As we watch the strong, the last, the few, the brave come in, i see lots of familiar faces in the audience. Come on in, dont be shy. Theres seats up here. I was fine. I have to convince my colleagues to sit in the front seats. Except where it says reserved. But you can sate there. You can sit there. All right. Were going to get started here today. First of all, i want to note a couple of things. This event and future ones were going to be doing are under a new initiative here at csis on diversity and National Security. To bring different perspectives, new voices and representation that reflects all of the United States in discussions of Foreign Affairs. Today we have with us four fellows one, two, three three fellows. One couldnt make it today. Three fellows of the program which kickstarted this series here at csis of the International Career advancement program, an absolutely marvelous, unique program out ins aspen which has in aspen which has formed the careers of many a Foreign Affairs expert, including several at the table. X and thanks to the coterie of 470 fellows we have, we have begun this program, but it is not limited to the fellows. It includes others, and you will see in a series of sometimes different events new discussions in Foreign Affairs. We have a new hashtag, diversity knapsack, and we also have the icap Alumni Association twitter feed which we are using as well as, obviously, csis. So travis is going to moderate for us today. He is an awesome moderator. And without further ado, ill turn it over to him. Thank you. You. [applause] good morning. Thank you, ambassador mccarthy, for the fantasticni introduction. A huge thanks to csis as a whole for gathering us this morning, and a specific thank you to victoria of csis for helping to orchestrate our gathering this morning as well. One administrative note for all of you, we will be taking questions from you guys on notecards, and so if you would like to have one of those cards, you can raise your hand now, an you will have another opportunity before the q and a tarts to get those starts to get those cards to ask your questions. And so without further ado, well get straight to the heart of the matter. Though weve entitled todayse discussion south sudan, when war and famine collide, were clearly aware that these are only two strands of a much more complicated situation in south sudan, a much longer and convoluted history of conflict, oppression and attempts to resolve those issues. One of the things that i wanted to kind of start by pointing out is that even though in the west we have a tendency to mark the struggle in south sudan based on when we began to engage so you hear about july 9, 2011, july 9, 2005, you hear about interventions such as Operation Lifeline sudan in the late 80s and early 90s. But if you were to sit down with thensoutherners, now south sudanese, you would here a different take on the arc of the struggle in south sudan, and that arc is about a 20046 year struggle 200year struggle for them to get to the place where they are. Ab and it essentially starts with rule in that region by thehe ottoman empire, by the egyptians, rule in that region by the British Colonial powers and then rule in that region by northerners situated in the postindependence government at khartoum. But the reason why i wanted to bring that together is that all of those powers who rule that region had one central principl in mind, and that central principle was that the region of the south which is now south sudan was to be only a region for the extraction of natural resources, was to be only a region for the extraction or human resources, was not to be cultivated, was not to be integrated, was to be isolated and was not to be developed. And that is, essentially, the beginning of the struggle that they had which, essentially, made it a place designated forpe plunder. And successive governments in postindependence khartoum made that very clear. One of the things that happened in that history specifically around the second civil war in sudan versus the south, obviously, was they designated it something that they termed in arabic [speaking in native tongue] which means the bolt of war. Which was to say they were giving themselves a religious justification to freely plunder and decimate that area for themselves. And one of the things that we hear all the time in the west about sudan is, and south sudan now, religious justifications, regional justifications, ethnic and racial justifications. But all of these are veneers for, essentially, greed and the lust for power and resources by specific ruling entities in that, in that country, in that region. The sad irony essentially op of the contemporary moment is that though many southerners have sacrificed their lives to resist these forms of government and founded the sudanese Peoples Liberation and army, south sudan has become once again the abode of war. This time without the thin religious veil in, essentially, a conflict that is a naked contest for wealth and for power. And, again, not for the development and the cultivation of the people of that nation. This all reminded me of the african proverb which states that when the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. And i thought that it would be good for us to take that symbolic metaphor to look at who the symbolic elephants are, what their actions mean for the suffering of the people who are at the bottom of that conflict and who have long been ignored in this process. And i know that many of you are experts and have given greatf service to try to ameliorate the suffering of those people. E. And so to get us right into our panel, i wanted to go over to Ashley Quarcoo whos going to t give us a readout from the u. S. Aid perspective about the human toll of the conflict and where we are right now. Thank you. Thank you, travis, and thanks to csis for organizing this. An i just want to pick up on how travis framed this and emphasize, yes, we are in a humanitarian catastrophe, but it is root inside a political problem rooted in a political problem, a political crisis. And normally in a system of governance we have rules for governing how political competition is going to take place. It takes place within a framework where people agree on the rules around that framework. And we dont have this kind of consensus in south sudan. Instead, we have leaders who have decided to go outside of the peaceful rules of the game and to pursue their political objectives through violence. That is destroying their country. So this is a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions, but it is rooted in this political crisis. So just to frame the humanitarian piece of this, were talking about two Million People who have fled the country around the neighboring regions. We have two more Million People displaced inside of south sudan and 2800 people are continuing the flee the country every day. So thats about one in three people who are displaced from their homes right now. By july, and thats really just around the corner, we estimate about six Million People are going to be in need of lifesaving or will face lifethreatening hunger. And about 7. 5 Million People are going to need humanitarian assistance writ large. Just to put this in context, thats about 60 of south sudans preconflict population. So this is a massive impact on the overall population, displacement as well as humanitarian and food needs. Though we were pleased as im sure many of you or were to to see last week that parts of south sudan have now been declared faminefree, you know, we need to remember that the Food Security situation really remains dire, continues to deteriorate across the country. Just to say a word, usaid is helping to lead the u. S. I government response to this humanitarian catastrophe. Weve been work aggressively to help save as many lives aswe possible with our partners long before the famine declaration in february of this year, and we will continue to do so. Were reaching about 1. 3 millios people each month with lifesaving assistance. But this is a really difficult and dangerous undertaking and not just because were in a conflict zone and theres lots of insecurity. There have been numerous deliberate and brazen attacks on humanitarian aid workers in south sudan, attacks which are violations of International Humanitarian law. 84 aid workers have been killed in south sudan since the conflict began in december of 2013, and 84 sorry. 17 of those have been since, this year alone, since january of this year. And that makes south sudan the most deadly place in the world for humanitarian workers to operate. And thats really shocking if you think about conflicts thatpl are going on all over this, the globe yemen, iraq, syria. So aside from insecurity, aside from, again, these willful attacks on humanitarian workers, were also facing the direct, willful obstruction and intervention of the government of south sudan in imposing bureaucratic impediments that inhibit our humanitarian actors from being able to access those people who need their assistance. We, its a range of things from imposing worker, worker permits, fees and ngo registration fees that really dramatically increase the cost of delivering humanitarian assistance, and then we see direct detention and extortion, harassment, really egregious acts to deter the delivery of the assistance that is going to save the live obviously the people of this country. And the fact that the government is taking these actions to prevent kind of lifesaving assistance is really unconscionable. And the u. S. Government expects that our assistance is going to reach the people that knead it the most that need it the most, and we are doing all we can to press all parties to allow humanitarian actors to function without restriction. Finally just to say a note about kind of the human cost that travis referred to. I mean, you know, there was a u. N. Survey done in 2015 looking at four protection of civilian sites. These are is the sites where about 230,000 people internally displaced across the country are sheltering. This survey conducted reported over 70 of women have beene raped since the conflict began. 75 have witnessed someone else being raped. This is a weapon, a strategy of thisat this point. Its a mass atrocity crime andnd largely perpetrated by soldiers and police. There has been complete impunity for these, for these actions, and, you know, we can anticipate as long as that impunity reigns, well see those kinds of strategies being utilized. So i feel like im often the doom and gloom voice in some of these discussions, but, youan know, we as the United States, we are will continue to provide assistance. I think the humanitarian assistance and other assistance that were providing is critical. It is saving lives. St but its really a drop in the bucket when we look at the scope and scale of the humanitarian needs, the civilian protection needs. And, ultimatelien again, going back to ultimately again, going back to the remarks at the top, this is a political crisis and needs a political solution. And until the parties are are willing to decide that this strategy of war is either too high a cost for their brothers and sisters or its ineffective for them if their goal ultimately is to gain power, until they decide, were going to continue to have these kinds of humanitarian needs. Thanks. Thank you, ashley. Ni having started with the current usg official, i thought it would make sense to follow that up by getting an honest perspective from a former senior usg official whos worked extensively on africa and on the you can to talk about essentially where we are with u. S. Engagement on south sudan, whether we have policies in place that make sense for where we are in that country at this time. And then also to speak a little bit about regional actors, United Nations, egad, African Union and others. So with that, ill turn it over to linda etim. Great. As travis was saying, i spent a long time in the be u. S. Government working on sudan and then south sudan and a lot of the neighboring countries. And so in some ways i have a lot of think and appreciation of sympathy and appreciation for the work that a lot of really hard working people in government are doing right now to insure that despite what weve seen as a pretty depressing lack of attention on this very important crisis, aid continues to flow, people continue to make sure that theyre advocating for continued assistance and support to the people of south sudan even into the face of whats going on with their government. That said, south sudan is not just a political crisis, a crisis of political leaders in the country not owning up to their responsibilities and notcr taking care of their people. What we are also seeing is a crisis of international leadership. And thats pretty dramatic. The United States knows that we gave ourselves a lot of credit for different important milestones in south sudans recent history from the signing of the comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 to the declaration of independence for the new country that was finally born. We know that over decades weve seen Church Leaders in the United States, and weve seenur people from the right and leftan come together to actually support the people of south sudan and make it a cause that has been a very american cause. What were seeing now with the lack of attention, i think is, frankly, depressing. And the idea of abdicating the role of u. S. Historic leadership to basically saying its only the responsibility of the parties on the ground is something that we should challenge, i think, actively. Especially folks that are in this room working on these issues. Next, you know, travis mentioned the fact that its not just the United States. Weve got the United Nations. Again, biggest peacekeeping force on the planet. And weve also got the African Union. Again, most dangerous place in the world for humanitarian assistants. Famine, a civil war. And yet these bodies and these institutions whose main job it is to actually make sure that theyre intervening appropriately actually culling countries and leaders and individuals on the wrongs that theyre committing calling have basically also stepped back and said we will provide assistance or protection within our role. But because of issues of sovereignty or complexities, were stepping back. And i think what we see across the board is a lot of people sort of waiting for the other, for somebody else to ten up and to step up and actually take action on the crisis. When we look at humanitarian workers and deliveries being detained and actually obstructed, thats actually considered a human rights violation. And yet its not the language that we use to speak about it. We havent seen the African Union do more than condemn, we havent seen the u. N. Stand up and say, actually, these are crimes against humanity. There have been many investigations, but i think i that these are sort of the language and the things that people need to Start Talking about. There was one report where we talked about the potential of ethnic cleansing i. Sort of reached past the point where we need to go a little bit further. One of the things that weve seen with the neighboring countries as well is this idea that theyre accepting refugees. I think, you know, uganda has been an amazing recipient ofce south sudanese refugees. But i uganda has been a major problem when you talk about actually coming to a resolution of the political crisis. So on the one hand, again, you see this willingness to engage on how do we accept people and deal with the outflow of the problem, but nobody tail stepping up in a leadership nobody actually stepping up in a leadership role and really willing to take on the root cause of why the crisis is continuing. Until that happens, we know that the suffering in these communities is only going to get worse x. So i think one of the challenges for all of us is to actually figure out at what point are we willing to actually push forward aggressively and say, okay, weve let this go on for over four years now, this war. The last war was over 20 years. Maybe this is the time to actually say enough is enough. And actually take some more concerted actions to making sure that the people who are responsible for these atrocities are actually brought to more justice. Thank you, linda. With linda giving us pretty much an overview of the bilateral u. S. Engagement in the region and on south sudan specifically, i wanted to turn to steve vigil who essentially is joining us via satellite. It may not technically be a satellite, but i will refer to it in that way. Steve, given your background in u. N. Peacekeeping in south sudan, could you talk to us a little bit about some of the challenges youve seen there, some of the issues, some of the challenges in terms of the protection of civilians which ashley and linda have talked about . And then also, perhaps, a little bit from your perspective on the nexus between what the u. N. Mission in south sudan is trying to do related the conflict and how that might be hindered or helped by issues of governance in south sudan. A hot to [laughter] thats a lot to ununpack. Be i actually prepared some notes i was going to go off, and then i think i could address some of that, much of that. Forgive me, im actually going to be reading off of it just in the interest of time, because i feel like if not, i could kind of stray, and i understand were limited time here, so i wanted to keep on that. First off, travis, thank you, and id like to thank the center for strategic and International Studies for hosting this panel and specifically ambassador mccarthy and the diversity and National Security project. I guess the name just changed in the last couple days, so [laughter] it sounds good, i like it. T. And another thing just in terms of what im going to say, i really want to preface these are really my views and not the views of the u. N. Or any of my other previous employers in south sudan, elsewhere with. Im going to share my thoughts on my experience many sudan and south sudan during th