| Country: | Sudan |
| Details of Formation: | The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army – Minni Minnawi faction (SLM/A-MM) broke away from the SLM/A in October 2005 after its leader Minni Minnawi, then secretary general of the SLM/A had organized a SLM/A conference, which the SLM/A President Abdul Wahid had boycotted. Abdul Wahid accused Minni Minnawi for overrepresenting Minni Minnawi’s cattle-herding Zaghawa tribe while underrepresenting his own sedentary Fur in the SLM/A conference. Minni Minnawi was not successful in his attempt to gain control of the whole of SLM/A and thus continued to act as SLM/A-MM (UCDP). On May 5, 2006, the SLM/A-MM (but not the SLM/A) signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) with the Sudanese government and became pro-government. |
| Details of Termination: | In 2007, several top commanders left the SLM/A-MM. In 2008, Minnawi announced that the start implementation of the part of the DPA, which aimed at incorporating the SLM/A-MM into the Sudanese Army. There is no evidence, however, that this really occurred and the SLM/A-MM remained independent from the army, with Minnawi regularly complaining in subsequent years about the failure of the DPA’s implementation. In late 2010, Minnawi moved to Juba and disowned the DPA. Consequently, the Sudanese army declared the SLM/A-MM a legitimate target, which the SLM/A-MM in turn took as a declaration of war. This was followed by fighting between the army and the SLM/A-MM. A news source from 2012 says that the SLM/A-MM had split into three faction, one still engaging in discussions with Khartoum, another in North Darfur negotiating with the JEM and a third faction which remains loyal to Minnawi himself. |
| Purpose: | The main purpose of the PGM was to fight against insurgent groups. |
| Organisation: | The SLM/A-MM is led by Minni Minnawi (its chairman and commander-in-chief), who had been a former teacher with little military experience who had then become the leader of SLM/A’s main forces before the group split. After signing the Darfur Peace Agreement with the Sudanese government, Minnawi became senior assistant to President Bashir and chairman of the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority. The SLM/A-MM’s secretary general in 2006 was Mustafa Tayrab, but there was no coordination between him and Minni Minnawi. The SLM/A-MM receives help from the government and the Janjaweed to fight its rival rebel groups/militias. |
| Weapons and Training: | -- |
| Size: | The group size is difficult to estimates, and membership might have ranged from 1,000 to 11,000 fighters. The SLM/A had a few hundred fighters in 2001 and 11,000 in 2005 according to SLM/A’s own statements. The SLM/A-MM is only a faction of the SLM/A and membership is therefore probably lower than that of the SLM/A at its highest point. The SLM/A-MM was the strongest faction of the SLM/A. After signing the DPA, many fighters left the SLM/A-MM (UCDP, additional information). A news source from September 2006 reports that the government wanted to build up 4,000 members of the SLM/A-MM for a security program to restore peace in Darfur. |
| Reason for Membership: | -- |
| Treatment of Civilians: | The SLM/A-MM killed civilians, including children, when they ravaged a village in July 2006. They also raped 39 women during that attack. This action was perpetrated together with Sudanese government armed forces (Amnesty International 2006). News sources suggest that this was not an isolated incident, but that atrocities against civilians were regularly committed. They report cases of looting, beating, forced displacement and subjection of civilians to mock executions. In September 2006, Zaghawa cattle-herders of the SLM/A-MM explicitly attacked Fur-dominated villages. |
| Other Information: | The situation in the Darfur region of Sudan is characterised by fragmented rebel movements and ethnic divisions; even before the peace agreement between the SLM/A - Minni Minnawi faction and Khartoum, there were several serious divisions between the rebel movements. THE SLM/A-MM was considered the military strongest and most offensive SLM/A faction in Darfur. The Sudanese governments successfully used the peace agreement to sharpen these divisions. Another consequence of the peace deal was the increased fragmentation of the SLM/A - Minni Minnawi faction itself. At the end of 2007, it became obvious that the peace agreement had served its purpose and was increasingly ignored by Khartoum. Leader Minni Minnawi belongs to ethnic group Zaghawa; there were suspicions that Minnawi had a hidden agenda to use the SLM/A-MM to carve out lands for his Zaghawa group. |
| References: |
Amnesty International. 2006. “More killings as “peacekeeping gap” threatens in Darfur.” August 17. AI Index AFR 54/037/2006. Uppsala Conflict Data Program. 2019. “SLM/A-MM.” https://www.ucdp.uu.se/actor/471 Information was taken from news sources listed in the PGMD |