Personal Recollections about Professor Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil
Francis Mading Deng
When I received the news of the passing of Professor Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil on December 10, 2024, I felt an immediate mix of emotions and reflections. I was, of course, deeply saddened by the loss of a dear friend and colleague, but I also reflected on the rich life he had led, the important contributions he had made at the national and international levels, and the loving family he had left behind.
At the national level, Professor Mohamed Ibrahim held several important positions. While at the Attorney General Chambers, he simultaneously lectured in the Faculty of Law of Khartoum University and later became the first Sudanese Dean of the Faculty. Politically, he held the position of Attorney General and portfolios of Minister of Justice, Minister of Local Government, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Speaker of the National Assembly. He also served as the Chairperson of the Referendum Commission, which supervised the self-determination referendum that led to the independence of South Sudan in 2011.
Internationally, he served as Special Advisor of the International Monitory Fund in Kuwait and taught law at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria. He retired from the United States, where he was affiliated as a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and later as a senior fellow at the United States Institute for Peace.
In this tribute, I will focus my recollections on my personal relations with Professor Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil as my law teacher, his role in overseeing the self-determination of South Sudan, and our time together in Washington as colleagues and friends. This personal account, punctuated by anecdotes, is my attempt to honour our friendship without claiming to cover the vast scope of Professor Mohamed Ibrahim’s personal and professional life.
As my lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Khartoum University, what impressed me the most about Mohamed Ibrahim, beyond his command of the subject of Commercial Law which he taught, was that he was always smartly dressed, with a deferential attitude toward his students, an aspect of the humility with dignity in his general demeanour. In his quiet mannerism, he won my admiration and respect, and I am sure my colleagues shared my view of our teacher. For me personally, he did me a great and life-changing favour by arranging for me to see the top ophthalmologist in Khartoum University’s Eye Hospital, who diagnosed glaucoma from which I had suffered for over five years undetected, and which became transformative in shaping my life, both personally and professionally.
My appreciation of the role he played in objectively and professionally managing the South Sudan referendum also had personal dimensions. I was visiting Khartoum from the United States, where I was a fellow and senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, then Speaker of the National Assembly, asked me to meet with him in his office. I had no idea what the aim of the meeting was, but I felt honoعred by the invitation. At the meeting, to my surprise, Mohamed Ibrahim was critical of the leadership of the ruling Umma Party, of which he was a prominent member, for their Islamic agenda, which he saw as dangerously divisive as it clearly discriminated against and antagonized Southern Sudanese. He told me that he was planning to resign from his position as Speaker of the Assembly and was looking for opportunities in a research institution in the United States. I promised to do what I could to help.
When I reported to South Sudanese leaders with whom I was associated, I was surprised by their response. They thought I had wrongly read the man and accused him as one of the masterminds of the Islamic agenda of his Umma Party. I felt baffled by this discrepancy. But the credibility of my report to my South Sudanese associates was soon collaborated by the resignation of Mohamed Ibrahim from the Speakership in 1988.
As soon as I was back in the United States, where I was still a Senior Associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center, I started the process that eventually granted him a Senior Fellowship at the Center. He joined the Center in August 1989; shortly after I moved to the Brookings Institution where I helped with the establishment of the African Studies Program. Following his one year’s term at the Wilson Center, I was also pleased to support his receiving a Senior Fellowship at the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) where I had been one of the first Jennings Randolph Distinguished Fellows at the outset of the establishment of the Institute.
It was during his time in Washington, while I was at the Brookings Institution, that our friendship developed and deepened. We met for lunch and dinner quite regularly. Our families also grew close together. We shared views about the developments back home. And we took part in discussion groups and co-authored papers on topics of mutual interest. I became convinced beyond doubt that, far from the belief of some Southern Sudanese that he shared the Islamization agenda of the Umma Party, Professor Mohamed Ibrahim’s views were much closer to the secular vision of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, SPLM.
One incident revealed that he was even less tolerant of the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood than many people assumed. The Carter Center in Atlanta organized a meeting of all the political parties which Archbishop Desmond Tutu was to chair. President Carter asked me to give a keynote address. On my way to the Carter Center, I rode in a bus with an American diplomat who was attending the meeting. He asked me about the developments in the Sudan, specifically the war raging between North and South. After I answered his question, he asked whether I was a Northerner or a Southerner. I responded by asking him back whether, based on what I had said, he thought I was a Northerner or a Southerner. His response was that based on what I said, he thought I was a Muslim from South Sudan. I then explained that I was not a Muslim; nor was I a Northerner or a Southerner since I was from the area of Abyei between North and South.
When I told this anecdote in the meeting, I received a critical response from the anti-Islamist opposition leaders. Professor Mohamed Ibrahim was the most vocal, albeit with a touch of humour. He said that I spoke not as a Muslim from the South, as the American diplomat thought, but as a Muslim from Iran. That was how much he disapproved of my soft view of the Islamist agenda for the country. Since I knew that he did not believe what he said, I felt amused, as were the others who all knew me.
Later, while I was serving as United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Advisor of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, and the date for the referendum was fast approaching, I went to Khartoum to give a keynote address for a symposium organized by the UN Information Office in Khartoum on the prospects of salvaging national unity. I was at first reluctant to accept the invitation, because I thought it was too late to salvage the unity of the country. But my UN colleagues urged me to attend and candidly express my views on the situation. I eventually accepted.
At the symposium, I made it known that I thought it was too late to save the unity of the country. But suppose there was a unified political will to salvage the unity of the country. In that case, the leaders of the country and all the stakeholders should endeavour to expand and implement the previously agreed formula between the North and the South of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ into a formula of ‘One Country, Multiple Systems’. That would give all the country’s regions, West, East, Upper North, and the Nuba and Angassana areas neighbouring South Sudan, the same rights given the South to govern itself during the pre-referendum interim period.
The framework of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ was the product of the Task Force formed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, funded by USIP, and which I co-chaired to contribute to shaping a unified and coherent US policy for ending the war in the Sudan. That formula had indeed guided the US mediation that resulted in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
The day after the symposium, Mohamed Ibrahim organized a dinner for me to which he invited several of my friends. To my surprise, Mohamed Ibrahim and all those at the dinner argued for the referendum postponement to give the prospects for unity more time to be attractive to the South. I defended the position that the parties should conduct the referendum as scheduled to break the cycle of dishonouring agreements.
When Professor Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil was designated Chairperson of the Referendum Commission, I must confess that I suspected that he might gear the process toward unity since I knew that he was against holding the referendum and certainly against partitioning the country. It is the mark of the man’s integrity that he guided the process objectively and credibly to an end that was antithetical to his aspirations for the country. His Deputy, Justice Chan Reech, a South Sudanese, who later became Chief Justice in the independent South Sudan, lavishly praised the objectivity, credibility, and dignity with which Professor Mohamed Ibrahim had conducted the referendum process. The two of them became close friends. They elaborated on their shared experience in the referendum process in a meeting at the International Peace Institute in New York, which I moderated. I am delighted that I was able to promote the publication of Professor Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil’s book, Why South Sudan Seceded, for which I wrote the introduction.
Northern Sudanese tend to blame Mohamed Ibrahim for the secession of South Sudan. But as he explained in the IPI meeting and elaborated in his book, he placed the blame on the ruling Islamists not only for creating conditions that made unity unattractive for the South Sudanese but for, in fact, wanting to remove the South, which they saw as an obstacle to the implementation of their Arab-Islamic agenda. In the name of Justice and moral integrity, he supervised South Sudan’s secession, which he opposed.
To conclude these personal recollections about Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, I would like to reiterate the view that we should balance our grief over the loss of a beloved father, brother, friend, colleague, and fellow citizen with our celebration of his rich life and the monumental contributions he made nationally and internationally. Eventually, life will end for all. What will remain is the memory of what we have done and leave behind to perpetuate the core value of our life in the memory of the living. The spiritual worldview of our people today is multiple. For those of us who are Christians and Muslims, the kingdom of Heaven awaits those who have lived virtuous lives in this world. In our traditional belief system, the continuation of life after death combines with the permanence of identity and influence in the memory of the living.
Our people say that we should not mourn a person who has left behind children to continue his name and influence in this world. This is what the Dinka call ‘Koch e Nhom,’ which we can translate as ‘Standing the Head Upright.’ On the bases of all these moral principles, Professor Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil will remain a source of inspiration and guidance among generations of his family, friends, colleagues, compatriots, and all those he touched in this world in a wide variety of ways.
Sawson, MohamedIbrahim Khalil’s eldest daughter deeply moved me when she told me of the sentiments her father had expressed about our friendship and that they regarded me as a member of the family. So, dear brother, colleague, and friend, may God Almighty rest your soul in the Eternal Peace you so well earned through your noble deeds in this world.
Woodstock, New York.
December 12, 2024.