Background
Ahmed Suliman was born in 1924 at Omdurman, Sudan.
Ahmed Suliman was born in 1924 at Omdurman, Sudan.
Educated at Gordon Memorial College, then went to Egypt where he graduated in Arts and Law at Fuad University in 1951.
Active in the Sudanese Students Union at Cairo, he was imprisoned several times for political agitation. He joined the World Peace Council secretariat and worked with it in Eastern Europe for a year. In 1952 he qualified as a barrister and returned to the Sudan to begin practising law and help found the Sudanese Bar Association.
All left-wing movements attracted him. He helped establish the Peace Movement in the Sudan, played an active part in the Anti-Colonialist Front, and in conferences of the Democratic Lawyers’ Association. He attended the 21st Conference of the Soviet Communist Party in Moscow in 1959.
His opposition in southern Sudan to the military regime landed him in prison many times. He was sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment at Juba but was released on October 26, 1964, on the downfall of the military junta. Four days after leaving gaol he was in the cabinet as Minister of Agriculture, Forests and Soil Exploitation. He presided over the purge committee set up by the new civilian government.
Immediately after the May 1969 revolution he was sent as Ambassador to Moscow to ensure Soviet friendship and assistance. On October 28, 1969, he was appointed Minister of Economics and Foreign Trade, and played a key role in carrying out the nationalisation programme. After the unsuccessful pro-Communist coup he was switched to be Minister of Justice, retaining the portfolio after the October 1972 reshuffle.
Marxist revolutionary, often imprisoned in Egypt and the Sudan, who broke with the Communist Party at the time of the pro-Communist coup in July 1971 and stood loyal to President Nimeri. First Communist candidate in the Constituent Assembly, one-time Ambassador to Russia, and leading intel-lectual in the government, he has left many people bewildered by his turbulent political career in gaol one moment, in cabinet the next. Only a man with his sharp sense of humour could laugh off his inconsistency and argue that it is in the best interests of his country and himself.