SUMMARY
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) was a rebel group based in Darfur, the most western region of Sudan. Rebels in Darfur emerged in February 2003 under the name Darfur Liberation Front, but on 14 March 2003, when releasing their Political Declaration, the name SLM/A was adopted.
The SLM/A stated in a press release that it fought for a secular Sudan with a decentralized form of governance, using armed struggle as one of the means to achieve their political goals. This stated goal showed that the agenda of SLM/A was national, and not just focused on Darfur, even though they were based in that region. The SLM/A stated that they did not have any connections to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) that fought the Sudanese government from the South but that they had “an understanding” for their struggle.
Darfur is inhabited by several different tribes, some referred to as African and some as Arab. The main tribes that made up the support base for the SLM/A were the three non-Arab tribes of Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit. The most numerous tribe in Darfur is the sedentary Fur which also has given name to the region; Dar meaning home in Arabic and Darfur thus meaning Home of the Furs in English.
As the SLM/A wanted to create a coalition among different tribes, it was decided that the leadership should consist of people from all three of the main tribes which made up the movement. Abdul Wahid Mohammad al-Nur, a Fur lawyer, became the Secretary-General of SLM/A, and, Minni Minawi from the semi-nomadic and cattle-herding Zaghawa tribe, became Secretary of the rebel group. Despite the outspoken purpose of SLM/A to remain united, tribal differences led to a split within the movement in October 2005. Minni Minawi organized an SLM/A conference in a village in Eastern Darfur called Haskanita, which was boycotted by SLM/A President Abdul Wahid as he considered the conference to be too dominated by the Zaghawa tribe whilst his tribe, Fur, was underrepresented. At the end of the conference, Minawi was elected as the new leader of SLM/A, however, this was not accepted by Adbul Wahid or by the head of the SLM/A Khartoum office. Hence, Minni Minawi failed to take control of the group and split from the SLM/A establishing his faction SLM/A-MM. After this split, the SLM/A fractionalized further, and the rebels in Darfur were made up of several different groups, where alliances were created and broken on several occasions.
By 2011, SLM/A was one of the groups that established an armed coalition called the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) together with JEM and SLM/A-MM also based in Darfur, and with SPLM/A-North based in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. As the SRF became involved in negotiations with the Government of Sudan in 2016, a rift within the coalition appeared as SLM/A refused to sign a roadmap agreement in August 2016. Abdul Wahid later stated that the group would not take part in any negotiations with the Sudanese government until the pro-government militias in Darfur had been disarmed and the security of the population in the area had been restored. By this time SLM/A stopped taking part in SRF's coordination meetings, consequently splintering from the alliance, again acting as a separate actor in UCDP data.
