South Sudan Liberation Movement

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The South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) is an armed group that operates in the Upper Nile Region in southern Sudan. The group's creation was announced in December 1999 by a gathering of Nuer in Waat from both the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the government-allied South Sudan Defense Force (SSDF). The SSLM was declared to be unaligned in the Second Sudanese Civil War then entering its sixteenth year. The name "South Sudan Liberation Movement" was decided upon the next year.

The SSLM was formed in the context of widespread interfactional fighting by the Nuer who had signed a peace treaty with the government on 21 April 1997. among the Western Nuer of Unity, Sudan. The SSDF had divided into factions led by Riek Machar and Paulino Matip. As Riek lost power, government aligned militias were attacking civilians around the oilfields, causing a stream of Nuer refugees to flee towards SPLA-controlled Bahr al-Ghazal for protection. At least two Nuer militias began to align themselves with the SPLA, while the few Nuer loyal to the politically weakened Riek began to abandon the government. The fact that Nuer refugees were being protected by the Dinka-dominated SPLA led to an unusual conference in Wunlit sponsored by the New Sudan Council of Churches and with a guarantee of safety by the SPLA. Groups of Western Nuer and Dinka from Tonj, Rumbek and Yirol took part, leading to a peace agreement in March 1999 to end the inter-ethnic fighting. The creation of the SSLM was accompanied by the announcement that most of the Nuer had formally broken away from the government.

The SSLM claims that it "follows two avenues to assert the rights of the people of South Sudan to freedom and self-determination".^{[citation needed]} The group states that it is in favor of negotiation with the government of Sudan until an acceptable peace-accord is signed and the government stops its raids in southern Sudan, but the peace accord of January 9, 2005, is seen by the SSLM as promising nothing new differing from past treaties only in its observance by the international community.^{[citation needed]}