Sidama National Liberation Front

The Sidama National Liberation Front,^[3][4][5] also known as Sidama Liberation Front^[2][1] (abbreviated SNLF or SLF) was a rebel group in the Sidama Region of Ethiopia.^[3][6] The SNLF allied with the Oromo Liberation Front in 2012^[2] and the Ogaden National Liberation Front in 2015^[1] against the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

Sidama National Liberation Front
Flag of the Sidama Liberation Front
Dates of operation	1999 – 2021
Active regions	Sidama Region Ethiopia
Ideology	Sidama self-determination
Status	Inactive
Part of	AFD (2006-2021) UFEFCF (2021)
Allies	ONLF[1] OLF[2]
Opponents	Ethiopia
Battles and wars	Conflicts in the Horn of Africa
Website	Official website

As of 2021, the ACLED declared the SNLF to be an "inactive" organization that is "neither well known nor well developed even among its own community".^[7]

Creation

The Sidama National Liberation Front was established c. 1999.^[4][6]

Aims

The SNLF describes its aim as self-determination of the Sidama people.^[4] In 2016, SNLF representatives met with other groups in Asmara, creating the People's Alliance for Freedom and Democracy, which protested against the "brutal suppression of the unarmed protesters in Oromia by the TPLF". The alliance protested against multinational corporations and the TPLF-dominated government expropriating natural resources from poor agro-pastoral communities and displacing the inhabitants.^[3]

Leadership

In 2017, Denboba Natie was a member of the SNLF's executive committee.^[5]

Alliances

In 2012, the SNLF (at the time, SLF), made a joint statement with the Oromo Liberation Front, accusing the TPLF of deliberately creating violent conflict between Sidama and Oromo groups "through multifaceted attacks". The SNLF and OLF together called for "subjugated peoples in general" and the Oromo and Sidama to avoid being lured into conflict and "instead form their historically effective common elders committee and resolve their conflicts in the established traditional way."^[2]

As of 2015^[update], the SNLF was allied with two other rebel groups, the Ogaden National Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front, and was fighting against the government of Ethiopia, dominated by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPDRF).^[1][8]