SUMMARY

Infighting within the SSDF (South Sudan Defence Force) was a common state of affairs throughout the existence of the group and can be traced to the loose organization and weak hierarchies present within the group. Thus, when a commander of one unit decided to attempt to enhance his own power, it could easily pit the units under his command against other unit leaders, violently clashing for domination within SSDF. Further, while the Sudanese government was a supporter to the SSDF as a whole, it helped seed and foment discontent within the ranks of the organization in an attempt to divide and dominate it through ignoring the chain of command and by giving support individually to various unit commanders.

The conflict between the SSUM/A (South Sudan Unity Movement/Army) faction of SSDF (South Sudan Defense Force) and the main faction of SSDF was one typical example of such infighting. Violence broke out in 1998, as Paulino Matip, the commander in chief of the SSUM/A sub-group within SSDF attempted to replace Riek Machar as the head of SSDF. The dispute was further startled by the December 1997 gubernatorial elections in Unity State, where Machar proposed and succeeded to impose a different candidate than Matip. This hurt Matips interests significantly, as, at that point his forces were in control of much of the oil-rich Unity state, receiving ample amounts of governmental aid in exchange for protecting the governmental oil concessions in the area. As such a series of clashes between the two factions began.

These clashes were very violent, with both sides employing heavy artillery and inflicting substantial damages on various industrial and commercial areas around the oil fields. Further, a political conflict between supporters of Machar and supporters of Matip within SSDF soon began raging on top of the conflict between the two factions.

Overall, Matips SSUM/A was more successful than Machar's forces. As such, by the end of 2001, Riek Machar was almost completely sidelined and marginalized within SSDF. Thus, at the beginning of 2002, he and forces loyal to him were excluded from the group, with Paulino Matip assuming operational command of SSDF as Commander in Chief.

The non-state conflict between SSDF and SSUM/A is first included in UCDP data in 1998. In January of that year clashes between the two groups resulted in over 25 battle-related deaths.