Splintering among Factions in the Sudan Civil Wars (South and Darfur)

In revolts in both the South and Darfur, rebel factions (along with pro government militias) are highly prone to infighting and splinting off, something that the Sudanese government took advantage of. The most famous rebel faction, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had one notable split in 1991 that had surprising results. The split occurred when the Nuer tribal leaders wanted to replace the SPLA leader John Garanger. The coup failed, and the the Nuer plotters eventually became their own faction SPLA-Nasir. SPLA-Nasir somewhat bizarrely became a pro-government militia (the faction eventually resulted in the South Sudan Defense Forces or SSDF, which we will talk about latter in this post). The SPLA had at least 9 other warring splinter factions. In Darfur, all major factions suffered the curse of infighting and splinter factions. The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) suffered splits due to "unfair elections" withing the faction. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) had the Liberation and Justice Splinter (LJM) splinter faction. Eventually two SLA splinter factions, JEM, and a splinter faction of the SPLA formed an alliance against the Sudanese government. The allaince is known as the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF). Even pro government (or at least in theory) militias are prone to split. Some factions of the SSDF split off like the South Sudan Unity Movement (SSUM) from the main organization and became a rebel group. Most factions of the SSDF became part of the SPLA rebel group. The Janjaweed (a brand name for pro government "Arab" tribal militias) of Darfur had a nasty incident of infighting when one member of a tribe in the Janjaweed shot another member of the Janjaweed form a rival tribe over stolen cattle. The resulting violence ended with Janjaweed tribesmen shooting everything in sight.