Khalil Ibrahim

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Khalil Ibrahim (* 1957 / 1958 in Tina , North Darfur ; † 24. December 2011 near Wad Banda , Schamal Kordofan ) was the leader of the rebel group Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which in the ongoing Darfur conflict in western Sudan and wages civil war against the Sudanese government in eastern Chad .

Life

Khalil Ibrahim was born in the small town of Tina west of al-Faschir (El Fasher) on the border with Chad, he belonged to the Kobe subgroup of the Zaghawa . Kobe live mainly in Chad along the border with Sudan, to a lesser extent on the Sudanese side in Darfur west of al-Fashir.

He was considered an enthusiastic supporter of the National Islamic Front (NIF), which was part of the government in Khartoum from 1989 to 1999 under the ideological leadership of Hassan al-Turabi . Khalil served as North Darfur State's Minister of Education between 1991 and 1994 . As a medic, he spent four months as a volunteer in 1992 with the Popular Defense Forces , a voluntary, uniformed, paramilitary unit on the government side.

According to Khalil himself, his dissatisfaction with the Islamist movement began in 1993 when he noticed the neglect of economic development by the NIF, and was equally disappointed with their (little) support for armed militias. At that time he joined a “sleeper cell” of Islamists who were trying to change the NIF from within. Khalil Ibrahim became State Secretary for Social Affairs in the Sudanese part of an-Nil al-azraq in 1997 , before taking up a post as advisor to the governor of Juba in South Sudan in 1998 .

He was never offered a national ministerial position, so Khalil's companion in the JEM, Ahmad Tugod, said: “Khalil is neither a first nor a second class political leader. [...] He fought for a post in Khartoum all his life . ”He left that post in August 1998, a few months before his final takeover ended, and formed an NGO called Fighting Poverty . In December 1999 Ibrahim was in the Netherlands and completed a course for the scientific degree as Master of Public Health at Maastricht University .

In the meantime, the structures of the covert cells that Ibrahim helped set up in 1994 had expanded as far as Khartoum. The dissidents, calling themselves "The Seekers of Truth and Justice," published The Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in the Sudan in 2000, claiming that Arabs on the Nile ruled the country's political power and resources. Khalil Ibrahim then quickly joined a split from the People's Congress party, which had split off from the president's party. In 2001, he was one of twenty renegades who turned to the international public from abroad. In August 2001, Khalil from the Netherlands published a press release announcing the formation of a movement for justice and equality . The JEM has a relatively narrow ethnic support limited to the Zaghawa.

The spokesman for the Sudanese Armed Forces reported the death of Khalil Ibrahim on December 24, 2011 during fighting in Kurdufan Province . The report has been confirmed by other sources. Khalil Ibrahim is said to have been on the way to South Sudan . He died near the city of Wad Banda, which is about 110 kilometers west of al-Ubayyid .

Darfur conflict

The beginning of the Darfur conflict is generally equated with the attack by the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) on Gulu in the Marra region west of El Fasher. The attack, which lasted several days, began on February 25, 2003. On April 18, the SLA attacked El Fasher airport. The JEM, led by Khalil Ibrahim, began attacking government targets in Darfur in March parallel to the SLA. The relationship between the rebel groups was and is difficult because the religious and political goals are different. Nevertheless, the JEM and the SLA formed a loose alliance against the massive military reaction of the Sudanese government that followed.

In May 2006, the JEM refused to recognize the Abuja Accords , which was accepted by a faction of the SLA led by Minni Arcua Minnawi , but was rejected by a smaller SLA faction. On June 30, 2006 Ibrahim, Khamis Abdallah Abakar, the former SLA vice-president, Sharif Harir and Ahmed Ibrahim, a sub-leader of the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA), founded the National Redemption Front (NRF) in Asmara , whose members include the Abuja- Reject agreement. Since then, no further concrete common goals have been mentioned.

There are regular clashes within the rebel organizations, which end with the split off and the formation of a new splinter group. In July 2007, for example, a group called JEM - Eastern Command split off from JEM , the leader of which accused Khalil Ibrahim of a dictatorial style of leadership.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dr Khalil Ibrahim: Leader of the Darfur rebels in Sudan. The Independent, December 27, 2011
  2. ↑ Julie Flint, Alex de Waal , Darfur: A Short History of a Long War . Zed Books, London 2006, ISBN 1-84277-697-5 , p. 91.
  3. ↑ Sudanese army kills rebel leaders. Zeit Online, December 25, 2011.
  4. ↑ Darfur rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim killed "en route to South Sudan". Sudan Tribune. December 25, 2011.
  5. ↑ New breakaway rebel faction claims removal of Darfur JEM leader. Sudan Tribune, July 31, 2007.
personal data
SURNAME Ibrahim, Khalil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Sudanese leader of the Darfur rebel group Justice and Equality Movement
DATE OF BIRTH 1957 or 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Tina, Sudan
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 2011
Place of death Shamal Kurdufan , Sudan