Minni Minnawi

Suliman Arcua Minnawi, known as "Minni Minnawi" (born 1968 in Furawiyya, North Darfur), is the leader of the what once was the largest faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army until it was weakened by dissension and infighting. A former school teacher, Minnawi was the secretary of Sudan Liberation Army leader Abdul Wahid Nur, before the organization split in 2004. He belongs to the Zaghawa ethnic group. Minnawi belongs to the Ila Digen (or Awlad Digayn) clan of the non-Arab, Saharan Zaghawa people.

Under Minnawi's leadership, his SLA faction signed a peace agreement, known as the Darfur Peace Agreement, with the Khartoum government in May 2006. Nevertheless, fighting has continued with Minnawi's group fighting other SLA factions. In July 2006, fighting broke out around the northern Darfur town of Korma, resulting in the deaths of at least 80 people.^[2]

Minnawi was appointed the top Sudanese official in the Darfur region, as chairman of the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority, and was technically the fourth ranking member of the Presidency, as Senior Assistant to the President of the Republic but has been progressively shut out from power by his "peace partners" of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of President Omar al-Bashir.

On September 14, 2006, Minnawi broke ranks with the Sudanese government when he stated that he does not object to the new UN peacekeeping force detailed in UNSC Resolution 1706.^[3]

In December 2010, the Sudan Liberation Movement withdrew from the Darfur Peace Agreement.^[4] Minni Minnawi fled to Southern Sudan and has been dismissed as Senior Assistant to the President of Sudan and as Chairperson of the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority.^[5] His forces have now joined other rebel factions in Darfur, including SLA-Abdul Wahid, in resisting attacks by the Sudanese Armed Forces on rebel-held areas.

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