 Thank you for joining us. My name is Nancy Lindborg and I'm delighted to welcome everybody here this morning to the U.S. Institute of Peace. I'm the president here and thank you everyone for joining us for a very urgent conversation. We're grateful for our panelists and especially for the partnership with the Holocaust Museum in organizing, thank you Cameron, in organizing this event this morning. We will be joined a little bit later by a congressman Tom Rooney and it may involve interrupting the proceedings to enable him to deliver his remarks. We're very happy he's able to join us, somebody with a deep commitment to this issue up on the hill, and as is often the case, votes have interrupted his schedule. So stand by for when he might be joining us. I think people here are aware that U.S. Institute of Peace was founded 30 years ago by Congress as an independent national institution that is really dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, practical and essential for our national and international security. And we operate on the premise that there will always be conflict, but the goal is to have the tools and the research and the training that enables people to manage conflicts so that it doesn't become violent and to resolve it when it does. And we are gathered here today out of, I think, a shared concern over the risks of mass atrocities and the looming specter of genocide in the world's newest nation. And we're doing so just before a rather grim anniversary of next week, marking three years, since we had the terrible outbreak of violence in even despite the August 2015 peace agreement, we're looking at the possibility of serious violence, mass atrocities, and as we've heard from numerous reports, the possibility of genocide. The statistics are very, very grim. And even in a world where we have a terrible litany of crises, South Sudan is managing to work its way to the top of that list. There are already 4.8 million people, which is one in three people in South Sudan, who are severely food insecure, and that translates into near famine conditions to speak in non-technical terms. One in five people have been forced from their homes. 1.6 million are internally displaced with another million fleeing to neighboring countries. And I am really struck by the fact that there's a Ugandan town of Bidi Bidi that in July was just grasslands, that in just five months has become the second largest refugee camp on the planet. And so we have spent several decades rehashing the lessons and the failures of the Rwandan genocide. We don't have the ability to say that we weren't warned about what might be coming at us in South Sudan. And this is happening at a time where we have massive global transition, the U.S., the U.N., the A.U., all of these global leadership structures are in transition, and so we are at great risk of having a nobody home situation as we dissolve into the possibility of genocide. I am very delighted that we have Ambassador Princeton Lyman here with us today for today's discussion, and Ambassador Lyman will moderate the panel. I think many of you know Ambassador Lyman from his very long and distinguished career, both at U.S. aid and at state, most recently as the special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, and somebody who brings extraordinary wisdom and compassion to this issue and all the issues that he's been engaged with. A wonderful friend and mentor and colleague, so I hand it over to you, Princeton. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nancy, and thanks for your leadership, both here at the Institute in general but also very much on this issue throughout this crisis period. I'm going to give very brief introductions to our excellent panel. These are people many of you know. They all have direct and long experience on the problems of South Sudan. Nancy has indicated just how urgent and critical this situation is, and we are going to try to look at both immediate responses and longer-term responses. Let me just say briefly, but these are very distinguished people on the panel, and I'm so grateful. We have Cameron Hudson. Cameron is the director of the Simon Scote Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. He has years of work in the White House, in the office of the Special Envoy on South Sudan. Cameron, thanks so much for being here. Peyton is a member of the panel of experts on South, the UN panel of experts on South Sudan. The report of the panel of experts is a devastating report on the situation, and it's provided not only the UN but the international community, generally, with a very focused, detailed, and evidence-based account of the situation. Mia Vakshaya Kumar, discussion she is deputy UN director at UN Human Rights Watch, and Human Rights Watch has been monitoring this situation very closely, has issued a number of key reports on the situation there. Justin Lynch. Justin, it was unceremoniously sent out of South Sudan a few days ago. Now, in Uganda, Justin is a journalist who reported very recently and very dramatically on events in Equatoria and has been following the situation in South Sudan. Justin, we're glad you could join us for this. And then, John Prendergaster, I think everybody knows, the founder of enough a long, long time and tireless advocate against mass atrocities, genocide, whether in Darfur, in South Sudan, DRC, or every other place in the world that this might arise. So thank you all for being part of this. And let me ask, if I can, to start with Peyton, if you would, and then Justin, just to give us a picture of what the situation is right now, and then we'll look at what might be done. Thank you, Princeton, and thanks to Nancy and USIP for hosting this event. It's such a critical time for South Sudan. I'll try to be as brief as possible because, as Princeton said, Justin just left South Sudan, so fresh from the field. I want to make sure he has time to give his perspective. But the panel of experts was established in June of 2015. And through, we've submitted a number of reports, as Princeton said, our most recent one was released publicly about a month ago. And I thought I would just outline four or five persistent trends that we've documented over the course of the last year and a half that have continued to exacerbate dramatically the situation in South Sudan. The first is that there is very clearly no meaningful political process anymore to address this brutal civil war. And so it's very clear across the board, and this includes all tribes and all of the protagonists, view that there is no political pathway for addressing their grievances or ensuring their security, leaving them with only military recourse as their sole option. And that obviously ups the stakes of the war and of the overarching conflict. We have seen concurrent with that, the de facto collapse of the government of national unity that was envisioned in the peace agreement that the party signed in August 2015. So while there is some pretense of a governing body in Juba, it is neither unifying nationally, nor is there any evidence to suggest that the transitional institutions are in fact transitioning to any new political dispensation for the country or implementing any of the reforms that the agreement stipulated. Link somewhat to those developments is a severe closing of political space inside the country, whereby you see even efforts to call together groups, different tribal groups, Dinka, Noer, etc., are largely either co-opted by some of the antagonists in the war or suppressed completely, which further closes off any space for addressing grievances or providing an outlet, a nonviolent outlet for some of the very deep issues and drivers of the war. Of course, as Nancy said, we've also spent a good deal of time documenting the severe deterioration in humanitarian conditions. The refugee outflows into Uganda in the last couple of months are indeed extraordinarily striking, but even in the last few days we've seen an intensification of fighting immunity in other parts of the country. 20,000-some people, new folks, have gone into the POC site in Bentu, for example, in the Unity State, which I think is indicative of the steep decline in the security situation there. Throughout the conflict, it's been documented by the UN and others that those who flee to the POC sites throughout the country, but particularly in Unity State, are doing so as an option of last resort. They're not seeking services. They're going there because they have no other choice to escape the violence, and it speaks for itself that those numbers have increased so significantly in just the last few weeks. There is, as Nancy said, unprecedented food security across the country. When you look at even the situation in Juba, the capital, Ocha just released a report two, three days ago that 80% of the residents of Juba have resorted to crisis or emergency coping strategies for food. That's extraordinary in the capital of the country, and I think speaks to how devastated, even outside the capital, obviously, the situation is. Then finally, as Princeton alluded to, and we expend some length in the panel's most recent report, this issue of intertribal incitement, and Cameron can talk about this more from other experiences as well, really has escalated over the last two or three months, whereby you see the demonization of one tribe against another. This is happening across the board. This is not solely a Dinka phenomenon or Equatoria phenomenon or an aware phenomenon. It's being undertaken by a number of amorphous groups, which, while hard to identify or verify exactly who these individuals or groups are, has created a context of deep fear, but also a sense that there is an existential threat posed to various communities in the country, and coupled with this notion that there is no political mechanism for addressing that threat, it leads folks across the board, as we document at some length, to conclude that their only means of self-protection is proactive violence against other communities in self-defense, which is obviously a particularly volatile dynamic that we're facing. And when you see posters put up on churches or NGO compounds, or other places of sort of traditional refuge in South Sudan, threatening violence against specific tribes, against specific individuals, it really does harken back to some of our worst experiences of mass atrocities and indeed genocide. I would just conclude by saying that when the UN Special Advisor for Genocide, or for the prevention of genocide, rather, Adama D. Yang briefed the Security Council a few weeks ago, he made a very important point, which is that genocide is a process, and it doesn't happen overnight. And regardless of what happens in the coming days or weeks of South Sudan, I think it's also important for us to realize that the current state of affairs in South Sudan, even if it doesn't get worse, also didn't happen overnight. This has been unfolding over the course of three years. And very clearly, while the panel of experts does not have a political role, I will say that very clearly the current approaches have not demonstrated any ability to arrest that steep deterioration. And so it's all the more important, I think, that we're having this conversation today to try to explore some of these challenges. This is a fundamental challenge to UN peacekeeping, to the African peace and security architecture, to the other mechanisms that we've tried to use to mitigate this crisis, and to not a lot of veil, unfortunately, mostly for the people of South Sudan, if not for the region. And I'll stop there. Thanks Thank you very much. And I just want to mention before going to Justin that here at USIP, at the Peace Tech Lab, there is a project that is monitoring and analyzing the hate speech. And it's a very high-tech and very sophisticated analysis, to show you one of the reports on a lexicon of the hate speech. And I gather feel that there will be a report out fairly soon. It'll be on the website that will give a lot of the detail to what Peyton is talking about, about how hate speech has been generated, how it's being used, and examples of it. And we're sharing this with relevant bodies in UN and elsewhere. But it backs up, I think, what you're saying. Justin, it's good to see you. We can see you. I don't know if you can see us. But I know you're just out of South Sudan. We've read your reports with some alarm, I have to say. But Justin, welcome and give us your perspective. Thank you very much for having me on the channel. It really is an honor to be here. I know it's good for learning. Hold on a minute. We're not hearing you loud enough. Can we? Let me know when I'm okay. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Well, I was saying, you know, thank you very much for having me on this panel. It really is an honor and an honor to learn, you know, what everyone, what their perspectives are. As Princeton mentioned in his comments, I was arrested and deported on Tuesday. So I'm still in a bit of shock. And I think that one of the things that I've been thinking a lot since then is the South Sudanese people who I won't be able to tell their stories. And when I think about them, I think about the incredible resilience that they have. Over the past three years, they've suffered from civil war, from famine-like conditions, and from an increasing level of violence in the country. I think on the humanitarian front, there is no doubt that many people are suffering. It's a humanitarian crisis that is comparable to what we're seeing in Syria. I mean, I think nearly 4% of the country is at risk of death due to hunger, even in areas that are from the tribe of President Kier from O'Weill. They are starving there due to combinations of both the effect of hyperinflation on the economy and just the lack of any basic functioning arm of the government. And I think, alarmingly, we're also seeing the issue of hyperinflation really hitting South Sudanese where it matters most. I mean, the currency, I think inflation rate is actually near 800%. And that's, if you're a South Sudanese teacher and you're getting the same salary since December of last year, you can't live on that. If you're a police officer and you have an inflation rate of 800%, you can't live on that. And I think, alarmingly, what we've seen since October is a real rise in hate speech. Hate speech not only, as Peyton mentioned, in the form of letters being left on compounds that depict John Rambo-like scenes in movies, but also on social media, we're seeing how Facebook and Twitter are being used to incite violence against particular ethnic groups. What's great about, I think, the timing of this event is that we are at the beginning of the dry season in South Sudan. And anyone who follows South Sudan knows that the dry season is when the fighting begins and, unfortunately, we're seeing all of the elements that this fighting is going to continue and intensify. Over the past months, we've seen a huge recruitment effort on behalf of both the government and the opposition to kind of attract men, boys to their ranks. So I was talking with a couple of boys and young men in one displacement site in Juba about two weeks ago, and they are being told, sorry, they are being forced to join the SBLA. And it's clear that both sides are gearing up for this offensive. The government has increased their arms procurement, their weapons shipments, and we've seen how they've made it a number in the past couple of weeks. Now, a couple of weeks ago, the U.N. genocide adviser said that the country is at risk of genocide, and he highlighted the equatorial region of Yale. And I visited there less than a month ago, and it was shocking to see how quickly the situation had deteriorated. When you talk with government officials there, local government officials, they are shocked as well because Yale was a region that was the most peaceful region of South Sudan. The last civil war never came to the equatorias, and now the town is essentially cordoned off by the SBLA when you talk to women, they talk about soldiers who commit rape, who rape them. Civilians say that they can't leave the town, and they can't enter the town because both the government and the rebels have set up checkpoints, and they don't allow civilians to leave or to enter. And I even spoke with a police officer who said that he and others were tasked with going to collect dead bodies that were found in the streets of Yale, and that the SBLA had the foreign police officers, that they had beaten them, and they took them to their barracks a far distance away. And so what we're seeing is that equatorians in that region are being targeted for their ethnicity, and it was a very disturbing situation that we're seeing there. And I think what we should highlight also is that in the past couple of days we've seen a lot of movement and a lot of information suggesting that Yale could be the scene of an attack soon. And I think that, you know, it's not only Yale that is at risk of further violence, it's also happening in Unity State. I was scheduled to go to Lair tomorrow, and we've seen that most of the civilians flee that area as well, and they're talking about the same things that we saw or that I saw in Yale. They're talking about government soldiers who attack them because of their ethnicity. They talk about extrajudicial killings, and they talk about villages being burned in that scenario. And I think one of the last things that I wanted to mention as well is that there's no doubt that the UN mission there is under-equipped and does not have the resources. You know, when you talk to your officials there privately, if not a secret, the recent pullout of Kenyon peacekeepers has really affected the mission and their ability to respond to situations like Yale, you know, and they've been debating intermittently whether they can send peacekeepers to Yale to try and stop the violence, and they say that they don't have enough resources and they don't have enough troops, and so it certainly is not a good recipe for what we're seeing in the country. And it's unfortunate that there isn't that many journalists there in South Sudan's report on what we could be seeing. Thank you. Justin, thanks. It's grim, it really is. Look, I'd like to spend a little time on what the more immediate response to stop what is degenerating into what could be an even worse mass atrocity situation, and then we'll turn to longer things. Cameron, can I ask you with your both background in this particular situation, but the experience of the Holocaust Museum, some thoughts on what might be done? Sure. Thank you, Princeton. And I recognize that there's an immense amount of experience on South Sudan in the room, so I'm going to be brief in hopes that we can have a conversation about some of this. I just wanted to put my comments into sort of three categories of how, from the sort of genocide perspective, we look at the situation there and why I think that label is not hyperbolic here now and why it deserves a lot of attention. We sort of look at these situations, emerging situations, in three kind of temporal categories. One are the sort of the long-term structural indicators, and in a place like South Sudan, based upon the literature of what we know about why genocides start and under what conditions they start, I think South Sudan ticks a lot of those boxes from a long-term structural perspective. There's obviously a history of mass violence in the country, not just in the last three years, but going back decades. That violence has often been ethnically based violence, again, going back decades. The politics are ethnic, again, going back decades. And when we see the dominance of one ethnicity over another, that's often an indicator or at least a structural indicator of places where mass violence might occur. The type of governing situation, authoritarian, increasingly authoritarian, non-democratic role, a failing economy, and then all sorts of other economic indicators with respect to how that, how the money in the country is allocated. So the percentage of the GDP going to the armed forces, the percentage of the GDP going to livelihoods. These are all kind of long-term structural indicators that suggest a high risk of this kind of violence. You then sort of look at sort of, what are the temporal indicators? What are the near-term indicators that might aggravate those long-term structural indicators? And I think Justin and Peyton have already touched on a number of them. But economic shock is at the top of that list. And we've seen from, as Justin just alluded to with the inflation rate and the cutoff of oil revenues, there's clearly an economic shock going on in the country right now. The importation of weapons, the mobilization of forces, the recruitment, especially of child soldiers, are often near-term indicators of mass violence. Targeted killing, so probing, seeing what you can do, seeing what the response is going to be in targeted killings. We're already seeing dehumanizing and hateful rhetoric clearly has been well documented. The curtailing of basic rights has been eroding for a number of months. I don't think we've yet seen legislative efforts, but that's often an indicator when Parliament's past legislation denying groups of rights based upon their ethnicity an effort to hide crimes or to prepare a hidden crime. So again, I think kicking people like Justin out of the country, denying visas for international aid workers and human rights workers, attacking those workers, diplomatic employees, trying to drive people out of the country, is often again another leading indicator. And then lastly, this idea of taking flight. And Peyton mentioned that the huge numbers of refugees, people who are anticipating mass levels of violence, trying to get out of the way. And I would just cite one figure which I saw on Twitter, which is of course an unimpeachable source of information on these things, but that 86% of new refugees into Uganda were women or children. So the men are not leaving. So what are the men going to be doing? So I think the sort of last area that we would look at is what are the trigger scenarios that we need to be paying attention to. If we have these long-term and near-term indicators, which all point to mass violence, what's the trigger? What is the igniter that is going to set this kindling that's been stacked ablaze? And I think normally we would look at something like an election or a referendum, a kind of a political date on a calendar that we can plan against. We don't have that obviously in South Sudan right now. I want to put out a couple of what I think are triggers, and these are less defined on a calendar, but I think no less important that we need to be paying attention to right now because we're in that trigger moment, I think. Obviously the dry season and the ability to move and mobilize and fight, we know that that's a period when fighting occurs. But I think more importantly is this period of transition. Transition in Washington, people in South Sudan are incredibly plugged into what's going on here. They know we're not paying attention. They know an assistant secretary and a secretary of state have not been named. They know people are leaving these jobs. Same thing at the UN, the secretary general leaving, the head of peacekeeping, at the mission in Juba, the loss of the force commander, loss of the SRSG, at the AU, a new AU chairperson. So there's a huge vacuum across Africa, the international community, and certainly in Washington, and I'm leaving the sort of uprising in Europe and sort of political machinations there out of it, but that of course factors in I think very importantly. There's an anniversary of violence next week, the outbreak of violence three years ago. I'm not sure how that will play into the public psyche. And then lastly, I think the holidays have to factor into this. Diplomats will be leaving Juba. International workers will be leaving Juba. They'll be going home for the holidays and they'll be a vacuum. And that's incredibly worrisome because I do think all of these things send a signal. If the signal is that the international community is not here, if the signal is the international community is not paying attention, it's preoccupied with other places and other things, then I think that will be interpreted. I hope not, but I think there's a risk that it could be interpreted as a green light. And especially if we see violence start to take hold and our mission, the U.S. Embassy decides that for the safety and security of U.S. workers, we pull out. I think that would have catastrophic effect on the situation in South Sudan. And I hate to make sort of trite comparisons to places like Rwanda, but we saw in Rwanda the pullout of the international community in the first days of the genocide there, essentially greenlighting a genocide. Not only that, I think there are a number, I think most of the international aid community in Juba rely on U.S. evacuation plans to get them out. So if the U.S. leaves, everybody's going to leave. And I think that's deeply concerning. And so in a moment when I think the specter of Benghazi and Central African Republic where we pulled out very early just a few years ago, when that hangs over this, I think we have to be incredibly vigilant. And I made the joke earlier, but I stand by it. We cancel Christmas in Juba for the diplomatic community. People need to stay there. We need to have messaging coming out from this administration saying this is top of the agenda for the next administration. We are handing this over. We are putting these plans in place. There needs to be a hell of a lot more messaging coming out of this administration than there has been thus far. People need to know that we are staying, that we are not going anywhere. We are passing this on, and then it is a priority. And I think from that we need to work on diffusing all of those triggers. I think staying helps, doubling down on the messaging helps. It doesn't get there. So you have to start working on the sort of medium term, short term indicators of diffusing the hate speech, stopping the targeted killings, those kinds of things. But I think there's a couple of things we can do in the short term to send some very important signals that we are not leaving. Thanks. Thank you very much, Cameron. Very, very helpful. John, could I ask you to come in on this? What steps are needed right now? Well, thanks, Ambassador, and Merry Christmas to you too, Cameron. Jeez. Anyways, I don't want to be holier than the various popes here on the panel on their various issues, so I'm going to defer to my colleagues on the rapid protection force on the arms embargo and on the tribunal, all of which I support very strongly. But I want to focus in on my remarks on two things that I think are the most essential to countering genocide or mass atrocities or other mass atrocities in South Sudan in the coming months. First, a major new diplomatic initiative and second, the kind of leverage that would give a major new diplomatic initiative a chance. And before I dive into these points, I want to make a glass half full observation because we don't want to walk out of here just totally broken by the analysis. Recently, I was able to, along with my partners in the century that we've created recently, have separate meetings with President Obama, with Vice President Biden, Secretary Kerry, Secretary Jack Lewitt, Treasury, and of course, National Security Advisor Rice. And all of them are very knowledgeable about South Sudan. They're surprisingly so into the details, all very seized with the urgency of the moment, all looking for ideas and debating these possibilities, all ready to consider doing more. It's not that they aren't paying attention, they're not interested. It's not the problem. It's what do you do in this very, very difficult situation and where do you create the leverage for your actions to have impact? So it's in that spirit I make my proposals. I think it's a symbol really of how broken the international response system is to mass atrocities that after nearly three years of fratricidal war, flashing neon warnings of impending genocide by normally very circumspect UN officials. Despite all that, there's no legitimate, no comprehensive ongoing forum, as we were talking about earlier, or mechanism to air the grievances and to catalog the demands of the various warring parties and their proxy militias in South Sudan. As Peyton said, the peace agreement basically is dead and the peace process basically is lifeless. What is needed is something to dramatically shake up the deadly status quo and the inertia that is compelling the parties towards greater escalation. This requires a major new diplomatic initiative. Whether we like it or not, whether the timing is the worst it could possibly be, with some fresh faces at a very senior level to divert some of the energies that are now focused solely in South Sudan on war and instead focus them on possible solutions, divert energy to the negotiating process. There's not unprecedented, you know, that protagonists don't want to meet. And it's not unprecedented that they say they don't want to negotiate further. My own experience in the Ethiopia-Retrea war, which at the time was the deadliest war in the world, not some minor footnote in history to the people in those two countries. The two parties, the two presidents, leaders, President and Prime Minister, never met for two and a half years of war. They never spoke, okay? I was part of the African Union and U.S. mediation team that for two and a half years, 14 hours a day minimum, shuttled between these parties, conducted proximity talks, and pressed, pushed, and cajoled them to stop fighting until they finally signed a ceasefire. This idea that Riyadh and Salva have to meet to work things out is just not correct. It's inadequate. It certainly just simply isn't sufficient to move the process forward. Now, what mechanism does a million-dollar question, and I'm sure everyone in this room has different views, but I still see the United States, even in this transitional moment, even with all the uncertainty that comes January 21st, I still see the United States as a major player in all this. President Obama, I believe right now, should name a very senior high-level ad hoc representative. Worry about the terminology later. Sorry, there's already an envoy, but he's got to shake it up and send someone new. Now, when President Clinton saw the Ethiopia-Retrea war breakout, he sent his former National Security Advisor, Tony Lake. That's the kind of level that we need to see there, and to deploy to the region until the end of his administration. Someone with bipartisan credibility would retain the possibility of staying on into the new administration. You work with the British, the Norwegians, the Troika, and with the EGOT states to create a new dynamic at the negotiating table. Heck, starting out, it's going to look bleak. Everybody's like, what is the United States doing? Why are they trying to do this? There's no path to peace and all that stuff. You create it. Effective engagement can alter calculations and it can spur diplomatic activity, new diplomatic activity in the region. The point is that business as usual, which we got right now, unbelievably, despite all the warnings that Peyton and Justin have just now summarized for us and Cameron, the point is that business—oh, I'll try harder. They like what you were saying, so they couldn't help themselves. I was watching you. I rubbed your eyes earlier. I knew it was coming, buddy. Don't worry. The point is that business as usual on the diplomatic front condemns the peace to almost certain escalation. We need to alter their trajectory. So that's one side of the coin, a diplomatic surge. Now, what's the other side? The other side is we've got to create the leverage to support that diplomacy, to alter the cost-benefit calculations of people who are willing to commit mass atrocities to gain or stay in power. Say that again. How do you change the cost-benefit calculations of people willing to commit genocide or mass atrocities to maintain power or to gain it? First, I'll tell you what doesn't produce leverage for political compromise. Sadly, but it's most of the tools in the toolbox we usually use. Number one, naming and shaming, that they're beyond it. Number two, threats, threats of consequence. So we counted up in September—I stopped counting, by the way—but as of September, we counted around 65 specific times where high-level officials, mostly U.S., but all around the world, threatened specific consequences but then failed to take meaningful actions. Paper tiger. Third, satellite imagery. Unfortunately, we have a long experience in this. We had this satellite sentinel project, actually, and I worked on it very, very hard for many years. It exposed very specific crimes. Connected the dots, as if it's not though connected to action, it's ignored. It's discounted. Fourth, sadly, U.N. Security Council resolutions that foreshadow possible consequences, possible future action, but don't actually impose them. They don't take that seriously anymore. I think we all know that. Fifth, as I said already, business as usual, diplomatic to marshes, totally discounted at this point. occasional phone calls from high-level people, this kind of thing. They just know it's coming. They know it's part of the drill. Everybody has to do it. Everybody goes, yes, thank you. I'll try harder. Hang up. Six, human rights commissions and missions. Very, very important to do to inform the world, the great journalism that we've seen, the U.N. panel that Payton is part of. All these things are critically important, but again, if disconnected to action, they do not impact the calculations of those willing to commit genocide and mass atrocities to stay in power again. So where, then, are the vulnerabilities? Where are the pressure points that could actually alter the calculations and affect the behaviors of these folks on the ground? Well, I think, and our conclusion is after a lot of study of this, the most potent vulnerabilities result from the illicit money flows, the corruption, and the assets abroad that the leaders who are orchestrating these atrocities are responsible for. The decision makers in South Sudan's war do not keep their money under their mattresses. They offshore it and they launder it in real estate, in companies and in bank accounts. Because the U.S. dollar is the currency of choice for the corrupt dealings of South Sudanese leaders and rebels, the U.S. government has jurisdiction. And if crimes are committed, laundering the proceeds of corruption with those dollars, the U.S. can act. Because of enforcement actions against banks over Iran, over North Korea and Sudan and other jurisdictions of concern, banks increasingly see it in their self-interest to comply with these post-911 policy tools of financial pressure that simply didn't exist 10 years ago. The policy cocktail of choice, and this is very, very interesting to me, I did not know, and I'm a political guy. I've worked on the political side of things, not the financial and economic side as much. The policy cocktail of choice, when the United States gets serious about an issue internationally, for example counterterrorism, counter nuclear proliferation, countering organized crime, is the combination, and here it is, of anti-money laundering measures with highly targeted sanctions against networks, not just against a few individuals, which is the usual thing we pull out every time there's a crisis. So here's my question to leave you with. If these policy tools are good enough for countering terrorism, why not for countering genocide? John, thanks so much. Ashkanya, could I get your perspective on this, both not only the situation, but what you see that needs to be done? Thanks. Thank you, Ambassador Lyman. I'm here from New York, and in my rule of human rights watch, I do advocacy at the United Nations. And so I'll look a little bit at the landscape in New York and what immediate-term actions can be taken by the diplomatic community there. Although I want to begin by saying that I wholeheartedly agree with John's assessment that the time for threats has passed and Security Council resolutions that merely threaten further actions or further measures will not have an impact on the situation that we're seeing in South Sudan. But that doesn't mean that there aren't things that the UN Security Council and the outgoing Secretary General can do in these coming weeks before the end of the year and before the transitions that have been outlined already. The first one is to take action on a measure that from our assessment is long overdue, and that's the need for a UN arms embargo. This would be globally enforceable and it would limit the warring party's ability to rearm themselves and prepare themselves for any kind of escalation of violence and conflict. We know, of course, that arms embargoes are not the silver bullet, and in fact they won't dry up all the bullets in South Sudan because this is a country with porous borders. It's a country that already has many small and light weapons. But what an arms embargo will do immediately is two things. One, it will ground the attack helicopters that sit at the government of South Sudan's disposal and which are maintained and operated by foreigners. Once a globally enforceable arms embargo is in place, those foreigners in our understanding Ukrainians will no longer legally be allowed to continue that business operation. So this is an immediate, an immediate impact that could come from a decision made in far away New York that could impact and benefit the lives of South Sudanese who stand at the risk of increasing and escalating violence. And the second thing that the arms embargo will do is address the question of networks that John raised as well. The networks that enable the abuses to continue in South Sudan right now are established on the basis of the fact that the arms trade is legal. If the arms trade is made illegal, the networks will have to shift, arms dealers will have to either go underground or look to the black market and the cost of weapons will increase. So I make the recommendation for the arms embargo with a clear understanding that it's not something that will avert a coming crisis, but it is something that could deter and contribute to a broader solution in building the leverage necessary and in also limiting access to weapons. The second track that I think is important to pursue is the idea of targeted sanctions. And this is something that the U.S. government has put forward at the Security Council, but it's been unable to secure the necessary votes and consensus. One thing that's been particularly shocking to me doing this advocacy and diplomacy is that the usual suspects, the countries on the Security Council, who typically don't turn to as the obstructionists China and Russia are not the culprits right now. The actual problem is getting the other countries of the Security Council on board, and that includes Asian countries like Japan and Malaysia and also African countries like Senegal and Angola. And I make this point because these four countries are countries whose diplomats can be swayed. They're countries whose diplomats would care about what their record would be on South Sudan, especially if the situation gets worse, especially if we continue to hear horrific reports of rape, especially if we continue to see mass atrocities. And so this moment is a critical moment for outreach to those four countries, Senegal, Japan, Malaysia and Angola. Their diplomats will be on the record in opposing something that could have made the situation better or at least avoided it from getting worse. And my final point has to do with the point that Justin brought up in his opening remarks, which is the limitations of the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. There's a huge peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, and resources are obviously a constraint, but there's also a real problem with underperformance of the peacekeepers, the troops who are being sent, and the messages that they're getting from their capital about the risks that they should be expected to take to protect South Sudanese lives. That is also a space where concerted diplomatic engagement with those capitals could have a real difference. Of course, we've seen the dark side of that in the case of Kenya when they were called out and their force commander was identified as being part of the problem. The Kenyan government's reaction was, we don't want to be part of this system anymore, but we can't allow those types of diplomatic niceties to limit us from sending important messages to all of the rest of the troop contributing countries that if peacekeepers are not willing to do basic things like get out of their armored vehicles and patrol on foot, engage with communities, work to dispel rumors, make their way to places like Yale, challenge the arbitrary restrictions that are being put on them by the SPLA or the government of South Sudan, then there is no hope for them to really have an impact on the situation in South Sudan. And that's really critical. We can have as many peacekeepers as we want. We could add a regional protection force, but if they're not able to get out there and have an impact, then we're not going to see the results. And the UN has already begun a process of making recommendations on how to improve itself. And so following through on that in the coming days will be critical. I just want to respond to one point that Cameron raised, which is the importance of signals and symbols. And we have a real opportunity on South Sudan right now to send the right signal, the signal that the diplomatic community, the international community is unified, that the Security Council will act with one voice in New York and that a letter from the South Sudanese government promising progress on something like the regional protection force will not be an obstacle to further concerted diplomatic action on all of these other threats that we see. And that signal must be sent very soon. Thank you. Oscar, thank you. Very, very helpful. Look, these are all very relevant, but it seems to me that it's leading to an issue that both affects the immediate situation and the longer term. Because, as John has mentioned, and Peyton has also mentioned, the current peace process is not operating. That's certainly not as envisaged in the 2015 agreement. And this is in the hands, basically, of EGAD, the neighboring countries who fashioned it and who claim to be in charge of the process. It's very hard to get UN action on something like sanctions or arms embargoes on an African country if the Africans aren't asking for it. And if you don't have unity within EGAD on these issues, it's hard to get Senegal or even Angola on it, even though they may be sympathetic. The same is true, it seems to me, for contributors to the UN peacekeeping mission. And Japan is one of them, which is one of the reasons the Japanese are so worried, is that taking these actions will make it even more dangerous for their troops out there. So they're operating in a, without a political framework to operate in. So my question then is, if much of this depends on the cooperation, the recognition, the realization, and the actions on the part of EGAD and the neighboring countries, how do we move from that? Because much of what we've talked about, and they're all very, very important, relevant things about a UN arms embargo, about the U.S. employing the more sophisticated network sanctions and a number of other strong messaging, et cetera. But does that reach to the people who are running this so-called peace operation and who, as neighbors, will really have to enforce anything we're talking about, including reshaping the peace process? So how do we get at that? How do we connect, in other words, the actions that the international community might take with the people on the ground who claim to be in charge of the peace process, EGAD? And I'd welcome ideas about that from anyone who hasn't opened it up. Go ahead, John. I guess that I think these are sort of semi-permanent realities as opposed to surprising developments that, gee, EGAD countries have their own interests, and it often is in peace. Gee, the United Nations Security Council is divided, and maybe we can't get this resolution this time if we don't use extraordinary measures. I mean, these are just the AU and the UN aren't probably going to contribute much in a way of diplomacy or shaking the status quo. These are just kind of normal, as opposed to, wow, what are we going to do now? And so as the U.S. sort of debates and discusses what it can do in the context of this normal situation, frankly, my very strong view is that going into the breach, despite those things, rather than hanging back and trying to be clever, quietly clever because of them, in itself can potentially change the dynamic. If the United States engaged in a shuttle mission, in a sustained high-level shuttle mission, talking to all of the armed groups, talking to key actors in South Sudan, talking to the regional players, full court press, bringing along others with them if they were more astute about it, and pressed and pushed, all in the name of supporting EGAD's diplomacy, wrapping yourself in the mantle of supporting EGAD's diplomacy. I have no doubt that there are people on the new team coming in who will be interested in making cases about why not bring some of these people to the United States, and maybe too late for that in the Obama administration. Certainly we should have done it. But I think that a high-level, deep engagement immediately now, very visible, very, very, very focused on talking to the various groups that are armed, that are damaging the future of South Sudan, and talking about is potentially a dynamic that could shock the EGAD mediation into more action. You see what I mean? And then, on the other side of the coin, again, just kind of reiterating in a different way what I'm saying, nothing the United States does is going to be taken seriously if we're not actually moving on the pressures front. And as I said that we can act, and I'll talk more about this later, we can act unilaterally on some of these financial pressures due to the post-911 counterterrorism architecture and the Patriot Act and other sources of policy that we just simply don't use in Africa. And I think that this sees the President in terms of this issue. It's part of, in whatever he defines as his legacy, South Sudan is part of it as a result of the referendum, the creation of the state, and everyone's belief that the United States was a key actor in bringing that about. And so I do believe that using some of these very significant measures will put the United States diplomacy in a much different light in the eyes of the participants when we're starting to have a major reaction and a major impact on the calculations of people on the ground. They will, just like with the Sudanese to the north of them, just like with the Iranians, they're going to want to talk to us if we take some significant actions. Yeah, I mean, I very much take that point. I think, you know, if we walk away from nothing today, I think while it's important to know that while the human cost of the war in South Sudan may be akin to the, at least for civilians, akin to what we're seeing in Syria, the geopolitical complexity is not anywhere near that. And while there are divisions within EGAD, and you know, in fact, there are supposed to be an EGAD summit, I think later this week, that may again be postponed and there are challenges, this problem can be addressed. And it is not nearly as much of a pitched battle of regional interests like we see in the Middle East. And hence, all the more reason and urgency for a political, you know, a new political construct, I think, to be explored. I think we have to be careful in appreciating that there is not a lot of time here. And I think, hopefully, this event underscores that. I mean, obviously, we wouldn't be here today if there weren't a shared concern about a significant escalation in the near term of the scope and scale of the violence. But we're already, and colleagues on another UN panel have just documented this, we're already seeing ethnic cleansing in the equatorias. Justin alluded to the fact that there is already mass mobilization, not just in the equatorias, but in unity. All of this has occurred already. It's not anticipating mobilization. It is there. There are attack helicopters on the side of the government. So the government and others are poised to repeat the playbook of last year in unity state, which was the coordinated campaign to empty the southern parts of the state of a civilian population using militia, using regular SPLA soldiers, excuse me, and using heavy equipment that the government in particular has been able to procure in the absence of an arms embargo. So we're talking about days here to underscore the urgency of John's point for political initiative, not months, not years. And if indeed we continue to see the paralysis in the Security Council that we've seen, if indeed there are challenges in the region, the United Nations, and I should clarify, did not speak for the UN or the Secretary General, or an independent panel of experts. But the Secretary General and others in the United Nations have the good offices that they have that every member state to the United Nations has afforded them by virtue of the Charter. And there is an ability to use that to act in concert, of course, with the United States and other partners. But there are things that can be done here. It is all roads are not blocked and they can be done quickly, as will. Yeah, I mean, I think that I can kind of describe what many diplomats and many people who are working on, you know, EGOT, JMEX, CT-SAM are feeling about the peace process. And I think they all recognize that it's not really working, but there isn't a consensus on what to do next. You know, many, almost everyone says quadrily that they know that this is not working, that they know that they're not really having an impact because, you know, the whole peace process is based around the forces of Rakhmshara and also the opposition. And right now what we have is at least, you know, a good portion of the opposition in the followers of Rakhmshara are not being represented at the current peace negotiations. And so the question that many diplomats and many analysts are talking about is, you know, what do we do next? Do we keep going with this peace process that, you know, maybe we can get Rakhmshara to come back, maybe we can get his followers to come back to this mechanism, you know, providing food and other resources to fighters? Or do we kind of think of something else? And I think that, you know, there really isn't a clear answer on there is a consensus for a near-consensus, I think, you know, when you talk to diplomats and talk to folks who are in JMEX and these places that, you know, it's not working. They know it's not working. And that it's kind of a, you know, kind of living along and looking for direction on the next plan. So I think there is a sense of confusion and an unclear root of the path forward for many of these diplomats in the country. Just say it seems to me that there are two elements of the EGAT approach and the African Union approach that need to be addressed in the kind of diplomacy that everybody's talking about. One is, of course, the different interests of the countries and the tendency of some of them to say, let the government win and to let them have the arms and the ability because better to have the government win than just keep it going. Of course, the cost of that will be horrific for all the reasons we've said and they have to be dissuaded of that. But the second thing is, it seems to me, to make it clear, if I can be very blunt about it, that if EGAT and the African Union insists on maintaining control of this process and genocide occurs, it falls on them, that there has to be a change in the way EGAT and the African Union are approaching this peace process. And there are ways to strengthen it without going outside it. But it has to be very different. It has to be empowering either Foreign President Konari or somebody else to really take control of the process, do some of the reconciliation and the steps that are needed. But that message as well as dealing with the various interests that different countries have, Sudan versus Uganda, Ethiopia rather distracted, that is part of it seems to me of the kind of diplomacy, but you have to bring those countries on board. They have to recognize that they have a bigger interest in stopping this than letting it go on. That it seems to me does take a lot of high level diplomacy, but it also means spelling out the consequences, the enormity of the refugee outflow, the opprobrium that will fall on all those who didn't act to stop it. And then getting that kind of unity and cooperation, it has to be done because without them it's going to be very hard to get the arms stopped, the leaders to pull back, etc. It seems to me that has to be a major part of the diplomacy. And we have a transition in AU as well. We have Madam Zuma leaving, etc., so it's a hard job. I want to open it up to others, but I don't know, Cameron. Let me then open it up and thank the panel. We'll come back at the end and we're going to ask the panels to have a final word. And I have to say we have to be out of here at 1130. There is another major issue to be discussed by another group. But I'm going to open up now. I'd ask you to stand and identify yourself and ask a question. And I have two people right away. Cameron, if you want to introduce yourself, do we have a microphone? There we go. Hi, Cameron. I was chief of mission in Sudan for two years from 2005 to 2007. This is an incredible panel. It's incredible information. I think this is a totally momentous time. And we have a chance to do something that we didn't do, though we had the information about Armenia, that we didn't do, although we had plenty of information. We also didn't want it during the Second World War. And that for much of the Bosnia conflict, we didn't do. And I think as the peace prayer indicates where there's darkness, there should be light. And this is a thing I'm going to pick up on something that John said, because I have a slight difference of view on it. I was with Madeline Albright in August 1995 when she went into the Security Council with pictures of the mass graves outside Severinica. She had to fight within the U.S. government to get these pictures. A week or two. Finally, we got them when we went in, unannounced to anyone, and she passed them around the table. And I can tell you, they all changed their position. Sergei Lavrov changed his position while he was sitting at the table. The Egyptian perm rep changed his position. So I think actually satellite imagery, John, can be the spark that changes the situation that we see in the Security Council and with the countries in the peacekeeping force. Certainly, if you go back and you think of Severinica, that opened the door for Dick Holbrook and his diplomacy that ended the war. It certainly had major repercussions in the Netherlands and the way they looked at UN peacekeeping. And I can't believe that the Japanese would be any different than the Dutch were in that. Now, somebody has to make the argument to do it. But in the 20 years since then, one thing has really changed. Then we could only do this after the fact. And I'd say, incidentally, when I was in Sudan, also our ability to deal with the cartoon on the genocide in Darfur was majorly changed by having the pictures. And that also changed the position of the Africa Union leaders who wanted nothing to do with sending a peacekeeping force there. When we had the pictures and he said, this is what's going on. Though the first thing I would do is I think our national security advisor in the United States did more to bring about South Sudan as a nation than any other country in the world except for United States of America. So we have, I think, an ethical obligation to be responsible for the consequences of our actions that maybe we don't have in the other places. But we can't duck it, whether it's Christmas, whether we had an election, whether whatever. And the least we could do is we could turn on the lights. They have the drones in Africa. They can send the drones up. They can see as the dry season approaches who's going down the roadways in South Sudan. They can monitor it. And let's get a spark that changes the dreary, soggy nature, tired, worn out nature of the international response. And I can just tell you from what I've seen in dealing with the end of the Bosnian award, dealing with the Darfur genocide, it's possible. And then we'll get to all of the things that John and the rest of you want to do. Thank you very much. Thanks Cameron, very much. Stephen, you want to introduce yourself. And then I'm going to also have some questions from people webcasting. Thank you very much. My name is Stephen Kual. I'm a member of the opposition and I participated in the negotiation of that. I also participated in the implementation of the agreement. I was the first team that when I met you John in Cuba in March, I had been through all this. I met many of the American diplomats who participated also in the implementation process. The bad news I can give you and you have articulated it all here that the thing has defeated us. And it has defeated the agencies that we know, JMAG, CTSAMS, and all of us who were in Cuba. San Fakir has been in public record himself that this is an agreement that I cannot implement because it is an agreement that forced him to share power with so many other people in the country. Patents, you made my day by the comments that what is driving everybody to armed struggle in South Sudan is a lack of political space. And the whole world has seen it. Political repression that you see in the country is a driving force behind the war. And you will see more war in this country, whole South Sudan. As long as San Fakir is getting away with all he's getting away with. Stephen, I'm going to ask you to be a little bit brief because we have a special guest. I want to bring your attention to three things that make it very difficult to find peace in South Sudan. One is these palaces of African problem, African solutions. Whenever we talk of confilling the solution, we think the regions will do something. The bad news I know is they will not do anything. The other palaces is the sovereignty of the Republic of South Sudan, which our dictators want to agate to themselves to create obstacles to the confilling solution. What I can tell you on behalf of all the people of South Sudan is that we have lost hope on the international community because international community pushed us to Yuba to raise our lives and when the government cracked down on us, nobody came to our rescue. Stephen, I appreciate that. Thanks very much. I'm going to make a moment. We have a very important guest that has arrived and then I'll get back to put Congressman, we're delighted to have you here, Nancy. Yes. As promised, we're delighted to have Congressman Tom Rooney here. Congressman Rooney was just elected to his fifth term in the House of Representatives. He's a member of the House State Foreign Ops Appropriations Subcommittee and very importantly, he co-chairs the bipartisan Sudan and South Sudan caucus. And so as we've been talking about, it's critical that we have sustained attention on this issue. Congressional attention will be very important and we are delighted and very grateful, Congressman, that you were able to leave a very busy schedule of votes to come in, share your views and your insights and hear your voice on this very important issue. So please join me in welcoming Congressman Rooney. Thanks, Nancy. I appreciate your patience. I'm sorry for interrupting your questions and your Q&A. I know that the conference has been moving right along and we are supposed to be here earlier, but we had called for votes and we're getting called for votes again here shortly, so I'll be brief. But I do appreciate you letting me speak. I've never been to this building, but I think it's a huge testament to not only Nancy and the Institute for Peace, but the representation that's in this room to show just how important this issue is. I think that the representation here, and I know that we're joined by Skype, and I know that there's an overflow room as well. So obviously that is a testament to the dynamics and the gravity of the situation that we're dealing with in South Sudan. But I do think that we're all here for the same reason, at least I hope so, that we feel compelled to act. I'm a Republican from Florida. I can tell you that there's probably no constituents in my district that know anything about the South Sudan or care about the South Sudan. I was actually brought to come to understand this issue and get involved in this issue because of my cousin, who's an actress named Rooney Mera, who's done a lot of work in Africa and sort of got me interested in this, and then my staff and being on the State and Foreign Ops Committee got very involved in this issue and with regard to whether or not we could be of real assistance on our committee in trying to end this brutal civil war. I know that there's a lot of you in this room that have worked very hard over the past three years for both diplomatic and political solutions to this conflict, and I'm sure that many of you helped craft the peace agreement that by all message has been completely rejected by the country's leaders. The United States has committed so much energy, and I can speak to the financial support that we've tried to give the people of South Sudan and to give them a glimmer of hope. On the one hand, it's encouraging that South Sudan has a strong bipartisan group of champions both on and off Capitol Hill, again, as evidenced by this crowd and the work that we've done on our committee, but on the other hand, it's unacceptable that we've all failed to join forces and take collective action to mitigate the scale of the violence in the South Sudan. It's not easy being a member of a committee when we are dealing with all the problems that we're dealing with in this country to try to get the money appropriated to do the right thing in the South Sudan with constituents who really don't care about South Sudan. I'm not going to lie to you, and that's why I brought this up before. It makes it very difficult to make this argument that this is an important issue, but we all know that it is in this room. When we can't get the cooperation of the leadership, it makes it very difficult to keep going back to my constituents, try to make the argument that their tax dollars are being well spent. So that's why I think that the time now is vital. We're going into a new administration, but we do have bipartisan energy on the state and foreign ops committee, on the foreign relations committee to try to solve this problem. But words aren't enough to stop the raping, starvation, brutalization, murdering of thousands upon thousands of people. The members of the South Sudan caucus of which I'm on and many committee leaders have been calling for the administration and the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan for over two years. What I cannot grasp, and I've said this on committee numerous times, is that why this has not happened yet, I do not understand why when we know that the government is spending whatever money it can scrounge up not to feed its starting people, but to purchase attack helicopters, armored vehicles, and arms to kill its own people. We've finally gotten to a point where the administration and ambassador power are willing to impose this arms embargo on South Sudan. I don't know what the new year and the new administration will bring, but I do know how the city works. And we don't have to wait, and we don't have the time to wait and see. In the coming months, things are only going to get worse. And we need to use this political capital now. I know that there's different dynamics that Samantha Power is dealing with, but we need to act. We have the responsibility to show the leaders of South Sudan that their behavior does not put them on an equal standing with the rest of the world. I'm circulating a congressional letter to the members of the UN Security Council urging their support of an arms embargo to avert genocide in South Sudan. We have undeniable evidence of a catastrophic unfolding in historical history. I'm sorry, history will not excuse our inaction. I thank you for giving me the time today. I appreciate all you being here. I appreciate you letting me interrupt your conference to come here. I hope that we can continue to work together in the future. I know that some of you in this room have worked with my staff, Jessica Moore and Sarah Calaway, who's here. Please continue to do that, not only with my staff. The one way to help really get things done on Capitol Hill, especially with an issue like this that might not be as in the forefront of the newspapers, is to make sure that you are involved with our staffs on the committees, to make sure that when we move forward with our appropriations process, we're spending the money the right way. It's getting to the right places and the people on the committees that are going to exact change. I'm not just talking about Republicans, I'm talking about Democrats as well, that this is important enough for you to spend your time walking the halls of Congress to get up there and express your point of view. If you don't do that, nothing is going to happen. If you just think that this is going to happen because it's the right thing to do, I'm telling you you're wrong. You have to work the halls of Congress. You have to go up there and meet with the staff members of the State and Foreign Ops Subcommittee on Appropriations, the Foreign Relations Committee in-house and then also on the Senate side. If you do that and if you make your arguments imperative that we do not drop the ball in this next administration, we can at least give the South Sudan the resources that they need to be able to maybe have a glimmer of hope to move forward. If we don't, then it's just not going to happen and we're all wasting our time here today and I don't think any of you want that. So it's been a pleasure to be here with you all. Again, thank you Nancy for letting me come here today and I appreciate all that you all are doing. Thanks very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Congressman and it's sound advice and we've appreciated the work of the Sudan Caucus in the Hill for many, many years. I'm going to take just a couple more questions. I have one that I'm going to come back to the staff from our webcast people about what is going on. We talked a lot about top-down diplomacy, what's going on on the ground, grassroots, civil society. Is there any sources of resistance going on at that level Justin? You may be able to talk to this or others as well. Let me take a couple more comments and questions. Mr. Ambassador, please. Good morning everybody. First of all, let me thank Nancy and Ambassador Prince Lyman for this wonderful session. I also have to thank our colleagues here on the podium. I will not talk long because there are a lot of people who are throwing in some questions. I will just make my little comments. The situation in Sudan needs attention from all of us, the international community and South Sudanese people. What is going on here doesn't please anybody. If so, I think the peace agreement that has been signed was a work of everybody. The region and the U.S. with its allies in the European Union, the Chinese, the Russians and everybody were hard to achieve this peace agreement. I think it is only the peace agreement if it is supported internationally, as you all say, that will save the country. Other than that, it's going to be bad for the country. Then the international community will come in with a very big bill trying to save the situation. I agree with John when he said that diplomacy has to be stepped up. Yes, the region might be busy with other programs. Every country in the region has its own problems, but the United States has a leverage, as all of you mentioned here. The Republicans supported the CPA and they brought the CPA. The Democrats supported the referendum. President Obama and his team brought the independence. I agree. South Sudanese also paid high price to get this country. So we need also to support diplomacy. Second, I think the envoy, Ambassador Booth, has done a great job in this regard. By suggesting that we change the envoy, we'll bring in somebody else. That person will take a long time for him to grab the issues and know the people and all this. So let's support the current envoy that is there and is going to be there when the next administration is going to be in. So changing the envoy now will not help. The near one will take time for him to understand the issue. So the legacy of Obama includes the independence of South Sudan. And this is also by the support of the American people. Yes, we agree that there are tribal sentiments there and there. It is not one side thing. And this is something that the international community should also help the government to address this situation by working with the opposition and working with the government. It is not one side thing. The war in Equatoria was transferred there by the opposition. Before then, there was nothing of that kind in Equatoria. But when the opposition transferred the war to Equatoria, these were these kind of things it meant. So we have to do that and work very hard to do that. I think the power sharing now in the government is according to the agreement. The new IO leadership was not selected by President Salafo. It is the IO that remain in Yuba nominated taban to take place of ring machar. So if there is any kind of reconciliation within IO, that is not the business of government. But the government is also working to see it with that. The reconciliation that you talk about the possible element is done. We need a reconciliation. That is something that all of us, we need to work on. So reconciliation is very important. So thank you very much, Ambassador. I know there are a lot of people that want to contribute. But I thank the panel for their insight. But the government, the international community, the interest groups so that we address this situation. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Appreciate it. Time is running out. And I want to come back on two questions to the panel before we have to depart. First is Cameron Hume's very important point about how you bring the reality of this to the table in the UN and elsewhere and the power of doing that. Second, the question that raised by one of our webcast people about to what degree is our grassroots and community efforts underway to counter this tendency toward ethnic warfare? Can that be strengthened or are they being undermined? So I'll let you, Peggy. Justin, let me ask you to start. Pick up that last one in particular if you can. Yeah, I mean, that in particular in terms of civil society, all of their efforts are being undermined, unfortunately. You know, this, what we're seeing is they've put the problem and we have to, I think, address that one way or the other. But I think that one of the voices that should be elevated are women's groups in the country. I remember being in EAA in April and they were the only ones who were able to speak out because they had kind of a separate role in society and they had this, they had kind of a history of being able to cut across a tribal line, ethnic line. And I think that under the peace deal, women's groups had an important part, but, you know, they've been given token acknowledgement and basically pushed aside by diplomats. And I think one of the most, one of I think the most interesting suggestions is one that the UN Human Rights Commission made when they visited two weeks ago and they said, look, I think that we should have women from these displacement camps come and sit in on these high level meetings because I think, you know, that could give a sense of, you know, what's really happening on the ground that I think we're all missing. You know, I struggle with that to really kind of tell the story of civilians. I'll make three quick points also about, you know, kind of recommendations that we can do with the U.S. Security Council. We are past the time of creating options to walk this back. I think we have to be now talking about playing defense. And we have to, I think there's a need for the U.S. to push to raise the limit for peacekeepers in the country and push for the RPF. There just isn't enough troops there. The UN mission in New York should make sure that the SRHG and the force commander both know what the agency plans are when they are attacked because they will be and what circumstances they will respond. Those should be played out many times because this will become an issue in the next coming weeks, in the next coming months if this trend continues. And of course, on the ground, the UN mission in South Sudan, there really is no excuse not to have peacekeepers in YAY. We've highlighted it as a risk for genocide. And peacekeepers should be more aggressive and layer another troubled spot. And I think that every peacekeeper should know exactly under the circumstances that they can use force. And those peacekeepers that don't use force should be highlighted as we saw the peacekeepers in Balakal and the peacekeepers in July who didn't use force when they should have. So, yeah, back to you guys. Okay. And then we're going to ask you to briefly, each one of you take a minute before we're thrown out of the room and then we'll move. And I should say, by the way, because the time is so constrained, we're going to assemble up on the upper floor, up the stairs and continue informally the conversation. So please do that and others will show the way up the stairs. And then we can continue the conversation. But for this purpose, if I could ask each of you to briefly make comments. Thanks, Peyton. That's fine. I'll just pick up briefly on a point that Justin made. And I think, one of the things that we've learned I think through several decades of experience with peacekeeping and with development and humanitarian interventions is they can't succeed unless there's a workable political framework for them to do so. So I think certainly the time for technical interventions and the urgency is just sort of saying is very critical. And I think that directly links as well to a point that Congressman Rooney just made, which is that particularly in the world of finite resources, when there is not a political and governing infrastructure and partner in South Sudan with whom to work, those resources can't be invested and won't. And one of the most consistent responses the panel has received to its reports from donor governments is precisely that. Why would we continue to invest money in a political process and a political infrastructure in a governing framework that is not yielding results? And to the contrary is leading to the continued predations against the people of South Sudan. And so I think it's a fundamental question that needs to be answered both on the peacekeeping front and on the assistance front. And finally, I think I would just underscore that there's never going to be a moment, as Cameron said, where you just sort of say, and now the genocide has begun. And it's important. I think we've gotten ourselves to a position where we think if Juba is stable, then the real violence hasn't kicked off. The real violence has kicked off. It may not have reached Juba yet, but in the Equatories and Unity and elsewhere, our threshold for declaring the moment is now is not just about the capital. That's not where most South Sudanese live. And it's not, even if it's not the epicenter of the violence at the moment, it's not necessarily indicative of what most South Sudanese are experiencing. So thank you again. Thanks, Cameron. So just to wrap up and actually borrow from what Ambassador Hume said earlier, I think we cannot wait for a Shreber Nitsa moment in South Sudan. The Shreber Nitsa moment was the failure of UN peacekeeping and it took it more than a decade to recover from that. What ended that war was the combination of diplomacy and military power. There was an agreement that there were safe zones. Those safe zones were violated repeatedly. And so we've seen similar instances in South Sudan. So it begs for the formula, I think, that John has helped to lay out, which is this idea of robust diplomacy backed up by very real and robust, not just the threat of force, but potential force. And I don't mean military force. There's lots of different kinds of force and we've talked about it here today. Here in Congressman Mooney, I'm asking myself, why isn't there a codelle going to Juba before the end of the year? Because there will be a transition in our government, but there's going to be a lot of continuity within the Congress. And so I'll say on the record now that I would sponsor that codelle to Juba, because I think it's incredibly important, again, that we not allow there to be a vacuum. And of all the ideas that have been put on the stage here today, I think we have to do all of them at the same time. I think we can't think of these things as one-offs or as some kind of sequence we need to start all of them immediately and with great urgency. So, thank you. Let's go ahead, please. I wanted to amplify what Peyton said, which is that the real violence has kicked off. And the sad reality in South Sudan is that's not just the fact of the past few weeks. It's actually the reality of the past three years. Human rights watch has over the course of the past three years, and actually in the long war before documented serious war crimes and acts that would amount to crimes against humanity. And all of this has occurred in an incredible vacuum of impunity, a lack of justice, and accountability. And so when coming to the question of what those folks at the grassroots have been asking for, and they ask for it consistently, is an opportunity to have their stories heard and to see perpetrators brought to justice. And when President Obama is considering his legacy, I think one last element is the one element of the peace deal that we can't afford to let go of, and that's the hybrid court for South Sudan, which includes a pledge from the government side, the opposition side, the African Union side, and the international community to come and step into that gap and give South Sudanese victims the chance to have their day in court. And we can't forget the importance of that as well. Thanks very much, and John, four points. Very quick. First, Ambassador Hume, if I had my glasses on, I would have known you're there, and I would have said you should send you as the envoy. I'll never forget our work together with Ambassador Holbrook back in the day. I agree. If satellite imagery is actually connected to a major push, then it's extremely effective. If you just throw it out there and say, gee, isn't this bad? Somebody should do something. That's what I'm talking about is completely irrelevant. Second, the ambassador's point, I just want to clarify, I don't mean changing the envoy. I think Ambassador Booth needs to continue to work and do his work. I'm talking about supplementing it with a high-level representative straight from the President saying this is a major important stuff and having some kind of bridge to the next administration, somebody who's not perceived as a lame duck, somebody who has the potential for continuing, obviously someone who has strong bipartisan support. Third, for the record, I just want to respond to something Representative Rooney said, though he's not here unfortunately, just about Ambassador Power. She doesn't decide what and when to introduce at the Security Council. She's tirelessly pushed for more action, but she's part of a larger administration. I was best man at her wedding, and that makes me the honor attendant, so I have to defend her honor when it's a question. I'm not saying that Representative Rooney did that, but it is a common refrain one hears that why isn't she doing this? Well, because there's a president, it turns out. Fourth, speaking of that president, this is, I believe, I truly, truly believe, and it's the word, the L word's been used a few times, that this is a legacy issue. Certainly, in 1994, no American would have thought that the thing that haunted and mattered most to President Clinton after his presidency was 100 days that took place in Rwanda, but it is to this day. And so, I do think that if things happen and it isn't addressed, this will be something very similar for this president. You think about how President Obama was instrumental in establishing the Atrocities Prevention Board. I think about, as a senator, how much of an advocate he was against the genocide in Darfur. I think about how he's been so deeply involved in discussions around atrocities. I've had a number of chances to meet with him during his presidency and how knowledgeable he is about these things. His diplomacy was key, and I think Ambassador Lyman can confirm this because Princeton was deeply involved in it as well, but his president's diplomacy was key in September 2010 and throughout the end of that year in ensuring that a peaceful referendum occurred so that the will of the South Sudanese, not so that the United States could support independence in South Sudan, so that the will of the South Sudanese people could be realized. That was always U.S. policy. I don't know why people completely misrepresent what the United States and what many of the activists were pushing for. We were pushing for a chance for the South Sudanese people to determine their future. And I think, given all that, it is time for President Obama to act. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thanks to all the panelists. I apologize. We didn't have more time for Q&A's discussions here, but as I said, if we can, those who would like to, we'll continue informally upstairs and people will show the way. But I want to thank the panel. I want to thank Nancy very much for leading this effort and for Congressman Rooney who has left already. But for all of you attending, all of you concerned, thank you very much. We're going to continue to all work on this and we'll be focusing on it for some time to come. Thank you again. Thank you very much.