SUMMARY
The SSDF, earlier called SPLM/A (Nasir), was a splinter rebel group from the SPLM/A (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army). The SPLM/A was a rebel group in Sudan that was founded in 1983 by John Garang. The ambition of SPLM/A was to fight the regime in Khartoum and “to establish a united Socialist Sudan”. A contested issue from the establishment of the movement was how much SPLM/A should focus on the South and how much they should focus upon the entire Sudan. The SPLM/A leader John Garang endorsed a change of the whole Sudan whilst some other commanders wanted to skip the national focus and fight for Southern independence.
In August 1991 a coup was conducted within SPLM/A with the purpose to overthrow John Garang. The upsurge was lead by two high level officers Riek Machar and Lam Akol. One of the reasons behind the coup against Garang was the disputed issue of South focus. Machar and Akol wanted to skip the national agenda and focus just on the Southern Sudan. Another important factor was tribal differences, John Garang is from the Dinka tribe whilst Riek Machar, is from the Nuer tribe and Lam Akol from the Shilluk tribe. Dinka is the biggest tribe in Southern Sudan, with Nuer being the second and Shilluk third most numerous in the region. In an announcement at the time of the split from Garang Riek Machar stated that: “John Garang has run the movement alone in a very dictatorial, authoritarian manner. He has oppressed humiliated and degraded our people. He has turned this movement into warlordism and a reign of terror. He has tried to manipulate even our children, to recruit them into the army as child soldiers.” Machar and Akol did not succeed in overtaking the leadership of the entire SPLM/A, instead the movement split in two different factions.
Riek Machar was the leader of the new rebel faction with Lam Akol being a top commander. The faction under Machar leadership was called SPLM/A (Nasir) named after a place in Upper Nile region of Southern Sudan, close to the Ethiopian border where Riek Machar had his headquarter. The group has also been called SPLM/A-faction and from 1993 SPLM/A-united. In 1998 the group changed its name to South Sudan Defence Force, SSDF. Power struggles between Lam Akol and Riek Machar lead to that Lam Akol left the movement and in October 1995 Riek Machar renamed the group to Southern Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM) under his leadership. However, the SPLM/A-united continued to exist in a different form when Lam Akol declared him the leader of a group with that name. There are a myriad of different groups and factions at this time in the Sudanese civil wars and alliances was created and broken on several occasions and altered groups also signed several agreements with the government on varying times.
Despite the SSDF strong focus on independence for Southern Sudan and opposing of the regime in Khartoum there are no confirmed clashes between the Government of Sudan and SSDF. Machar claimed on several occasions that SSDF had clashed with the government of Sudan but this appear to be just rhetoric to keep his support among Southerners who disliked the regime in Khartoum. Instead there seem to be consensus among independent observers that SSDF never fought against the government. Instead of fighting the government the SSDF fought against and SPLM/A under Garang leadership. This fighting was very intensive and in some years during the 90’s this fighting caused more deaths than the fighting that involved the government. In parallel to this fighting between the two rebel factions there were also extensive fighting between Nuers and Dinkas. To rally support for his fighting against Garang Machar used traditional Nuer religion. This tactic was successful and in some of the attacks conducted by SSDF they were joined by a loosely organised Nuer militia called the White Army. The white Army was not coded as a sole actor by UCDP since they acted under the command of Riek Machar and just operated in joint attacks with the SSDF.
In this fighting the Machar faction got extensive support from the government of Sudan. The government wanted to increase the internal fighting between the rebels and saw Garang as the biggest threat against them and for this reason they supported his opponents. The government of Sudan has continuously used the tactic of splitting of rebel groups to weaken them in their struggle against the regime in Khartoum and several times have both sides in a rebel or communal conflict been armed by the government. Another reason for the governmental support to the SSDF was to get hold of the oil-rich areas in the Upper Nile area that was under Riek Machar's control. Since Machar was dependent on support from the Government of Sudan they could force him to let the Sudanese government give oil companies as Lundin Oil and Texacon the opportunity to drill for oil in that area. This was one of the major outcomes of the fighting between the SPLM/A factions since the oil increased the economy and military capacities of the regime in Khartoum tremendously. The split between the Riek Machar and John Garang factions of SPLM/A continued until 8 January 2002 when they announced that they were reuniting to resist the government. This ended the war between the two main factions that had been going on for eleven years and killed thousands of people.
SSDF has been involved in the non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence.
