 Good morning everyone. My name is Akon Aguengong and I'm the host of this program today. Let me take this opportunity to thank Channel 17 for hosting this show today and joining me today is Abram Akenya Wollich. Akenya Wollich is a co-founder of the People Coalition for Civil Action, PCCA, and also the signatory to the PCCA declaration that happened this year. A Wollich is a former director of the Saad Institute, the only highly ranked think tank in South Sudan, and he's also a former coordinator of the South Sudan National Dialogue secretariat. He is also a former head of the secretariat for the government negotiation team in Rome, when the government delegation was negotiating with some rebel groups, and he's also a former board member of the South Sudan National Revenue Authority. Also in his credential he is also a former duke director for policy planning at South Sudan Ministry of Defense, and he's also a former chairman of the Sudanese community in Vermont, our community here in Vermont, and he's a founding board member of the Association of African Living in Vermont, also a non-profit organization here in Wellington, Vermont. And the president of Sudan Development Foundation is a non-profit organization that does offer services in South Sudan, and he's also a former president of Aliyab community here in the United States, so a lot of leadership experience. Abram is here to brief the Burman audience, American audience, and audience around the world about the situation in South Sudan, and also about his organization that he has founded, the People's Coalition for Civilation, and the declaration that they have met recently. So, Mr. Awolec, welcome to the show, and the floor is yours. Thank you so much, brother Akal, for an introduction. Just one quick clarification. Obviously, I was a deputy coordinator for the South Sudan National Dialogue Secretariat. Dr. Lawlai Chweg was the coordinator. I am delighted to be here to brief the people of Vermont on matters related to South Sudan. It has been now a practice when I come here. I usually love to brief the people of Vermont on what is going on in South Sudan. And if the people in Vermont can remember, when we came here in 2001, formerly as Lost Boys, we told the story of what was going on in the Sudan. The civil war that took place, that led to massive displacement of people, particularly the young and accompanied minors, that later on became the Lost Boys. That civil war was the longest ongoing civil war in Africa at the time. And we were resettled here by the United States after we have spent considerable number of years, over a decade, in refugee camps. And when we came, we were resettled across the United States. And we told our story of the horrific events that were happening in the Sudan at the time. And based on that story that we told, the American people overwhelmingly wrote to their representatives across the United States to plead with the government of the United States to take action on the Sudan. And at that time, President George W. Bush had just taken office and he immediately went to action. And so on the 6th of September 2001, he appointed the former Senator for Missouri, Senator John Denforth as a special envoy to Sudan. And his mission was to try to find a way to resolve that conflict. And Senator Denforth did very well. He went and put the team together, brought the parties to the negotiation table, and secured an agreement that would allow humanitarian aid to go to places that were denied and that would secure ceasefire and commit the parties to the negotiations. And he followed this with the passage, despite the fact that America was involved in a war on terrorism after September 11 attack on the United States. President Bush still found time and interest to pursue the peace process in the Sudan. And so in October 2002, the Sudan Peace Act was passed. And that act was an act of Congress that outlined clearly what the parties should do to secure peace in the Sudan and what the United States could do if the parties fail. And it committed $100 million per year to support the peace process. So that process culminated with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, which ended the longest civil war in Africa. And in the agreement, there was an important provision, which was that the people of South Sudan would be given an opportunity to vote in a referendum to decide whether to become an independent state or to be part of the unity of Sudan. And that was a significant achievement with the support of the United States and our support, having awakened the American people to the events that were happening in the Sudan. And President Obama then came into office and found that the peace agreement was being implemented. And there was a possibility that the referendum might not take place. And so in September 2010, he convened jointly with the former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon a conference on the Sudan, with the focus on the need to implement the peace agreement and to make sure that the referendum took place on time. And so on January 9th, 2011, the people of South Sudan voted on that referendum. Many of us here in the United States participated in that election in that referendum, which was supported then by IOM here in the United States and other places. And our people voted overwhelmingly when the results were announced on the 31st of January, 2011. It was overwhelming support for the independence of South Sudan. And that is what happened. South Sudan became an independent country. Now, after South Sudan became an independent country, many of us who came to the United States had the opportunity to be educated, felt that we needed to return home to help with the building of our country. And I was one of those people who made that decision. And I returned to South Sudan in May 2011, two months before independence. And I got involved in the activities which my colleague, Carl, has just introduced, working initially for the Ministry of Defense on the policy planning side, and later on working with the SET Institute, which is also a policy institution to try to help the government to institute policies that will make South Sudan a stable and prosperous society. Now, in 2013, December 2013, there was a violent conflict that broke out between the leaders of South Sudan. The violence was essentially a power struggle within the ruling party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, SPLM. And that power struggle saw the president and his former deputy president, vice president fighting. And that fighting essentially led to massive displacement of people and a lot of destruction of property and killing of people. And since then, South Sudan has not been a very stable country. There has been a lot of humanitarian crisis, a lot of human right abuses, a lot of suffering from poverty-related causes, as well as internal conflicts among communities, fuel also by this same political violence. And so efforts have been made by the international community and the regional bodies, specifically the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, EGOT, with the support of the African Union and the United Nations to try to secure peace. And so in 2015, there was a peace agreement which was signed, which led to the creation of a government of national unity. That peace agreement broke down in 2016. And the country returned to war. And that violence episode created massive divisions within the country and threatened to break down the whole country with the possibility of genocide. And so a number of us who were very concerned about these events proposed to the government the desire to have a national dialogue. And by December 2016, President Salva Keel initiated the South Sudan national dialogue to try to pull the people of South Sudan together to unite and to end the violence. That dialogue has been ongoing for four years. And it ended in November 2020. And it came out with very solid and strong resolutions that will enable the people of South Sudan to unite and to build a prosperous country. However, in those recommendations, there were some controversial recommendations based on the analysis of the people and their feelings. It was recommended that the president and his duty are the source of conflict and divisions within the country. And so when they have created a political stalemate, created a lot of paralysis within the system of government. So to move South Sudan out of crisis, there's these two people should step aside and allow the country to have democracy, to have elections, and to have new leaders. So these resolutions and recommendations were immediately rejected by President Salva Keelmeyadid and dismissed. So this is one of the issues that must be noted. Two, there is, in 2018, the party has made an agreement, a new agreement to form a government of national unity that will see the unification of armies so that South Sudan has one army. And that agreement is being implemented now, but it has stalled as well, because there is no political will. The government and the president are not willing to cede power and they are not willing to be held accountable. So they have refused to unify the army and they have refused to implement key provisions of the peace agreement. So in July this year, South Sudan ten years, it became a decade since South Sudan declared independence. We have never had an election, and we have only seen violence. So a group of us, members of civil society, made a declaration on the 30th of July, outlining what has been going wrong in the country for the last ten years, and charting a way forward how South Sudan should spend the next decade. And we noted that if we follow the current trajectory, South Sudan will fall apart within the next decade. And so we issued this declaration calling for the people of South Sudan to be more involved in the affairs of their country and to bring pressure to bear on the current leaders to accept the recommendation of the National Dialogue for President Selva Kirma Yadid and Riyadh Macha to step aside. And so in response, the government immediately took action to try to arrest us. So one of our colleagues, Quila Gurukul, was arrested. He's now in jail. He was arrested on the 2nd of August. He has not been taken to court or been charged formally. He has been now over 100 days since he was arrested. And the rest of us, arrest warrants, were issued. And so we went into a hiding until we managed, I managed in particular to sneak out of the country. And so I'm here now to inform the rest of the world that South Sudan has technically become a dictatorship and that the leaders of South Sudan are causing a lot of harm to the people of South Sudan, brutalizing them the same way they were treated by the Sudan government. And so we have decided to stand up to oppose this. And that is why the government want to silence us. So I think that is enough of a briefing for now. Thank you very much. Too much information. Thank you. Thank you so much, Abram, a wallet for your briefing today. Now, first of all, let me make two things. Let me make two more updates, if you will. One is if Channel 17 is happy to interview anybody, including somebody from the side of South Sudan government, if they want to come here to share their views. I need to put that out there. Second, I forgot to mention Abram Wollich, academic credentials. He has to be traced back to Burma here. Abram Wollich is a graduate of the University of Burma. He got a degree in anthropology and business. And then he also went to graduate school at Maxwell's School of Citizenship and got a master's degree in public administration, the number one MPA program in the world. So he's a student of government. I thought I would mention that. So let me go into questions. What does people's coalition for civil actions intend to accomplish? What is your goal and how is PCCA different from other movements, if you will, or from other organizations that have tried to affect changes in South Sudan before? Well, the people's coalition for civil action has the objective of mobilizing the people of South Sudan to take peaceful democratic action to effect change. And the reason why we believe that change is only possible with the mobilization of citizens is that the parties that have been involved in the struggle over power have been unable to mobilize citizens and they have been able to use force to try to bring change. And this has been very destructive to our country. So we believe that the most positive change that could happen in South Sudan is to mobilize all the citizens of South Sudan across different divides of the society, ethnic, regional, religious and political affiliations to join forces to call for a new day in South Sudan using peaceful means, peaceful means of resistance. For example, uprising, popular uprising, or let's say popular protests or boycotting or sit-in to essentially put pressure on the government to accept democratic transformation and to accept elections and to accept the fact that the country really needs new leadership. So the difference between us and the other parties, we are nonviolent entity and we reach across all the divides. The parties that have been there in South Sudan have been able to mobilize their supporters along ethnic lines, which has actually bitterly divided the country. And so we think that achieving democracy involves building movements from the grassroots up across all the divides. And if you did that, then you are achieving two things. You are achieving political change, but you are also building the nation that you need to build, a nation that has been torn apart by the current political ambitions and political leadership in the country. So that needs to be rebuilt again. You need to build a sense of a nation by focusing on issues, issues that affect the society instead of focusing on personalities and on issues of leadership only. You have to focus on issues that matter to the people of South Sudan, many of which have been outlined in the South Sudan national dialogue resolutions. And if the government were to take that document and implement it, then the reforms that are needed and the change that is desired could have been achieved by now. So it is the resistance of the leadership to these proposed changes by ordinary citizens that made us to believe that the only way the citizens can impose their will on the leaders is to mobilize and rise up and to challenge status quo. Thank you. Thank you. Good. So following on that is is how widely is PCCA supported by the South Sudan population? Is your organization popular? And and and that's that's it. Is your message being received by the citizenry? The way you wanted, the way you expected. Absolutely. We have an overwhelming support among the people at the grassroots in South Sudan. Among the political elites, we have a lot of support. Within the armed forces, we have a lot of support. Among the people in diaspora, we have a lot of support. Even these political organizations who have been opposed to the government, but they are using violent means to pursue change, they are very supportive of our approach. And many of them have told us that this is the right way to to to bring change in a state of destroying the country through violence. We should have a conversation in the state. And so we tested this popularity on the 30th of August when we set the 30th of August this year as a day of national awakening. And throughout the cities and towns of South Sudan, people were preparing, planning to come out in mass numbers to to express their support for the agenda that we have put forward. And so in response, the government massively deployed soldiers and threatened to kill civilians. And so the civilians decided to protest in a state by not showing up to work for a number of days. So so that was that was how we test our popularity. And I think the way the government responded and the way people responded shows that we have made an impact on the ground and and our message is being well received. Furthermore, there have been a number of protests or strikes that took place, which have never been experienced before in South Sudan. For example, the oil workers in a unity state, they went on a strike demanding that they would be treated fairly for the first time. And recently, they went again on the strike for the second time, as well as doctors, doctors and medical professionals have been on the strike a number of times. And so so that there is there is a new environment now as a result of what we are trying to do. People are beginning to speak out non violently. And that seemed to resonate very well with what we are saying. Thank you. Thank you. Now, I will get to the economy very briefly, but but let's let pursue this a little bit. You and I probably believe that we were we were brought up in the SPLM SPLA that was the system we believe in as as as young people. And so with your near model of PCCA, you are essentially saying we have to to effect changes in South Sudan outside the SPLM SPLA or outside the SPLM. What happened to SPLM? Is SPLM in charge? Can can the changes that you hope to accomplish through your government? Can those changes not be effected through the SPLM being the body that liberated South Sudan? Thank you very much. That is a very important question. Definitely, we are in our DNA. We are SPLM. We are we are people that were programmed by the SPLM to take the mantle after the liberation struggle. And and so we're brought up thinking that the SPLM was the right movement to bring change in the in South Sudan. Now, where is the SPLM? It is sad to say and to inform our colleagues wherever they are that the SPLM is dead. The SPLM is no longer in charge. President Selva Kirma, he added as effectively killed the SPLM and supplanted with with the National Congress Party, the NCP. All the SPLM leaders that you know, those of Daniel Awed, Kuala Manang, James Waniga, and other members of political bureau, those of Manga, Poj, and others have been completely sidelined. The SPLM political bureau doesn't make decisions anymore. So, so, so the SPLM is effectively dead and that is actually one of our grievances. Because how do you control power as a citizen? You control power through your political party, political party championing your ideas, your aspirations, and you have to be active in the party to pursue those. So, if you no longer have that party, then you have lost one way of controlling power as a citizen. Second, the other way you control power is through your parliament. We know that we no longer elect our MPs. They are appointed and so they are not loyal to us anymore. And the party, the parliament is not independent. It it serves at the behest of the president. And so, neither the SPLM nor the citizens control the party, the parliament. And so we have lost that. The other way you can secure your interest as a citizen is to have a professional independent army that has also been effectively undermined by the president. And his personal militia has been empowered to protect his seat. And so it is it is terrible news to deliver to our colleagues who are sitting here, that they are somehow members of the SPLM. When SPLM has long been relegated, and it is in a dustbin as we speak, it is somebody called Tood Kew and his colleagues from the former NCP who have taken over South Sudan. And they are wearing an SPLM clothes, but inside they are not SPLM. They are implementing the NCP. So technically, NCP runs South Sudan and also it runs the Sudan as we speak. So that is the bad news that I have to deliver. Yes, I could pursue that, but we are running short on time. But let me let me let me go better quickly about the economy. South Sudan seemed to be a country that is endowed with oil, with arable lands, and a lot of oil money over the past many years, since the signature of CPA to present a lot of resources. Oil money has been funneled into South Sudan. Has that money been used to develop the country? And if not, what happened to those resources? That is also another bad news that I have to deliver that South Sudan is is highly corrupt as a country. The money has all been squandered. The 20 billion that we got from 2005 to 2011 is gone without a trace. There are no roads. There is no running water in Cuba right now. And there has not been electricity. Except for this past year is when we first have electricity in Cuba, which is still being generated through generators. And there are no hospitals or modern schools. So the money has vanished. It has been it has been squandered. And from 2011, after independence to now, the oil money is gone. It has disappeared. It has been being used by individuals who have been chosen by the state and rewarded with that money so that they can continue to support the government. Of course, the rest of the money is being spent on wars, you know, buying weapons and money that is weapons that are being used to destroy the country. So technically, the resources that we have have disappeared. We have nothing to show for them. And the country has been in public now. And one of the statistics that you should know is that when poverty was being assessed in 2009, it was found that half of our population was below the poverty line. As we speak now, the population below the poverty line is close to 90 percent of the population. So we are a lot poorer as a country than we were before we were a country. And that is a very, very unfortunate statistic to share. This doesn't mean that everybody in South Sudan is poor. There are those who are extremely rich. They have a lot of money. They have mansions everywhere. They have cars. And they live luxurious life. But majority of citizens right in Cuba are in dire poverty, as we speak, including some of the generals and even ministers. They are very, very poor. And so there is no economy to speak of. We have no plan. Economic planning doesn't exist. There is no public budget. Budgets are made, and then they are basically shelf. And it is the president and those around him who distribute money. They choose who gets money, which institution gets money. And money goes to those institutions that are intended to support the president's stay in power. All other institutions that are meant to say public interest are staff of cash. They don't get any cash. So essentially, you could technically say South Sudan is essentially an enterprise of the president right now. It's not a public entity. That's what I can tell you about the economy. Now, so thank you. I will quit this. This question is, you mentioned the president, Salpa Kier. You mentioned General Kuala Manang Yook. You mentioned General Awed. I would add General Wani Yiga. And many other senior members of the SPLM. You are telling them to go home. That's basically what you say. And they would come back and say, we spent 21 years of our lives liberating this country. So we never supported ourselves. We never planned for the retirement. And you young people are asking us to go home. Is that a fair ask for our generation to tell them to go home when they spend their entire lives or their young, their formative life liberating this country? Well, you know, that's a fair question. And in all honesty, you know that we have a lot of respect for these men. They liberated our country. We don't question how they became leaders. And we don't even question that they should continue to be leaders. The problem, what bring the challenge we have with them is that they are unable to deliver. And you don't liberate a country and then you impoverish it. You liberate a country so that you can make it prosperous. You can make it just. You don't liberate a country and subject it to the same treatment from which you liberated people. People were liberated because they were subjected to being treated as second or third class citizens in their own country. They were not given opportunities to prosper economically. They were not allowed to participate, meaningfully, in political affairs of their country. We are doing exactly just that. So would it be a contradiction on our part if we were able to oppose Sudanese government on the same conditions and allow our own leaders to do exactly the same and we keep quiet? It would be a total contradiction. And so what we should say is that we have given them 16 years to prove themselves and to make themselves rich, which they have done. They have handsomely paid themselves. And so what we are saying is, instead of you doing it so that the whole thing collapse completely, why don't you give it to us now so that we can erect it? Otherwise, if they continue at the same rate, the whole thing will just collapse on our head. And that is what we are trying to prevent. And so if there was a possibility that they could reform, which is what the National Dialogue was trying to do, is to say, okay, this is what we want. Can you do it? They don't want to do it. The agreement also said, okay, this is what would be good for the people of South Sudan. Can you do it? They don't want to do it. And so they just make it so hard for us to be quiet, even as we respect them. I think enough is enough. The time has come for them to see that they are actually, they are doing more harm to the country they liberated than they actually think. They are causing so much harm to us, to our children, and to themselves, including their own legacy. So this is what prompted us. Otherwise, if they are willing to change and they are willing to work with us so that the country can be brought out of the current crisis and so that justice is served, then we can work with them until they reach that time where they can no longer serve and they can face out and then we come in. But they are not allowing us to do that. So it is the fear that the whole thing would collapse on our head that prompted us to ask for them to step aside right now. Okay. Thank you. Again, Ibrahim, we are running short on time. I wish that we could have more. So I will wrap things into one question so that you can make your concluding statement. And so two things that come up, and this is it. I'm not going to ask another question after these years. There is a criticism that you have been in the government for 10 years. You could make an argument that you were outside the government working for the think tank. So you have been in the system for that long time. So why did it take you so long to take this action now? So that's one. The second that you would add to this eventually is what do you want to accomplish coming to the U.S. here? What are you looking for from the U.S. government or from the diaspora or from Vermont as your home state? So that would be something you could add. So address that criticism and then come to the point of why are you, what do you want to accomplish for your organization? Thank you. These are beautiful questions. Thank you very much for that. And obviously it is a relevant and legitimate question. I have been working in South Sudan for the last 10 years. And whether I like it or not, my organization, the Set Institute is there to advise the government on public policy. And so you could argue that, yes, I have been part of the system. I cannot deny that. But while being part of that system, I have been working on the public side, the demand side, demanding that things are done. We have made a lot of policy proposals and our institution has published over 200 articles as policy advice to the government. We have held over 200 public events where we have policy dialogue with the government and civil society and citizens. And we have made numerous recommendations on how things can be improved. So that is one track that we have been following. We hit the wall because we have found that there is no political will to move the country forward. Every single suggestion that we have made, some of it has been accepted and implemented. Some of it has been neglected. And so then we came up with other innovative ideas, including the national dialogue, which I have said the last four years of my stay in South Sudan have been spent on this. And we made a lot of policy recommendations, suggestions, and they have not been accepted. As well, as I have mentioned, I was part of the government delegation trying to negotiate with the whole out groups so that they can join the peace so that we can develop our country. And through all those efforts, there is one silver lining. And that is there is lack of political will to move the country forward. And that is directly coming from the President himself. President Salva Kirmayad, it is unwilling to move South Sudan forward. And so it took me this long because I had always hoped that changes can be affected through the system. But I have been proven wrong, especially with the last event of the national dialogue being rejected after we have invested massive amount of resources, human man hours, and financial capital. And people of South Sudan really honestly assessed the state of affairs in their country and made proposals, meaningful proposals to be implemented. And the peace agreement also took too much resources and effort, all to see them not being implemented. And so, yes, it takes you that long to realize that these are all these efforts that you have hoped would lead to change have hit a wall. And so what do you do? Do you bury your head in the sand? Or do you say, folks, something fundamentally is wrong? We are not going anywhere. And so this is what I have done. I have come to the realization that all these efforts that I have made using different mechanisms, the reform I tried to effect through the National Revenue Authority could not go anywhere. I had to, we were kicked out because the reforms that we initiated were to the public interest, but those who did not want public interest resisted and the president did not stand with us. He stood with those who want to keep the status quo. And so I have tried in my personal capacity, in my institutional capacity to try to effect change internally. But I have hit a wall because there is lack of political will. So that is why I'm speaking out now. On the second question, which is, what do I want? It is an important question. Three things that I want to achieve with my visit here in the United States and in Burma in particular. One, I want to raise awareness that the country that the United States supported and the country for which the lost boys, many of us have worked countless hours to raise awareness among the American people to get their government to act, has failed us, has failed both the American people and the people of South Sudan. It has failed to implement the democratic vision that was set forth, the development vision that was set forth, the unity vision that was set forth. And so people need to know that that what we had worked together on has failed and it has failed because its leadership has different ideas. President Salva Kirwan has established, technically established a dictatorship in South Sudan, which is inconsistent with the values that we have learned here and with the values that we learned through our culture. Our society is a democratic society, is an open society. And so creating a dictatorship is totally something that doesn't go in line with what we believe. And it is exactly what we oppose with the Sudan government. So people need to know that too. Now that it has become a dictatorship and it has become authoritarian and is not serving the interests of the people of South Sudan, what do we do? For my fellow South Sudanese, we have to speak out. We have to fight for the right of our people to realize their democratic aspirations. And the people of South Sudan who live here in diaspora, particularly the lost boys, they have power. They can speak with one voice to demand change in South Sudan. They can also speak with one voice to demand a new policy direction from the United States. And we are asking the United States government to pay more attention to South Sudan. South Sudan is slipping away. South Sudan is collapsing. South Sudan is becoming authoritarian. And so the policy should not continue as that of saying, let them do their own thing. No, South Sudan cannot do its own thing. South Sudan needs support. The people of South Sudan need support. And the leaders need to be put under pressure to do the right thing, either to step aside or to allow an election to take place. And lastly, when you create a civil right movement, a pro-democracy movement in places like South Sudan, where all the resources, anybody who has resources in South Sudan is linked to the government, you are a staff. You cannot get any financial support to build that movement, to build that democratic movement and to exercise the right of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. And so I have also come here to mobilize support, both financial and political support among the people of South Sudan who are here and also among the American people and among the American leaders across the country. So those are the three objectives on my trip. And I'm going to continue to go around the country to engage policy makers. And so for Vermont in particular, this is my base. This is the South Sudanese community here, the Africans and the people of Vermont statewide. This is my base. I need their support. I'm threatened as an individual. My family is also threatened because the government blocked my personal accounts, blocked the accounts of my organization and is seeking to either arrest or kill me. And so I need to take a particular this moment to actually thank you, Akal and George Cross and Senator Lee, who stood up during the hide of the crisis I was in to speak and demand that the government of South Sudan doesn't cause harm to me and the colleagues that were there with me. And that support was tremendous and it has enabled me to come out and that's why I'm here now. Otherwise, I would have been in harm's way. So I want to thank Senator Lee and his staff, Catherine Long and Amalia and Tim Risser and others who stood up during that time to support me. I still need that support from the people of Vermont so that we can propagate the same freedom, the same democracy that is here. We need to bring that home. And that is what I'm doing. Thank you very much. Thank you, Abraham. What a great interview. One last thing. Revolution is risky, as you have shared. Your career being a managing director for the side is gone. You resign. You are in hiding. You are engaged in this revolutionary or civil action effort to try to bring democratic unions to Sudan. Why does it have to be you? Do you regret taking this risk? Absolutely not. I would do it again. I have, as a young person and you are part of this story called, we were part of the revolution. We were part of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the SPLM. And we had to give up our childhood for the cause. And we had to live in his quality conditions in refugee camps for the cause. And when we came here in the United States, we did not spare a minute to tell the world what was going on in our country. And so we have directly contributed to the liberation of our country. And we are founders of South Sudan. And so it would be a great contradiction if I were to be silent or be afraid or care about my career when things are going wrong in our country, the country that caused us so much in lives and in opportunities. And so I don't regret at all. I would do it again and again if opportunities, if events like this continue to occur. And so I'm willing to make sacrifices, painful as they may be, and bad for my family as they may be. Who else could do this? If it wasn't me or I'm pretty sure if you were in Dubai, you would do exactly what I'm doing right now. You would do exactly what I'm doing right now. And you have done that already. You were among the first people who came out and demand that I must not be harmed. And so technically you are a revolutionary and you're alright for that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you, Megan, for extending time for us to complete this interview because it is very important for Burmaan audience to know this. Abram will be here for another weeks and he will be traveling around the U.S., engaging people, meeting policymakers, meeting the diaspora community. So for Burmaan audience who would like to chat with Abram, he's going to, he's still going to be in town for another week. He will be driving around the city, trying to reconnect with the area. So thank you so much, Channel 17. Thank you, Megan, for this opportunity for Abram to address Burmaan test and American Today on Channel 17. My name is Akon Agwekngong and I'm the host of this show for today. So we will wrap it up and the conversation will continue another time. Thank you. Thank you very much, Daniel. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Bye.