 Good morning everybody and welcome to the US Institute of Peace. My name is Susan Stigant. I'm the director of the Africa program here and we're really delighted to have a room full of people who continue to care about South Sudan and how we can think about getting the country off of a path of violence and onto a path of more sustainable peace. And we have an excellent panel with us here in the room today. We have a colleague who's going to join us via Zoom and we also are live streaming this, so for those of you who are joining us online, welcome. You can follow us with the hashtag USIP South Sudan and we'll be taking questions through that platform as well. So for those of you who don't know USIP, USIP was founded by the US Congress in 1984 as an independent, non-partisan, National Institute dedicated to resolving violent international conflicts. And we do this by working in conflict zones around the world, linking analysis and policy, research and training and working with local partners. The foundation of our work is the knowledge that peace is possible. It's not easy. It requires significant action and over a long period of time, but it is possible. And one of the places where we do this is in Africa and for our Africa program, no place reminds us more about the horrific costs of war, but also the courageous efforts that are being made towards peace. So today, we're going to focus in a little bit on a country that I think many of you in the room are familiar with, a country that was born in 2011, that slid into a civil war in 2013, and where at least 400,000 people have been killed as a result of that war. This has resulted in the latest reports of 60% of the population facing food insecurity, the largest displacement of people since the Rwandan genocide, and ongoing indicators that the space for civil society, the space for the people who are truly working for peace, is incredibly constrained. And so just to name a few of those, those most recent indications that we've seen, in the last month, we saw the conviction of Peter Bjarre, Kirbina Wol and several others as a really strong indicator of the challenging space faced by civil society. At the same time, the recent report of the UN panel of experts brought forward evidence of continued concerns related to sanctions, as well as evidence that Agri Idri and Dong Samuel were killed. Similarly, in February 2019, the report of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan found that the continuing violence and human rights violations, including rape and sexual violence, may amount to war crimes. So too often, these violations are numbers, they're descriptions in a report, but for many people who are joining us today, these are colleagues, these are friends, these are family, and so I think to acknowledge the really horrific consequences of conflict and violence, I'd like to invite us to take a moment to acknowledge those who have been lost over the course of this war. But what brings us here today is not just an acknowledgement of that loss, but also an inspiration of the tremendous courage that people are showing against some of the hardest challenges that we face. So if we look back to the last several years, we've seen the revitalization of the peace agreement that is meant to get South Sudan on a path towards peace, led primarily by Uganda and Sudan. Now with the tectonic shifts that are taking place in the Horn of Africa, many people are questioning what role Sudan and Uganda can play to help to keep this peace process moving forward. And at the same time, we hear two narratives about the peace agreement. One narrative that says, this is an agreement, key people have signed, it helps to end the violence, and people should make use of that space to try to get the country back on a path towards peace. That it creates a little bit of a moment for those who are pushing for peace to make some traction. We hear another narrative that is maybe a luxury of a narrative here in Washington, that this agreement was never going to make things better in the country fundamentally. That these arrangements have been tried before and they have failed not once, but twice. And so why would we think that they would hold much less put the country on a path towards transformation? And fundamentally changing and improving the lives of South Sudanese. And so today, we're not going to try to judge which one is the right narrative or the wrong narrative, but just to acknowledge that there are different views about the path forward for the country of South Sudan. And to try to think through, how can we motivate, mobilize and animate this stalled peace process? So I now have the pleasure of introducing our panelists today. Immediately to my left, David Achwath, who's the founder of the Council on South Sudanese American Relations, and who has been leading an initiative with South Sudanese diaspora on dialogue. Morgan Simpson, who is the Deputy Director of Democracy International. Brian Adeba, who is the Deputy Director of Policy at the ENOUGH Project. And Mark Forello, who's the Senior Advisor at the Century Project. We're also joined by Dr. Emily Coyti, who participated in the negotiations of the revitalized agreement. And she also served on JMEK during the implementation of the original agreement. So I'm going to open it up to our panel. We'll have a bit of a conversation, and then we look forward to engaging all of you in the discussion. Last week, the United Nations issued a report on the humanitarian situation in the country, and indicated that 60% of the population, 7 million people, don't consistently have food to feed themselves. So this is one marker of what's happening in the country, but what is the overall feeling in South Sudan? And maybe I'll turn to Brian to start us off. Well, I think there is some optimism about the peace agreement. In that, the level of violence has subsided, and the cessation of hostilities agreement seems to be holding. However, there are many other concerns. Freedom of association is still an issue. Infringement on liberties in South Sudan by authorities and security agencies is still an issue of concern. But more importantly is the increase in cattle wrestling. And that's the next security threat for South Sudan. And the policymakers that are currently looking at drafting a new defense policy and all that have to look at that and identify it as a source of threat to the security of the country and has to be countered. The problem with cattle wrestling and its increase is the fact that it's being militarized at this particular point. It involves communities and it transcends the old ways of how it was carried out. In that right now the actors in it have sophisticated weapons. And there is evidence to suggest the involvement of politicians in the cattle wrestling. So those are some of the key issues coming up right now. David, does that match with what you hear as you talk to folks who are in South Sudan and to South Sudanese who are watching what's happening in South Sudan from the United States? Thank you, Susan. I agree with the Brian assessment of the situation. But I would just add that beneath the surface of the idea that there is no conflict in South Sudan, the violence has resided in Yuba right now. That message has actually gone to refugees camp and you have a great number of people from the camps running back to Yuba and other cities in South Sudan. And what I'm hearing from the ground is that has created an economic problem because there is no enough food for people to eat. And that actually led to so many young children on the street begging and actually stealing. So at the same time in the absence of hearing the voice, the sound of gun in the city, there is continuing crisis beneath the surface that is related to economic and food shortage. Dr. Emily, do you have any insights in terms of how people inside of South Sudan are seeing the situation right now? Thank you, Susan. Can you hear me? We can hear you well. Yes. Okay. So the feeling on the ground for most of the people is that here in Yuba is reduced violence. But there are other fears that are not necessarily related to the agreement per se. We have the rains that are on and of course there is impending famine with many lacking food and basics. Much as people returning from the refugee camps, they are not well aware of the challenges they could possibly face when they get back home. And when they arrive, then they realize that, oh, this is what we are facing. And then they arrive to places which do not necessarily have all the necessities for living a dignified life. We still have places in Upper Nile, even in the notorious that are civilian-owned ordinarily but are still occupied by the different armed groups. And as of today in the Ardamec meeting, the report from CitySum and the CDC was already showing that the government side itself has still occupied a good number of civilians and buildings and that going on, those are fears related to the agreement and also some that have highlighted that are not necessarily related to the situation of conflict. But generally there has been reduced fighting between the parties and that's a good sign. Thanks, Dr. Emily. I was looking back at an event we did almost two years ago with some South Sudanese activists. And someone then had said, you can't have dialogue when the guns are still singing and certainly reducing some of the level of violence because of the political conflict is progress, but the obstacles that remain are really significant. Morgan, you travel back and forth between the United States and Juba from the perspective of an organization that's implementing programming to support civil society. How do you see the situation in the country? Thank you. Yeah, I mean my colleagues have it exactly right. People are excited that it seems that violence has reduced. The economic situation however continues to pose serious problems for everyday life and local level conflicts still continue to be an issue. In terms of the peace agreement, I think there's sort of a general sense that extending the pretransitional period was the right decision but our partners are watching very closely to see that there's actually a concrete plan in place to make sure that the steps that weren't completed during the first part of the pretransitional period are actually completed this time. We've seen more movement in the agreement's implementation as compared to 2015 but some of the hardest things to implement in terms of security sector reform, creating the boundaries for the states, those things still haven't been implemented and our partners definitely want to see movement on those issues in the next few months. So let's turn to that a little bit in terms of the peace agreement itself. As you noted, the pretransition period has been extended for another six months. The full term of the agreement remains the same. And I believe that Jamec indicated that about 44% of the agreement had been implemented as people went into these negotiations. So I'm curious from this program that's being supported by the Voluntary Civil Society Task Force on the implementation of the peace agreement under the Peace Implementation Monitoring Initiative. So that's a mouthful. It's Pee-Me, P-I-M-I, and we can refer people to the website if they're interested in reading the details of the report but interested to hear a little bit more about how your partners are seeing the status of implementation, where are areas of progress, what are core gaps, and what are some of the fundamental barriers to making progress? I think, so as compared in particular to the 2015 agreement, as I said, the Task Force, the Pee-Me group, began their work under that agreement monitoring its implementation and really lack thereof and calling out sort of the failures to implement it. And sort of as a result of that, they have become very much engaged in the whole revitalization process and now the implementation of the revitalized agreement, I think we've seen a lot more civil society engagement in the process this time around, including there's a lot better representation of civil society, of academia, of women on the committees formed under the revitalized agreement, which is significant progress in their view and in our view. In terms of the barriers, like I said, the main things are the security sector reform, the, you know, the cantonment sites, the deoccupation, as Emily pointed out, of soldiers in civilian spaces, those are sort of some of the priority issues and the formation of states, I think that's one of the most controversial issues. And it's going to be very difficult for that to go through smoothly, but it needs to happen in order to be able to move forward with forming a government. I think the other thing that's particularly important is implementation of Chapter 5 in terms of the transitional justice mechanisms. That's a chapter that sees particular resistance to implementation because of its emphasis on accountability. But I think there are ways, particularly through civil society, to move forward with certain elements of it, in particular the CTRH, the Commission on Truth Reconciliation and Healing, moving forward with reconciling among the population of building a sense of nationhood beyond tribal lines that would at least help move forward in the transitional justice process without maybe immediately going to the hybrid court, which is definitely going to be difficult. Dr. Emily, you've observed and been involved in JMAC and in other phases of this peace agreement. Do you have any reflections on what some of the fundamental barriers are to going forward and where would you see the scorecard right now of where we stand? I can't give a very clear projection of what the scorecard is right now, but the situation, to me, it still doesn't give much hope given the time we are left with and we have to extend for six months. The barriers that we have at the moment is that there is... The NBTC is supposed to provide resources for a lot of work to be done during the pre-transitional period, and what we are seeing is that very little has been remitted for activities to be done. Until now, the report we got today is that canton main sites do not have the basics, they do not have water, they do not have food, and those are things that the soldiers will be cantoned with needs. And then one thing that people also don't talk about among us, the things that are really prerequisites before we think about November being possible for us to form a revitalized transition government of national unity is the fact that there is supposed to be some legislative reforms that are at the moment being undertaken spearheaded by the National Constitutional Amendment Committee. But what we are seeing is that the amendment being, for example, has been sent back. There is contention about some issues on the National Security Service Bill, and all these are very important for securing the space that is required for a revitalized transitional government of national unity to thrive and then for parties to be able to implement an agreement in a space that is in an environment that is conducive. And of course, the other things that Kolita talked about like canton main sites and the state's formation. And also the other thing is that there are commissions that are yet to be formed. At least we are glad that a few weeks ago, there was initiative taken to form the, to reconstitute the DDR Commission. And we are still awaiting for parties to be able to select among the nominees who different stakeholders and parties submitted to the NPTC. But much as IGAD had given a tentative time table for that to happen, we are also concerned that the parties are still not doing it with the agency that is required, ordinarily by today, not tomorrow, the first, the DDR Commission should have its inaugural meeting, the constituted DDR Commission. But that is not possible because until today we do not know who is the selected deputy chair and chairperson of the expected new commission. So all those are things that are there and parties do not seem to, they are not giving exact reasons as to why they are not able to do all these things, particularly the NPTC that is meant to spearhead all this work in the pre-transitional period. So it's still a green picture. Thanks, Emily. When we do work thinking about power sharing governments, we often make the observation that forming a power sharing government is only one step. It's not actually the objective and the outcome that you want. It is to form a government that can make and implement decisions effectively, which it strikes me if I'm going to be a little bit of the devil's advocate here. We're effectively getting committees and commissions in place slowly, by slowly, and that matters in the midst of a deeply divided context, but the ability to move those decisions forward seems to be lacking. Brian, I want to pick up on the point about security sector because this seems to be the question that everybody is focused on and there is tremendous energy thinking about what needs to be done to allow for security in Juba in particular that would open the space for SPLM IO in particular to come back. What are your thoughts about priorities in terms of security sector in these next six months and what needs to happen to move that ahead? Let me just touch on a few items in security sector reform. Notable in the process to reform the security sector as announced in the peace agreement is the absence or reference to the National Security Service of South Sudan, and that's very problematic. We know that the act that governs the National Security Service is quite oppressive. It has certain tenants in it that are an infringement on civil liberties. For instance, the act insinuates or suggests that if anyone is in needs custody, it's not the responsibility of the needs to feed them, for instance. It can also allow the needs to hold people indefinitely in custody. So those are very problematic items with reference to the legislation, the framework that governs the needs. The second problematic item about it is how the needs has emerged as a parallel army in the service of the president. And I don't want to say this because I'm being critical of the system. I think that genuinely if you look at what the system faced, there was a number of threats to it, internal and external. The internal threats came from civil society, from the public, that was angry at the infringement of civil liberties as announced in the constitution or stipulated in the constitution. The other threat, of course, was the physical threat posed by the insurrection. And so, given those two threats facing the system, it evolved the nature of the needs from information gathering and analysis to policing. So now we have a militarized needs. Its size remained unknown to the public for a long time until the UN panel of experts report came out. And lo and behold, we have a whole division, which is like 10,000 to 12,000 men under the service of the needs. The needs has its own procurement system. That's very different from the normal procurement system for the army. The needs on paper technically answers to the Ministry of National Security. In reality, it answers directly to the office of the president. That's where its budget is. The budget of the office of the president when audited is never made public. And so that presents a lot of issues in terms of oversight. The legislation says that the needs should be supervised by a committee in the National Legislative Assembly. Now, that has, there is very little evidence given some of the egregious acts that are attributed to the needs to suggest that it has ever been called to account. It's emerged as a very shadowy organization since the appointment of its leader that has never given a press conference. When compelled to speak to the public like recently when they released a number of political detainees, the spokespeople that were there, the needs spokespeople, prevented reporters from taking pictures. And we heard some reports that they wore masks. So this encapsulates a very significant problem going forward. And in the panel of experts report, we also got to learn that the needs does not consider itself as part of the security sector reform process. So if we're talking of reforming the security sector in the whole country and we have a whole division which is like 10,000 men and the South Sudanese Army has maybe like 120,000 people and has about eight or 10 divisions, eight divisions. And here we have an extra division at the service of the president. The president's own personal police, we have a problem going forward. And I think as the security sector review process is ongoing at the moment, it behooves of those who are participating in it to reflect a little and consider how they can go forward with bringing the needs into the fold. Otherwise, if we go ahead with this reform process and it has significant implications for the security of those who are going to come to Cuba from the opposition, from the armed opposition, who's going to provide security. They're talking of a joint force, 12,000. I read in the news recently that they want a force, a VIP force of about 12,000. Where does the news come into this? These are questions that deserve answers and we don't have them at this particular point. I think it's really interesting to think through how the questions that are being asked about how those who are returning to Cuba can be safe can open a space for a conversation about what can a security sector, what does the security sector need to look like in South Sudan so that people run, start again to run towards security officials rather than running away from them. Mark, I want to bring you into the conversation because we've been focused a little narrowly here but several analysts have made the point that we got to the revitalized agreement because the reality on the ground fundamentally shifted. In many ways, the government of South Sudan won the war but hasn't been able to win the peace. The agreement reflects a fundamental shift in the power dynamics. If we understand it in that way, I think this helps maybe to explain where we are in terms of implementation. You've done a lot of work to look at the economic sector and how vested and how closely tied the economic sector and the government are. Can you share some of the insights from your research on that and help us understand where we are? I think I'll probably add to the litany of issues here. We talked about security, political, humanitarian issues at play. What the research I have done at the Sentry has looked at the economics of the conflict itself. I'd like to say the Sentry looks under the hood of how the system itself is functioning and what we find is, as you mentioned, there's one side of the government which is in control of a lot of the economic resources and it's a problem, but on top of that, there's this sense in South Sudan that if you are in the political leadership, if you have the political levers, you then are in control of the economic levers. That makes being outside of the government a bigger risk than it might be otherwise. What we found is, in the oil sector, for example, NilePet is still not opening its books. The IMF just put out a report at the beginning of June where the number one source of revenue for the country is opaque. This sort of lack of transparency has led us to a belief that there should be a greater focus on the economic governance in the country, which I saw everyone's eyes just glaze over when I said economic governance. This is important because economic governance are the regulations, the institutions that guide and monitor a fair, transparent, accountable government. An economy. And a peace agreement built on a poor economic governance structure not only is bad for the economy, it makes growth harder, development harder, but within the South Sudan context actually makes violence more likely to come back. And so because of this threat that there is this cycle, we are concerned that the sort of unaddressed corruption risks undermining aspects of the peace agreement. Luckily, there is a chapter that is completely focused on this, but to no fault to the panelists or anyone, it's the last thing we're talking about. And that's a concern, I think, that we have. That chapter four, which has this framework for natural resources, for fiscal management, it's very complex, maybe purposely so to make it harder to implement, but it is very complex, but it has the infrastructure to be able to reform step-by-step how the economic system itself works. I think there's timing is right now to focus on it, as I think we'll get more into opportunities and kind of recommendations, but it might seem a little tone deaf to talk about these things when there are groups outside of the agreement, the containment hasn't been figured out, the vice president isn't even in the country, but we think actually now is the right time, and that's more because of how it's an opportunity for deep engagement. So we've already set forth a massive agenda of the things that need to be addressed and done, and one of the critiques of the agreement is that there is more in there than can ever be implemented in a single transition period by a single government, even in the best of moments. So I want to ask our panelists to reflect a little bit on what should the priorities for action be between now and the end of this extended pre-transition period. In concrete terms, what needs the greatest attention? And I'd love your thoughts as people who represent different aspects and have insights on different aspects, whether it's civic action, JMEK and its own capacity, the political leadership, regional bodies, international partner engagement. So Dr. Amelie, I'm going to turn to you first to get your thoughts on this. Oh, that's to me? Yes, please. First of all, I would like to say that I do not agree with this notion that there is just too much in the agreement that can't be implemented by even if we had the best government ever. I say this because in the first months of this, after September 12th last year, we had the NCSC Commence its work, that's the National Conditional Amendment Committee, and 15 members managed to sit down for 21 days and draft the Constitutional Amendment Bill. In 21 days, 15 people. It's because they knew the weight of the matter at hand, and they had no reason to create it whatsoever, and they had to do their part, because it's all about attaining peace in our country. So all these excuses that parties come around with, there is no money, there is no peace, if indeed there were parties who are willing and they would like to put all barriers aside, the ones that they seem to be creating would be able to move several steps ahead. So that I want to underscore, that to me nobody should buy that idea that the agreement is just too big to be implemented. If we had parties who are willing, a lot of work can be done and we can get a lot done. Now, what should be their priorities? Everything that must be implemented in different pre-transitional period is a priority. In negotiated a peace agreement, knowing that all those things are very important and prerequisites the formation of a very vitalised transitional government of national unity. To say one is more important than the other is really impossible. So for me, the priority should be about emphasising these parties that it's going to be at their own period. If anything, that is supposed to happen in the pre-transition period does not get to be achieved and then they reluctantly decide to form a transitional government of national unity with the assumption that they are going to sort so many things later because that is going to be a recipe for disaster. For those of us who are sitting here and are watching from a distance or are engaging them here and the second priority is to... There has to be a special engagement. Brian talked about the National Security Service and what he expressed is very right that the National Security Service has not considered itself as mandatory to all the reforms that are supposed to be done and neither does it even see itself as a ground by the provisions of the peace agreement and yet today when civil society wants to hold meetings that are meant to disseminate a peace agreement then they are required to get permission from the National Security Service and there are videos within the civil society who have been blacklisted in such a way that if they are on an agenda of a meeting that is about the peace agreement for example that meeting will not be approved. So if there is no special conversation that is conducted with the National Security Service leadership but also the presidents that oversees this whole body then it's really going to be a no-circle to progress of implementation of the agreement. I will leave it at this and let the other colleagues take over with other interventions. Thanks Emily and thank you for saying so forcefully and firmly that peace is possible and that it is our job to remind political leadership that it's possible when there is will to drive that forward. So open it up to others. I'd love thoughts about if you agree with this analysis how do we start to create a moment where there is leadership at the political level to take the agreement forward. For me I think when you have an agreement where there are four vice presidents that by itself is going to be a ticking bomb because whether you reform the government outside in Yuba or you have a reactionary outcome that by itself is going to be a problem but this is better than 2015 and for me what I think that the priorities should be is that back in February the UN panel was reporting that there were these mini-dialogue between the military inside South Sudan so you have soldiers from the SPLMIO and those from the government at the senior level there were meetings in the bushes and talking about the containment process and one of the things that they continually brought up in those discussions were the absence of resources that even if they bring demand what are they going to eat, where are they going to sleep? So I really think that the international community should focus on putting resources into that process because these men would be willing actually if they accept the dialogue among themselves if you give them resources probably that could allow the process of the peace to be contained while you work on the process of bringing Dr. Riyak Masha to Yuba and that process and also I also think that another focus should be focused on the issue of political identity with its emphasis on tribal identity and this is one of the things that we in the diaspora have been dealing with that there are ground soldiers the foot soldiers of the conflict in South Sudan are people from different communities not accepting one another so the emphasis on creating a political dialogue should also be prioritized while you focus on military and ending violence that there must also be a focus on bringing a political dialogue so that people can stop this idea of us versus them or them or we, this community, we are better than that because if you don't change the narrative from us versus them you can have all the political parties in Yuba but again the boiling point will still bust the flame because these people will continue to talk about us versus them, who have the resources who have been killed and who is what so I really think that those two should be prioritized the priority number one should be focusing on military containment and priority number two will be to focus on creating a political dialogue that is based on forgiveness and reconciliation and that drives us directly back to the question of security because if I think about how challenging it has been to even have that conversation in the United States where people will feel safe speaking their hearts and their minds, imagine it in the context where people are still fearful so I also want to invite others on the panel to weigh in here and on the specific issue of cantonment there's I think important to make sure that those who have guns are isolated and agree to buy into this process but understandably there's quite a bit of skepticism about that process and how it actually has created incentive to recruit additional people and we've seen pretty clear evidence of forced recruitment in parts of the country over the last the original pre-transition period so how do we balance some of those issues to move forward what needs to happen without creating a bloated security I think prolonging the cantonment process opens up the opportunity for extra recruitment it's all about jobs at this particular point everyone seeing that down the line if I'm in uniform and I'm in the cantonment camp I might get a job and so prolonging it is a problem and the government needs to step up and put the resources that are required it promised that it was going to disperse about a hundred million dollars for the process and what has happened it's been two months since that promise was made and we've seen no forward movement on it the cantonment is supposed to be completed by July 15th and that's when the joint training of the forces should ensue we are almost a month away from that and there's not a lot of movement some countries have offered support Egypt no sorry Rwanda, Nigeria, Algeria I think a few appear five countries have offered some support and there was a meeting last week between representatives of those countries and members from the security review board to see what the demands are but that's going to be really small support coming from I think neighbouring countries from Africa so the international community I think has, there is space I think where help is really critically needed is in the security sector in terms of even the philosophy behind what kind of army do the South Sudanese really need going forward and support for the cantonment process can be conducted in a manner in which the third parties are involved because of the reputation of the government in handling any money that is donated to it and that means my words here it's a very corrupt system the next thing that really needs to happen is for the government to show up its own credibility by really taking concrete steps to arrest the corruption that's happening in South Sudan weekly there isn't there is always something coming out an expose of a scandal happening within government offices and the government is just seen as a non-committed to taking the steps to combat corruption and this is going to be a problem because when you have the public coffers being looted by a few individuals that creates a comparative sort of quest for others to join to want to take control of the state and we need concrete actions to be taken on that and as we move from now to November 12 the international community also needs to be aware of the spoilers that might keep cropping up in the system or within any of the parties we hear that there is no money for cantonment there's no money for the peace process yet we see government ministers authorizing millions of dollars for other purposes that are not really related to the peace agreement and the peace agreement should be like the most critical aspect in the hands of the government right now yet we have its senior officials diverting money for other purposes and I think the government needs to get its priorities correct and right at this particular moment so when we have those spoilers at work the international community should also take measures to enact financial pressures on these people targeted financial pressures that go after the individuals that go after the entities that support them to get money out to the global financial system and this should be concerted should be escalated actually if we see these spoilers at work thank you Mark I know this is the bread and butter of what you've been researching and thinking about building off of what Brian said what would that look like a little bit more how could that pressure be brought to bear effectively yeah it's interesting because Brian's talking about a financial gap the government has but I'll throw out another gap which is a trust gap with the international community and how you bring those two together is both in our view financial pressures so there are the spoilers there are those who meant to be cantoning troops but aren't or those who should be a part of the process and aren't but then there's also incentives sort of built into how the economy works and we've already seen South Sudan reaching out for more stabilization funds or development funds from places like the African Development Bank African XM Bank they're going to ask for an IMF stabilization line of credit at some point and I haven't heard of that yet but we have to assume it'll come and these actually are opportunities because while at the same time there is a sort of sanctioning that goes on to make sure that the parties stay committed necessarily so the international community has an ability as well to use the financial incentives to make sure that some of those issues that need to be a priority are a priority and the advantage here about using sort of international funds or loans or credit is that it can come with some sort of oversight, a safeguard of the sort of things I was talking about earlier where with a line there is a level of accountability that follows behind it I will say I'll just add in here a little bit is it still needs someone to be really in charge of it and I think appointing an envoy perhaps an African Union envoy completely focused on transparency is a good way of keeping the PR element focused on the economic governance in the country because I think what we see in South Sudan is there is a dispersal of where funds come from, who is paying for what South Sudan has made some good steps getting the revenue authority in line updating the procurement bill but that sort of those are the initial steps and there is a lot more that needs to go along the way and I think it can't be seen as a separate path it's concurrent with cantoning troops because one of the disputes here is there is not enough money to support the South Sudanese government I think civil society has a big role here too because civil society has been highlighting the role of corruption for so long and so if it's a passionate issue for a lot of South Sudan society and there's international community wants to find a way that's safe that can build a little trust back with South Sudan this might be one of those elements I think the point has been made that despite all the challenges there is an activism among South Sudanese that I think is really encouraging and I was struck when we had some colleagues here a couple of months ago where colleagues in the United States government were trying to explain why the US didn't sign as a guarantor in the peace agreement and the South Sudanese said that's not your job the government is accountable to us for implementation it doesn't need to be accountable to the United States we need you to play your role diplomatically and in terms of resistance that's required but ultimately we have to create a relationship where the government is accountable to the people of South Sudan so Morgan I want to turn back to you and are there any results from the PMI report that point particularly towards the economic governance side is this an area where your partners are able to get some visibility and some traction yeah I think you're absolutely right the citizens themselves are aware of the conflict and they're also hopeful about this agreement for better or for worse it is showing sort of more progress than the past agreement and they're out there and ready to sort of push for it to be implemented the economic issue is definitely one of their sort of priority challenges that they've highlighted in terms of making sure there is funding for implementation and that any funding that is apparently managed and that it actually goes towards the implementation of the agreement and not into the pockets of the leaders and so that's definitely something that our partners are calling out and highlighting and they've called for in their most recent report and I think sort of more broadly civil society is very strong in South Sudan they in a lot of ways they've filled sort of the governance gaps both at the local level and the national level of opportunity there for as we're putting pressure on the leaders to implement to also continue to empower civil society to take the lead in advocating for themselves for advocating for the agreement to be implemented and to address the issues that everyday citizens are facing both in terms of hunger and jobs economic issues etc so let me push you on that a little bit what does it mean to empower civil society to do that what can folks in this room and in this country be doing to give civil society and I assume we're using that in the kind of small C small S not just registered civic organizations but also some of these movements and less formal mechanisms that are emerging in South Sudan yeah I think with the great humanitarian crisis there's been a lot of emphasis from the international community in pouring money into addressing humanitarian issues providing humanitarian aid which is definitely a need but it doesn't fix the problem and so we need to make sure that we're also supporting other organizations other groups to move the country forward on its path to development there are organizations that are making progress in addressing development issues and I think that we need to be working together to make sure that we're not taking away from that because we're concerned about the national level governance issues there is a way to work on governance issues through civil society without just taking it all away I guess so financial and technical support is always okay I'll say it if you can't I could also add to that yes I think focusing on technical leadership skills for civil society is very important but for the international community also need to be right our condemnation worldwide if you have situations like what happened to Peter Bier who is a high profile civil society leader and Carbino Wall and others so and the security apparatus in South Sudan they monitored international reaction so what will strengthen civil society is an international wide condemnation to the horrible treatment of civil society leaders but also putting resources into technical leadership development skills so I have two questions before we turn it and open it up to our audience and I'm going to ask our panelists now to zoom out and expand our aperture a bit because we so often get caught on the immediate and real crises that are before us the economic the humanitarian the security the political I mean it keeps us all incredibly busy but we rarely take a moment to think through a horizon beyond the next six months much less the next 30 months much less where we envision South Sudan could be in five years or 10 years and so I'd like your reflections about what should should we as partners what should we as South Sudanese what should we be aiming for a horizon that looks to the end of the term of the peace agreement and then bridges us beyond that I'm not going to name anybody only volunteer yourselves for this one I'll say two things one which is getting the border commission right and getting that finished it is so fundamental to how the country will look in five ten years if it's done in the appropriate manner it'll decide how resources are split which groups have different governors and that could be a game changer in terms of stability in the country now that's actually outside of my normal focus but I say that because it's connected to the other aspects that I think are really important which is getting the economic governance not surprisingly broken record right here and so within those timelines focusing on transparency now is as important for the first six months as it is for ten years from now so that there's an actual sense of what is what is an accountable government when it comes to public money one of the recommendations we make in the paper that was out front and hopefully take a look at is to build an e-transparency system now South Sudan doesn't have the internet penetration for that to have the greatest effect but the idea in part is that if you get public records corporate records you get asset declarations, mining concessions oil data in real time it supports civil society to be able to put pressure on leaders and that sort of infrastructure is something I think the international community do now and it won't make or break the peace agreement but five years down the line ten years down the line there could be a culture of change about what it comes when government financing looks like and as a citizen what you can expect to see and make available Mark's lucky because his talking point will be the same ten years from now as it is today which is your job is done I'm going to turn to Dr. Emily to see if she'd like to come in here Emily are you still there? Yes, yes, yes Can you hear me? I can hear you From your end I keep breaking Beyond the transition period I just want to say that compared to the assets days right now during the our assets period we have a more proactive civil society which unfortunately is still constrained by several things the civic space on the ground but also the fact that there is limited funding most of the funding or support goes to the humanitarian assistance and those who work in the humanitarian sector but folks who are engaging governance related staff or things that we can talk of are not getting adequate support yet they have there is the energy there is the entity that is working so I think if there is flexible support that can be channeled to civil society to begin to prepare in anticipation of the activities that are supposed to happen in the transition period it would be it would help in expediting how fast and how much achievement we could make if at all we make it to forming a government commencing the transition period and to me that kind of support would be for civil society to begin to look at the all the legislations that must be reviewed if we are not if we don't watch out NCA is going to be out behind time it will not be able to do the work it's supposed to do within 12 months and if civil society is not supported to do that that would be very useful however I also can't see here one member of civil society and explicitly mentioned what the civil society partner should be able to engage all civil society who are now in form of organizations civil organizations but also in the advent of the RIS in form of coalitions to ask them what flexible support in the context of the RIS for us to be able to envision the kind of success that we all want to see in the days of the transition period I think that would be very very important besides everything else because we know that government is not going to provide civil society with their support and civil society is looking out to partners to assist them and yet they could give so much mileage to their own process if only they are supported Thanks Dr. Emily I'm going to go down the line here with quick interventions Brian I think that for the South Sudan that we want to exist some of the things that need to happen right now is reform of the institutions of accountability we've seen constantly that the government has been on the path of basically looting public coffers so we need a reform of the institutions of accountability these institutions right now have been captured by the state so what we have in South Sudan is actually a kleptocracy so to reform these institutions what needs to happen is we need to empower them in terms of how the leadership of these institutions are appointed right now what happens is that it's cronies and people close to the system that are appointed for the purpose to enhance the looting of state coffers to make them look the other way so we need the legislation to be improved on that and we also need these institutions to be resourced so far what we have seen is that for instance take the national audit chamber according to the constitution the national audit chamber needs to be resourced every year and make those accounts public that has not happened since 2012 and the reason that we got to learn on that is that the audit chamber did not have the resources turns out that the audit chamber had the resources to actually conduct audits but someone in government didn't want the audits to be made public because from this stance holding the government accountable for the spending of government money for the spending of public money is going to be impossible so these need to be the institutions need to be reformed and strengthen the national audit chamber the public accounts committee in the national legislature the anti-corruption committee commission needs to be empowered to do its job I would agree with things that civil society borders are going to be supremely important and affect everything else institutional reform needs to happen I think I would add in terms of if we're thinking long-term, next 5 to 10 years we need to be thinking now about what the elections are going to look like at the end of this agreement I think one of the worst things that could happen is we get to the end of this and we have non-democratic elections and it just throws us into the same old cycle and I think international support is going to be critical to making sure that those elections are democratic that everyone has a chance to vote so and it's going to take a while to get the infrastructure in place to be able to carry out those elections so we need to be thinking about it early I think there's a really good point on the elections we often forget that that is meant to be the off-ramp to the peace agreement we also often forget that that is what sparked this violence in the first place and so I would argue in my moderator prerogative that the risk is less about non-democratic elections the risk is about how do you manage the competition for who carries the flag and I think that's something that we haven't even started to put on the table for the SPLN flag I agree with everything they mentioned but I would also just want to add that so one of the things that I really don't want to lose sight is the accountability for atrocities that were committed because myself I lost my mother in 2013 and I have been willing to first advocate for peace and end to the violence knowing that those who committed the atrocities will still be held accountable for their crime and for doing that I do think it will serve as a deterrent if we get to the election somebody might think twice because the situation in South Sudan continue to get worse because we put out these through UN and international community these sanctioned individual targeted sanction but they have no mechanism to make it stick so until we make some individual pay for what they have done it is just another crime or another person name that has been put in the UN sanction so I really want to make sure that we don't lose sight with this idea of accountability for atrocities at the same time we also need to find ways as we focus on civil society and putting resources to develop civil society leadership skills that is also has to be a way to find how to marriage the diaspora and the civil society back on the ground because one of the thing that all of you might be aware is that social media particularly Facebook in other part of the world it is used for holding government accountable for organizing rallies like what we saw in Hong Kong over the weekend but in the context of South Sudan social media particularly Facebook has been very divisive you have South Sudan is going on social media for 4-5 hours and what they are saying in that and Brian can attest to this is that they are just lashing out to the other tribe or to the other political opposition that they disagree with so as South Sudanese in the next 5 years going forward we need to find ways to break those barriers on how to use social media because social media can be used in a positive way rather than the way it has been used in a negative way so I also really think that the United States and partners need to focus on high level diplomatic efforts one of the guarantor for the agreement which is Bashir is no longer not there and so now the only guarantor is Museveni and how do we trust that he is going to be an honest breaker so there has to be a high level focus from international community to make sure that all of these things that we talk about are being implemented so that bridges perfectly to my last question actually because you can't have a conversation in the United States without asking what should the United States be doing to help to get South Sudan on a path towards peace and as you all know there's been a lot of criticism about what's perceived as the lack of support by the United States I think that does not acknowledge the nearly one billion dollars of assistance in humanitarian aid keeps South Sudanese alive and whose food security and fundamental protection is threatened by the Civil War itself but I'd like to ask panelists to think through what should be prioritized whether it's diplomatic assistance and of course the United States isn't just the administration it includes the Congress it includes other institutions it includes a role that South Sudanese Americans can play so what should be the priorities and action maybe I'll turn to Mark first because you already know my answer so I think mentioning how much the US is spending now with the USA especially there's a convening power there based on the amount of money and there's an opportunity for the Asian or Congress or whatever comes together to be the convener of all these financial institutions and that's because the IMF the US is the largest contributor African Development Bank the US is a donor all these huge institutions which the South Sudanese government is going to turn to or already has turned to for financial assistance the US has a foot in almost all of them maybe not in terms of China's Development Bank or a couple others but in any case the US has the ability to bring all these people together and say we have to have a firm and very clear way in which financial assistance is distributed in this country because I think over time and over a long conflict there's been an ability of South Sudanese partners as well as international partners to kind of choose the assistance they'd like to deliver or which and I'm not talking about humanitarian assistance here either and financial assistance for kind of stabilizing or capitalizing their economy with US leadership I think there's an opportunity there because also again it's not putting the US in an uncomfortable spot of feeling like they might get burned again if there's ability to bring these people around the table Brian do you want to jump in? I think my personal opinion here I think that there needs to be a modicum of US involvement in the political system in South Sudan we saw in the run up to the crisis in December 2013 an unfolding of the liberal state building process in South Sudan there was a lot of focus on the technical aspects of say transforming the army, helping you know on that front but then the international community totally overlooked the political side the brewing protests for control of the state by the rival factions in the ruling party despite high level people coming from South Sudan to DC to say hey stuff is going to happen which is going to be really really bad and we need someone to step in that process was overlooked so it should not repeat itself this time around for other reasons too even for the national security interests of the US if you look at the national security policy or strategy of the Trump administration it states very clearly that instability in East and Central Africa poses a threat to the US and its allies and so when you have instability in a region that is basically a wide of the United States and I think that brings in another problem because it compromises that intention in the national security strategy not only that we have seen an increased involvement of great powers in that region whose interests don't necessarily align with the interests of the United States and therefore if the United States recedes completely from involvement in the political process in South Sudan I think that creates an opportunity for other maligned powers to get involved and that in the long term I don't think is conducive or good for the interests of the United States Thanks Brian Morgan Yeah I mean I'd agree with what my colleagues said I think there's a need for some high level pressure on the parties as we mentioned in order to push them to actually implement the agreement I think what you said about the sort of citizens being the guarantors of the agreement is real but they need our support to be able to do that so we need to continue to support them and also I think I don't think it went unnoticed that the United States didn't sign and that was a little bit of a blow that the US might not be there to help the citizens to hold their leaders accountable as was mentioned I think everyone's watching very closely what's happening in Sudan and they're worried about Bashir being gone and not being a guarantor anymore and what that does to the power balance between the 70 and Bashir holding the leaders accountable so I think there's a lot up in the air China's obviously moving in I think it'll be important to continue sort of making our voice heard and that we care Some people have argued that we should start to talk differently about the political leadership in the country and talk about them as the political class and reserve the term leadership for the people who are truly showing leadership towards peace and that's how we use words but maybe that starts to matter because we also consistently hear a sense of betrayal, a lack of confidence a lack of trust between the United States and South Sudanese political leaders but I don't think I'm concerned that that's also impacting on the relationship with the people who share the values, the principles and the ideas that the United States has always supported in South Sudan and are central Dr. Emily, you have the last word on this before we open it up to questions what in your view should the United States be focused on? Yeah, so in addition to what colleagues on the panel have expressed I just want to be very exact on diplomatic on the diplomatic engagement that what I see is that the government in Cuba and not just the government but also parties they are seeing much to them is indifference from the US government towards them and the whole peace process they express that in different ways some of it is to come for example to an argument meeting and say anybody who is not a signator should not see it in a democracy for example and that is not constructive for the US government but also generally the Troika and other garrantos to continue engaging in the peace process so again as many have said that until today if we do not get a direct channel between Washington and Cuba it's still going to be detrimental to the entire engagement it will defeat even the purpose of the humanitarian assistance that goes onto the ground because much as there are diplomats on the ground they do not have adequate engagement with Cuba and the Cuba seems to want a bigger something bigger and they are entrepreneurs who are ready to exploit that situation as we saw with the gainful solution the other thing that I want to add is the US government having been the pen holder for what we saw on last month or that's for the sanctions targeted sanctions it's important to follow through because those are the only tools of accountability we have at the moment besides what we hope to see later as the hybrid court being formed and other mechanisms of Chapter 5 at the moment we only have those tools IGAD has not been able to punish any spoilers neither has the African Union and so when we should see the US government follow through a enforcement of these accountability measures and get folks who have embezzled resources and there are even others who are still embezzling resources that are meant for implementation of these agreements and get their assets frozen but at the same time also acknowledge the steps that are being made by the leadership when the president makes a step to relieve an official who is thought to be to not be transparent it's important that he is clouded for that and then the third thing I would add is continue to focus on going after this whole illicit financial flaws because besides those who are already targeted they are those who are not on the list and they are still mismanaging our resources and we continue to hear the song that there are no resources for implementation of these agreements and I think those are the things that the US government should focus on and I think we will be able to talk about that. We are going to open it up to the audience we made this a two hour conversation we usually do an hour and a half thank you to everybody for the time you have given but I hope you will agree it was worthwhile to dig into some of these issues a little deeper I will ask people to keep their questions or comments short we will take a couple at a time and turn to our panelists to do responses to the very back. Dane Smith from AFREX is it on? I heard a surprising statement at least it was surprising to me civil society in South Sudan is very strong that seems to go against much of the analysis that was being given about the peace situation is that an evolution over the last couple of years I would be interested in some analysis of how that has occurred if it has occurred also I'm particularly interested in the role of the churches nothing has been said this morning about the churches we had a major dramatic event in the Vatican not too long ago in which the two leaders were brought together and the pope actually got down on his knees and kissed their shoes so I'm interested in hearing some more about the civil society and the role of the churches in this process of peace building including accountability thanks then I lose all prerogative as moderator if I give you my mic let's try to save time my name is Samuel Akao and I'm actually very pleased to hear all the different angles that you have brought to the issue and I just wanted to highlight like some of the two things that I didn't hear so much about that I think are critical to sustainable peace in South Sudan and the one is that the trust I think is the most underlying principle that if you don't have that regardless of all the documents agreements you do everything will just break down and we saw that in 2016 because Riaq and Kier didn't have that and so very dangerously the situation was created and so in this peace agreement as it's being signed we now have four groups and I'm not seeing a trust happening we now have four vice presidents as you said and as we build towards the next election I foresee a situation where each of them is actually trying to build like the loyalty and trying to create an environment where they would be electable including Kier himself trying to do the same and so if they keep undermining each other the peace as a priority as important for the individual gained they will just keep undermining each other and everything will fall down apart so what is actually being done to make sure that this exists and creates an opportunity for that and then the other question is on the issue of the private sector if we saw the conflict in 2013 it seems like it was political but at the same time it was resource driven because we had the oil shut down in 2012 and the government the way Kier has been building the government around at the time was trying to buy loyalty from people so we have generals people being put in the military and resources being used to actually buy loyalty from people so when the resources actually began to shrink there was an opportunity for most people to actually they lost you know and everybody wanted to be around the president and have all that loyalty and so those people who were discontented with the government they created their own groups they formed their own groups actually challenged Kier towards the election and so we saw that in December that was one of the reasons a lot of people who were disgruntled with the government did that so as this culture has actually been created in South Sudan where people see government as the only opportunity for making money for wealth and so what is being done to ensure that we open up the country open up the private sector we create infrastructure so that people who necessarily don't want power can go and do something else where to to be self-sufficient thank you. Great, thanks for those questions and then there's over here My name is Miriam from American University I want to thank the panel for all the insights and clearly there's a crisis of governance and I wanted to bring about I didn't hear people mentioning about federal federalism and it's not a new issue in South Sudan so I was because the current government which is in Dubai has fairly responsibilities towards the people both in the state level and the county level so I was wondering if federalism is an important aspect of this peace agreement in the sense that if you can have people be able to benefit within their states and then to feel like marginalized and it will also help reduce the tensions happening in Dubai especially according to these tribal issues and fight for resources Great, so that's a pretty broad round of questions I'm going to ask that panelists don't answer every single question but ones where you think you have something particular to add so maybe we can start with the private sector question is that something you want to jump in on? I agree with your assessment that the way the private sector has worked at this point it's become predatory it's exclusionary there's a fight for control of the resources which sparked in my opinion a lot of this conflict itself I'll return to chapter four which it's meant to be there to make for a more accountable economy and one that's trustworthy and that people can feel when they return IDPs or refugees return that there's actually a level of governance that allows for them to reinvest into their own country so it's not just big investors coming in which unfortunately is a long way off but it's returning and on a personal level I mean you also talked about trust it's the trust to go back to your community and to have a line of credit have banks reopen all this requires a fair amount of institution building that won't happen overnight but it's important now to lay that groundwork great maybe to the civil society question and the role of the churches I'll look to Morgan and then turn to Dr. Emily if others want to weigh in that's great yeah I think you're right that there's been an evolution of civil society over recent years and we've seen them take on a much more active and effective role in particular in recent years I think they've recognized the power of coalitions a few years ago the NGO world was very siloed everyone was competing for money they're still competing for money but they're doing a much better job of working together particularly in issues like advocating for implementation of the peace agreement where they are more vulnerable when they work alone and when they work together they're more effective and they're a little bit less vulnerable and when they do that they often work together with the churches the churches do have a little bit more leeway to speak more openly and they've definitely taken on a big role in the revitalization process so I think they're going to continue to be an important actor to work with in order to put pressure on the leaders and I guess I would also point to Dr. Emily as an excellent example of the strength of civil society she's been an incredible voice and effort within the civil society so I'll let her respond as well Great. Dr. Emily would you like to share any reflections on that question? Yes I think when when we say civil society is strong it's not to say that it's perfect and it does not have any challenges what we are trying is that there is a civil society that is proactive a civil society that is trying to do so much amidst funding constraints like it's been said that there is some length of scrambling of resources but at the same time we are able to meet and do so much in relation to this peace agreement we don't necessarily a partner putting money into our bank accounts as organizations or as coalitions and that has been happening we shared meetings, people transport themselves we draft something that colleagues who are in the mechanisms of the peace agreement are supposed to do and that is commendable it's a very good spirit that you can associate with a strong civil society but all that is happening in an environment where there is infringement on the freedom of association you simply can't just convene a meeting for more than six hours without not finding the national security service and that meeting also some individuals if they are known to be attending that meeting then it can't happen so we can commend that our society is strong by virtue of being able to operate in those circumstances but of course there are challenges we need some capacity building we are overwhelmed we are not so many and there is so much work to do the field is just very wide and the role of the church the church has been very instrumental in engaging the whole doubt groups although somehow it has taken the lead the church has had some a bit of what appears to be parallel mechanisms of its own besides of course what happened in Vatican a few months ago so at the moment that's the role of the church but civil society is always keen on engaging the church in everything that it does in relation to the peace process just to clarify that thanks maybe if I can I'll just point people towards some examples of non-formal participation in the peace process the South Sudan we want that you alluded to Brian and people may not have picked up is this tremendous series of video interviews with South Sudanese articulating their vision for the future of the country and so if you google that you'll find a series on YouTube that was also part of the event we did two years ago and then Anna Taban which translates as I'm tired has been the anchor of a nonviolent movement to try to think through how you can use art and music to express what people want to see for their future and it's going beyond just painting murals in Juba which is important itself but it's helping to rethink how citizens engage with their government and so I'll commend to you also a short report that our colleagues have written on nonviolent action in South Sudan as further example of where civil society really I think is evolving David do you want to add the idea that civil society is strong I think it comes from civil society in South Sudan has learned to adapt how they operate and they have moved to this you can call it a dark web so instead of a few years ago where people try to organize in Juba and then the national security will come and arrest people and beat you up what they do now civil society is they use space like WhatsApp and you have a group of civil society organizing from Juba with those in Nairobi and including those who are even outside the African continent so there is the great deal of civil society activities has been moved using social media so they organize without being identified and that kind of count to the strength of the civil society activism Brian I know we share a love of federalism so I'm going to turn to you see if you'd like to comment on that question sure I mean federalism is articulated in the peace agreement and indeed it's been a demand of the South Sudanese for a very very long time there was a process to sort of to initiate the process let me just back up a bit there was a federal system when the country became independent there were ten states apparently those states were not enough there were people who were agitating for more states and I think that a lot of the both genuine reasons for the creation of more states I think and then there are also to advance the political interests of individuals and what happened then was the way that new states were created after the first peace agreement was signed in 2015 and then it collapsed was done in a very opportunistic way by the president to show up his support base and that in itself was up creating more problems and I think going forward then the South Sudanese need to sit down and think through a process of what kind of federalism they want and I think the mechanisms for that would also come through something like a national dialogue we have a national dialogue process going on right now but that in my opinion is not like a very good process although there's been some good stuff that has come out of it so it's been advanced for the political purposes of entities in government and I think a genuine national dialogue would answer the question what type of federalism do we want how many states do we want the current states just don't cut it basically I think it's helpful to highlight that this question of states and boundaries goes back to a fundamental question of how is governance organized and I think one of the challenges in the peace agreement right now is that it doesn't leave a lot of space for that meaningful dialogue about the number of states and how it relates to governance it forces a decision on the number of states very early we're going to open up to another round of questions I have one, two and three thank you very much my name is Timothy Towell that was a wonder my question is going to be about your phrase dynamic phrase revitalized I spent 30 years in that big funny building across the street the state department I retired as an ambassador and I just spent two days in Juba a month ago spent two days with the president he had a cowboy head on and his cabinet who was very articulate my only problem with the cabinet they're very articulate I have a defense I'm 5 foot 7 he was this tall and when he lectured me he intimidated me the idea of the international community and what we can do as opposed to what you can do in your country the international community boy they don't look good down there they're hidden behind barbed wire get out if you get shot tough or get a different job if you don't like to bring peace to a wonderful country and a wonderful people my question is the role of international community but not those guys behind barbed wire we read in fake news every day of the problems in Sudan who's messing around in Sudan the Saudi Arabians the people that shot Khashoggi as you remember they're bagging money to the nasty guy from Darfur whatever his name is and when we met with the wonderful president of south Sudan two days he excused himself the second day got on his private plane and flew to where Saudi Arabia what commitments international community did he get from those bastards in south in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who of your experts madam expert are tracking what the Sudanese Saudi Arabians are doing in south Sudan how much was in the briefcase French briefcase of that distinguished president when he flew back on his expensive private plane who's tracking that rather than talking about what we all know here thank you very much I will immediately point you to a report that's outside looking at the engagement of the Gulf countries in south Sudan and the Horn of Africa I think it's also notable that you mentioned the president's hat because some people have argued that the United States should go and take the hat back as a point of leverage I've already had Bush talk to the man with the funny hair doing the White House and tell him to get his hat back hi my name is Atem Malak I'm with IRI and in south Sudanese of course so I have an observation and a question in a way so when you guys talk about the question of financial accountability with the government I think there's something that we are missing and is that people in south Sudan for a long time have had this idea that if you are in the government it doesn't matter whether you are a political elite or somebody from Karakam if you are in the government you are there to enrich yourself that is the mentality of people you are there to enrich yourself and then it's not also helped by the fact that if you are in the government there's no job security so when you are in this political position you are there and if you are there for two months you are grabbing everything you can and then when you are fired you are a rich man or a rich woman for that matter so there is a need for our people to be educated on what is the role of the government if you are in the government what is it that you are supposed to do for the people and then for the people what should they do to hold the government accountable pretty much a social contract I think there is need of our people to understand that and if we talk about this whole government accountable from the international community it's going to be very hard because if the people don't know what the government is supposed to do there's nothing that the international community can do so that is my first observation there is another aspect of this federalism that people were talking about earlier my second question was asked by my friend but I want to add the idea of this federalism South Sudan is a polarized country with many tribes that don't trust each other so let's say we have this federalism put in our mix in this society that doesn't trust each other are we not creating a tribal state that will make South Sudan ungovernable Thanks, I will take it for more Okay Thank you for the chance I share the greater panel concern used for peace and stability in South Sudan and I am here I came in for Amphib Fellowship which I am done with I thank God I am done with one is a comment what should United States do at this moment implementation of peace agreement quickly I myself plus other South Sudanese we believe that who brought South Sudan to be a nation was United States despite we fought for but United States play a role to get us where we are so people still have a faith people still believe United States can do something for their to help them in their suffering so what I want to suggest in this is that yes we did a good job calling the two leaders several leaders to Vatican but I still believe that if United States again could call these leaders bring them here and tell them this is our position you go and put it somewhere else I think the citizen will still follow them and say you went to United States you listen to this you don't do it then I think it will help my question is that yes there are civil society movement that contribute issues which I am one of them but the mechanism the government of South Sudan use is the most dangerous mechanism wherever there are photographs they jump in they create loophole so that you don't function well so the civil society that are in South Sudan now there are also a lot of issues that are going on and we care about the real people on the ground and this situation I feel like can we have anything that can empower the people from the grassroots not us from Cuba not somebody who come to United States like me but also the society on the grassroots so that they start holding accountable their leaders from Fayyam County when it come from there we have a lot of problems in Cuba but otherwise if we keep accountable government of Cuba they will also push the problem like the tribal fighting that is going on it is a political issue it is not just a tribal they just push the war away from Cuba to the grassroots so that they say no no no we are not part of it but they are the one creating it thank you great it's a question I would like to look out to me which is less about an undemocratic election when we get to that point and it is more about who is going to bear the flag of the SPLM so my question is I would like to hear reflections on that we have seen in the past few months a few groups who have folded back in line enjoying the government so SPLM what do you think that changes as far as the calculus looks like in terms of elections and then my second question South Sudan in ethnic terms it is a lot of tribes fighting against one another my question is is that a simplistic way of looking at what is going on in South Sudan and how can we problematize the context of that conflict and think about what is at the heart of that tension in South Sudan reducing it to tribalism and tribal identities gets us to miss a lot of things at play thanks we will take one more question I want to get somebody at the very back and then we will do a final round of responses from our panelists my name is Elizabeth thank you for the chance I am just visiting the states I am an economist by profession and an activist by passion although I lived in South Sudan for almost five years I learned so much today from my brother Brian particularly in the context of security and how the security sector is in South Sudan what I just have to say now is when people talk about the role of the US in supporting the peace in South Sudan or bringing about peace I think we should look behind and beyond because providing vaccines or providing food for the hungry is not enough is not going to end the war so I myself and I'm sure other South Sudanese also expect expect to see effective diplomatic and political engagement and this can be done by lobbying for pushing decision makers and holding them accountable the issue of holding leaders accountable has been discussed by many so I'm not going to talk about that anymore but I also believe that there cannot be a total state of peace in South Sudan without economic stability and this cannot happen if the government don't go after these corrupt leaders and bring back the money that is looted and diverted outside the country and the government is not going to do that because simply they are the ones who are doing this and here where I think the IMF and the US and the international community role comes in whereby they can just force and put more pressure thank you I'm going to turn back to the panelists I'm going to ask them to keep their intervention short Brian looks like he's ready to run so Brian lead us forward let me just look at the question on government as a looting scheme people see it as you know as a way to get rich quickly I think that this is embedded in the South Sudanese psyche and that arises from the fact that since 1840 when the concept of government was first introduced in South Sudan there has never been about predatory practices the people who had the jobs were the people who worked for government the people who had the nice houses were the people who worked for government and the colonial administrations starting from the Turkish and the Anglo-Egyptian and the post-independence Sudanese state and currently the SPLM government have devoted absolutely no effort to building other sectors of the economy so everything that is viable that seems to earn money is from the government and that's why everyone wants to go to government when I was a kid we used to pull these toys we play with on the ground and you're supposed to handle them delicately but when you don't we say in Arabic it's the government so the government is viewed this is like for a 9 year old the government is viewed as this a project or entity from which you can take it's embedded in our psyche in South Sudan and that needs to change and that process needs to change with accountability measures being enacted reflections on the flag bearers at this particular moment there is no indication who is going to do what but I was listening to the president speak recently when he inaugurated this something and the red flag movement was up the red card movement was up on social media and the regime was in a tiffy because of that he said you know he said that if anyone wants to to he is not sticking to power he denied that he said that when his time comes he will leave he wants to live in a proper way and that can only be in elections and anyone who wants the seat of power must come through elections there was no clue in his speech whether he was going to run or not so we will leave it at that and also when you look at we haven't had any indications I think it's too early but I think you can bet that you know the trend is for a continuation of the status quo and I will not be very surprised if the president says he is going to run for an election tribes so one last one Brian then I'm going to turn it over to others so we can bring everyone in absolutely very good point it's very simplistic to focus on tribes as a driver of conflict or ethnicity itself there is nothing there is no primordial sense of difference among South Sudanese people that makes them go at each other's thoughts it's not the ethnicity ethnicity is a byproduct of other intrigues at play in the political system in South Sudan and if you're a scholar or if you're a follower and analyst in South Sudan that's something that you need to incorporate into your analysis beyond the ethnicity lens thank you Mark do you want to come in next? I'll pick up a little bit where Brian left off the accountability question I appreciate it I think there's actually two things at play there is this belief of what is the government for service delivery is not seen as necessarily what the government is all about but then there's this issue that it's there are issues of petty corruption everywhere but it's the the grand corruption that has devastating effects on the country as a whole which I think are where there can be a rally and that's where the civil society might have a role so if you hold but I think if I say the Dura saga that means a lot of people and it was massive amounts of money hundreds of millions of dollars that was taken away from the South Sudanese people these sort of examples of what can happen are probably necessary to get into the public discussion a little bit more because the fear is that this just happens again it did happen again with the letters of credit scheme between 2013 and 2015 and so there's a real reason why the international community has this kind of push for accountability and transparency but this might be an opportunity as well for South Sudan to say hey isn't it time there's a national audit on all the natural resources and it's public and it's a third party and everyone can take a look and say this is where it is and we can see who owns everything it might show what we already suspect but having it down the open is a good way to say it's something true hitting the issue of corruption head on instead of it kind of being sitting in the background where it's something that exists I think it seems to be seen as something that's more core to how you can kind of make a lasting peace Morgan did you want to come in on questions related to elections or or any other aspect I would maybe just build on the point about tribal divisions being absolutely right and that's sort of one of the areas that we need to make sure that in our focus on the peace agreement national level that we don't lose sight of how complex this conflict is and all the different sort of factors driving it including in particular the economic issues a lot of the local level conflicts are just over resources and so making sure that we're sort of building local level resilience and ways of coping with those issues of sharing resources in the absence of the government coming in implementing reforms in the agreement and so that they can start making progress from the grassroots while the national level stuff is also happening great David one of the things that we have not talked about and is also going on is the SPLM reunification process which came out of the Arusha agreement as we speak right now there is actually an ongoing reunification process to which number one they want to increase the number of national liberation council and also the political bureau and the success of that SPLM reunification actually will indicate where we will go with the elections after you know the after the the formation of transitional government and then we will see whether Kier will run or whether he will not run the problem also here is that everybody that is either in government or in a position claimed to be SPLM therefore a focus on reunifying SPLM could actually lead to that party because this is where the problem actually came out in 2013 so now that Madame Rebecca has been appointed as the head of the committee and the national liberation council is the one that actually nominated the candidate for presidency you know and they are the one who in those who will share the party and also put together the element of the party so that process is going along alongside the revitalized agreement so I just wanted to put that and the point about Saudi Arabia I think that is transactional relationship and I don't think anybody is monitoring it so there is a concerted effort in Cuba to try to find friends because they believe the United States doesn't want to engage with them and one of the people that has actually extended the hand is China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Great, before I turn to Dr. Emily there was a question from online about where weapons are coming from and so I'm just going to refer people to the panel of the UN panel of experts report because they really have an outstanding job of documenting evidence and trying to track the analysis on those questions so that can be found on the UN's website I don't think anybody on this panel would want to wade into that necessarily so Dr. Emily the last word to you on any of the questions that are there or any final thoughts that you'd like to share with us? Yes, quickly colleagues have responded most of them elaborately I just want to start with Sandra's on lots of tribes fighting and they are underlying issues why people are fighting although I want to admit that not everything can be addressed by the present peace agreement they for example the cataracling the issues between farmers and the and the catar keepers those are things that can be resolved by for example creating the traditional leadership on the ground at the grassroots being engaged by the church leaders and civil society to forge a way forward besides whatever else is happening with the peace agreement there have been issues that have been highlighted using the national dialogue process the reports we've seen and there are several issues there and then to my brother who's just finished his country fellowship I just want to congratulate you you make many of us proud that's where our hope is seeing people like you and the US government can continue supporting young people in that kind of support but to your question about civil society what you described is a filtration of civil society but also I want to again be honest and say I do not know a country where government does not try to weaken civil society or infiltrate civil society civil society simply has to continue to adapt to the challenges at a particular time and forge forward we are going to still continue to experience this infiltration by the government and for us to be able to afford you know of course we need flexible funding to avoid certain situations that again you describe where some people have argued we do not have a state but what is really true is we are not yet a nation that we identify ourselves with our tribes and we still do not identify ourselves as south to then then some some vestment has to be done in that the rest of the things that have not I would not comment I think police have really tackled us I request to say goodbye and rush for another meeting it's been a privilege to engage with all of you Dr. Emily thank you so much and thank you for spending so much time with us without being in the room we really appreciate your insights and let me thank all of our panelists for what I think has been a very sobering but also concrete conversation about what it is that can be done and for me I certainly walk away with Dr. Emily's message the peace is possible here we there is leverage to hold a political class to account there is energy and organization and ideas within south Sudanese civil society there are mechanisms that we can use in the economic governance sector to advance some of these fundamental challenges and that in many ways we have to bring all of that to bear on the questions of the security sector to open up the space for the various other reforms that need to take place so let me thank all of you for all the time that you spent with us this morning for your questions your comments and the spirit of dialogue that people brought into the room and please join me in thanking our panelists