Background
Mohammed was born on April 5, 1927, at El Sofi in the Gedaref district of Eastern Sudan.
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Mohammed El Baghir Ahmed
Edit ProfileEducation
Educated first at Kassala, then at Port Sudan and afterwards at Omdurman Commercial School. Resumed studies later for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography from the Khartoum branch of Cairo University.
Career
He joined Sudan’s Military College in 1948 and passed out an officer in February 1950. He had three military courses in England, including one at the Staff College, Camberley, in 1961 and two in Egypt, including a term at the Military Academy in 1968.
On being commissioned he was Posted as an infantry officer to the Eastern Division in 1950. After a period on the general staff of the Infantry School at Omdurman he was promoted commanding officer of an infantry regiment in the Eastern Division. He returned to the Infantry School as an instructor until October 1958 when he was posted to Juba as Chief of Staff Southern Command. In July 1959 he was appointed Military Governor of Upper Nile Province and after his Staff College course in England he joined Army Headquarters staff at Khartoum.
He was posted to West Germany as military attache in January 1965 but before he coufd take up the appointment diplomatic relations were broken. In July 1965 he was made Commander of the Bahr el Ghazal Garrison, Western Command, and then transferred to Southern Command as Acting Commander. He was appointed military attache at the London embassy in August 1966, returning a year later when diplomatic relations were broken.
Promoted to Brigadier in October 1967, he went back to Southern Command until he was appointed Commandant of the Military College at Omdurman and Commander of Omdurman Garrison in May 1968. Following the May 1969 revolution he was retired on pension on June 3, 1969. He was made Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Defence - a sinecure because Ihc Revolution Council decided all defence matters.
On December 28, 1969, he was reinstated, given the rank of major-general, and appointed Deputy Chief of Staff. He succeeded Major-General Khalid Hassan Abbas as Chief of Staff on June 1, 1970.
Politics
As Minister of the Interior from October 1971 he inherited the problem of handling the aftermath of the unsuccessful July coup; restoring confidence in the government, ensuring that all Communists were purged from the administration, and supervising the screening of the 3,180 detainees to see how many could be safely released. Although he over-optimistically claimed in February 1972: “The Communist Party in the Sudan is destroyed”, he helped heal the divisions in the country by his fair treatment of political prisoners, half of whom he freed within two months of taking office. He showed the same patience over the agreement with the South at Addis Ababa, where he was one of the signatories on February 27, 1972.
Personality
Right-hand man of President Nimeri, a non-political figure with the directness and discipline of a well-trained staff officer. His sense of justice and humane approached prevented a bloodbath after the pro-Communist coup failed in July 1971. His integrity and simple, trusting outlook won him respect in the South and made him an important negotiator of the peace agreement with the South.
Large, chubby-faced extrovert, not quite as fit as he looks, he was twice in London for medical treatment in autumn 1972. Fond of horses, he was a chairman of the Khartoum Race Club.
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Born
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Nationality
Sudanese
Career
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May 24, 1972