Frustrated and disillusioned, Bolad went to Chad in 1989 seeking the support of President Hissène Habré in starting a rebel movement in Darfur, but was rejected. He then went to Ethiopia to meet John Garang, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which had been prosecuting the Second Sudanese Civil War in the south since 1983. Other prominent leftist Darfuri politicians, such as Ahmad Diraige, felt that the SPLA would use Darfur for its own purposes and refused to involve themselves. Bolad joined the SPLA in 1990 and received military training in South Kurdufan. He was made the political commissar of a SPLA military expedition into Darfur that began in November 1991 and proved disastrous.