadiq took my démarche in stride without becoming angry, although he vigorously disputed the U.S. position. There was room for plenty of back-and-forth. Sadiq had the impressive habit of explaining his posi- tion by enunciating an eight- or 10-point plan precisely and without notes. The problem was that his plans never seemed to get enacted. A popular nick- name for him was Abu Kalaam, “father of talk.” In the embassy, we sometimes said that Sadiq made decisions, but no conveyor belt was ever created to imple- ment them. In 2011, more than two decades later, I returned to Sudan as senior adviser to the U.S. government on Darfur. I was astonished to find that beneath the surface of the widely detested Bashir regime, party politics were little changed from the 1980s. Sadiq, Mirghani and Turabi were still running their political movements more than 20 years later. Mirghani’s party had even joined the regime. An Enduring Commitment to Democracy During that time, I met Sadiq sev- eral times at his home in Omdurman, sometimes attended by his daughter Mariam, who has inherited his leadership of the Umma Party and is now Sudan’s REFLECTIONS