William Nyuon Bany Machar (1930 – 13 January 1996) was a Southern Sudanese politician who was also one of the founders of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).
[citation needed] When war broke out in a southern town of Bor, Bany served as a major in the Sudanese army in Ayot.
[3] On 10 May 1992 Bany was met by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman under Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida in Abuja, to discuss the need for unifying the two delegations.
Children were recruited to the ranks of the various factions, and a group of Nuer boys were lured from their families by the promise of education only to end up in a camp run by Bany in Magire in Eastern Equatoria state.
On 5 April 1993, at a press conference in Nairobi, the three rebel factions announced a coalition, to be called "Sudanese People's Liberation Army-United", known as SPLA-United, which included a number of former Garang officials and other southerners.
[7] In early 1995, Machar (of the Nasir faction) split to form the SSIM, Southern Sudan Independence Movement, formally launched on 11–12 March 1995.
[5] An article in the University of Pennsylvania's Africa Center journal Sudan Update reported in May 1995 that Bany, who was sacked earlier that year by SSIM/A leader Machar, "was sent out from the government garrison at Magiri with ten armoured vehicles to rescue the captured convoy, but instead joined forces with the rebels", in March 1995.
It referred to "personal animosities" among leaders, and failure to control inter-tribal feuding, which had damaged the rebel forces' effectiveness.
[8] In April 1996, SSIM and SPLA-United signed an agreement with the Sudanese government which endorsed the current boundaries of the country, i.e., no independent south.
[13] In 2013, she co-founded The William Nyuon Bany Foundation, which supports programs fostering children's education and focuses on "improving the health and livelihoods of the communities and building the leadership capacity youth for a prosperous country".