Indoor accuraciment all of these things accuracy. All of these things are issues that are important that need to be addressed, and they will, hopefully, with a robust ip trials which are Technology Transition trials will be adequately addressed. Host Mignon Clyburn is one of five fcc commissioners, shes been our best this week on the communicators along with Gautham Nagesh of the wall street journal. Cspan, created by americas Cable Companies in 1979, brought to you as a Public Service by your television provider. Coming up, the u. S. Special envoy to south sudan, donald booth. He discusses the civil conflict in the country, its root causes and the recent cease fire agreement between the government and rebels. After that members of the Senate Judiciary committee will hear from officials with the justice department, secret service and federal trade commission about their recommendation to combat cyber crime after the recent Consumer Financial data breaches at target and nieman marcus. And later the senates back at 2 p. M. Eastern to continue work on a bill dealing with cost of living increases in military pensions with a vote to advance the bill at 5 30. The Heritage Foundation is hosting a daylong conservative policy summit today to highlight some of the legislation that republicans hope to advance on capitol hill. Youll hear discussions with members of congress about bills theyve introduced on issues involving health care, education, marriage, religious freedom and privacy concerns. Some of the speakers include senators ted cruz and mike lee, u. S. Representative Jeb Hensarling and former senator jim demint who now heads the Heritage Foundation. The summit begins live at 9 30 eastern over on cspan3, and you can join the conversation by sharing your comments on facebook and twitter using the hashtag cspan chat. The new cspan. Org web site gives you access to an Incredible Library of political events with more added each day through cspans nonstop coverage of national politics, history and nonfiction books. Find cspans daily coverage of official washington or access more than 200,000 hours of archived cspan video. Everything cspan has covered since 1987. And our video is all searchable and viewable on your desktop computer, tablet or smartphone. Just look for the prominent search bar at the top of each page. The new cspan. Org makes it easy to watch whats happening today in washington and find people and events from the past 25 years. Its the most comprehensive Video Library in politics. The u. S. Special envoy to south sudan recently talked about the civil conflict in sudan, its root causes and the prospects for a peace accord. The government and rebels loyal to the countrys ousted former Vice President signed a ceasefire agreement in january after more than a month of fighting. A new african nation gained its independence from sudan in 2011. This forum was hosted by the Africa Center for strategic studies. Its about two hours and 20 minutes. Good morning. Can everybody hear me . Im mike garrison, im the acting director, and its my pleasure to welcome you to the Africa Centers round table discussion south sudan, charting a path [inaudible] the Africa Centers mission is threefold; to engage African Partner states and institutions through a focused and rigorous academic and Outreach Program or series of programs that build strategic capacity and foster longterm Collaborative Partnerships. Weve been doing this for 15 years. I think weve become an honest broker and a good friend of our African Partners and certainly within the office of the secretary of defense we have achieved a level of support and recognition for that level of support for the strategy and the policy development processment we also conduct in part of this, your part of today is conducting policyrelevant research on africas Security Issues and facilitate a dialogue within the policy community on africa security. And this today is certainly a key piece of that. These round Table Discussions facilitate a dialogue, a very important dialogue, and south sudan today and actually over the past many years has risen and fallen in the crust of Critical Issues facing our policymakers for africa security. But today whats taking place in both sudans is critically important. And joe siegel, our director of research, has put together a tremendous panel of scholars, practitioners and Senior Leaders to discuss this with you. And this is a dialogue. Its a twoway communication. So we encourage the complete dialogue and communication that will take place, or we hope to take place. We are very honored to have the very distinguished panel of speakers with us today. But especially i would like to recognize ambassador donald booth, a good friend to the Africa Center, the u. S. Special envoy to sudan and south sudan. We werent sure that he was actually going to be able to be with us, he was on the list, off the list, on the list, and i think it was even as of yesterday we were able to, he was able to break away and come be part of this mornings session. So, ambassador booth, thanks for your continuing support for the Africa Center, and we hope this is helpful to you in your very important mission. My job is to open this, to make very short comments because we want the dialogue to continue and to be robust. And so id like to turn this over to dr. Joe siegel, our director of research, who will moderate todays program and be with you all day. So thanks and, again, welcome to the Africa Center. Joe . Okay, thank you very much, mike. My name is joe siegel, im the trekker of research here at director of research here at the Africa Center for strategic studies, and i would also like to extend my welcome to everybody for coming out this morning. Id like to especially recognize those from the African Diplomatic Community who are here with us this morning, notably ambassador kuch from south sudan. So thank you. Very much, sir, for being here today. One administrative issue before we get started. Theres been a change in our program from the last transition that you would have received. One of our guests who was to be on second panel coming from africa had some logistics issues getting here, and so he isnt going to be able to join us. And as a result, we decided just to consol tate the two panels consolidate the two panels. So were going to go with one panel this morning, or its going to be two hours. Well just go all the way through, have each speaker speak for about 1520 minutes, and then well open it up for questions, comments and some broader discussion. All right. The worlds youngest country has suffered a major setback in its nationbuilding efforts since the outbreak of fighting in december of last year. And the cost of this conflict has been as devastating as it has been swift. Thousands of people have been killed, there have been hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their livelihoods, 865,000 people have been displaced according to the u. N. , and theres an estimated 3. 5 Million People who will be in need of Food Assistance between thousand thousand between now and june of this year. The fighting has also torn at the social fabric of south Sudanese Society. Divisions that were there have been polarized, and theres been a fracturing of the nascent critical governance institutions that were evolving including within the Security Sector. Stemming this devastation has been the fox of intensive diplomatic efforts in the region and by International Partners. This resulted in the cessation of hostilities agreement of january 23rd, and its continuing with efforts to sign a long orterm ceasefire and Peace Agreement. That continue to be the focus of attention now. And because of the criticalness of those issues, that will remain the focus of most International Tension in south sudan for the coming days and weeks and necessarily so. Weve organized this round table today to look forward beyond the immediate Critical Issues, to look over the horizon about whats coming next. And in other words, under the myriad of challenges that south sudan faces today, what are some of the Strategic Priorities that we should be focusing on over the next six months to two years that will help south sudan to achieve stability in a sustainable manner . And if we can help identify some of these Strategic Priorities, then well be in a better position to chart a path to get there. And so our goal today is really to stir up this discussion, to try to, you know, help sketch out a vision of where the situation can go if were going to see stability in south sudan. And in this way were drawing from west african proverb that says he who does not look ahead is always destined to remain behind. And so to help us in this forwardlooking discussion, we have a really highly knowledgeable panel who have been working on south sue tan issues for a long sudan issues for a long time. And as i said, ill have each person speak for about 1520 minutes, and then well save our questions and comments for the end. Ill introduce each person as they, as they speak. That way well be able to launch right into the discussion. And well start here to my left with ambassador donald booth who, as mr. Garrison said, is the u. S. Special envoy to south sudan and sudan. Hes a member of the senior foreign service. He served previously as the ambassador to zambia as well as to liberia. And prior to that hes held many diplomatic posts within the state department including within the bureau of international and organizational affairs. He was the director of office of west african affairs. He was the Deputy Director for the office of Southern Africa affairs, and hes been a division chief of the Bilateral Trade Affairs at state department. So with that, let me turn it over to ambassador booth. Thank you all very much. Good morning. Thank you more coming. Thank you for the interest in south sudan. I think that we really are all terribly, terribly disappointed that three years after the historic referendum for independence and nine years since the signing of the comprehensive Peace Agreement that south sudan is again riven by conflict, only this time its not with the government in khartoum, but it is a conflict within itself. The fact that south sudan faces internal challenges is not in and of itself surprising i think to anyone here today. Interim political tensions internal political tensions have been building for months. Political space and space for Civil Society had been shrinking since independence. Intercommune call tensions have been longstanding, and the countrys institutions, i think, were understandably weak. Nevertheless, the speed with which this conflict escalated once the events of the night of december 15th occurred was, i think, astonishing. The conflict is devastating for the people of south sudan and for those of us in the International Community who have all made Tremendous Investments in the country in the hope of seeing it escape the terrible cycles of violence that marked its past. The cessation of hostilities agreed upon by the parties on january 23rd was a critical step. Unfortunately, the fighting continues in south sudan. Were deeply concerned about the reports of fighting particularly in upper nile and unity states, and this includes the recent spla or Government Force attack on lear which is the hometown of the former Vice President and opposition leader. The conflict has already exacted a terrible price on the people of south sudan who already face some of the most daunting Development Challenges in the world. The numbers are africanamerican, and while are grim, and while we may never know if exact number of casualties, undoubtedly, thousands have been killed. The International Crisis group a few be weeks ago gave an estimate of 10,000. It could well be above that. We do know that at least 875,000 south sudanese have fled their homes and that of that number, over 130,000 have sought refuge in neighboring countries. There are reports of forced recruitment, Sexual Violence and use of child soldiers by both sides. As political rivalries have taken on ethnic dimensions, atrocities have been committed and continue to be reported against men, women and children alike. Now that a cessation of hostilities has been signed, we must not lose focus or allow momentum to fade on making progress not only on implementing that cessation, but on making progress on the key issues that must be addressed for south sudan to return to stability and a path to development. First, the cessation of hostilities, as i said, must be fully implemented and monitored. In order to create the space for meaningful and inclusive political dialogue and to begin creating the security conditions and confidence that will allow that 10 of the population that has fled their homes to begin to return. We welcome the arrival, the advance team of the joint Technical Committee of the monitoring and Verification Mechanism which alived in juba this past week, and it will help establish the monitoring teams which will ultimately allow both sides a mechanism to report breaches of the cessation of hostilities agreement. We continue to urge all parties to conflict to help facilitate the important work of these teams. But i must say that im concerned by initial reports that the government may intend to obstruct some of the initial deployment of the monitoring mechanism. And it is also limiting the full deployment of new units who are trying to move into juba and south sudan. It is critical that these institutions, the monitoring and Verification Mechanism, have unfettered access in south sudan to full till their mandates fulfill their mandates. The monitoring adherence to the cessation of hostilities, the reporting of Human Rights Violations and in the case of unmiss, protection of civilians and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Second, those responsible for perpetrating abuses and violations need to be held accountable, and the nation must fully invest in a reconciliation process or processes that can support political dialogue and reform Going Forward. The African Union is currently establishing a commission of inquiry for south sudan which we believe can serve as an important and credible mechanism to insure accountability for atrocities. Ask we urge that this and we urge that this mechanism move forward expeditiously on its work. Third,al hoe the period of fighting although the period of fighting thus far may have been relatively short compared to other conflicts in the region, the roots of the crisis run incredibly deep. Meaningful political dialogue both between two sides and along with prod representation of others broad representation of others in south Sudanese Society must begin immediately. A return to business as usual with a quick fix and political accommodation for the elite would be a recipe for renewed conflict in short order. Finally, all parties should permit immediate and unconditional humanitarian access to all in need, to the hundreds of thousands of south sudanese who are the real victims of the violence. For our part, the United States working to help bring an end to fighting and to encourage and support progress toward a process to build a new south sudan and to address the underlying causes of current conflict. Along with our ambassador in juba, ambassador susan page, National Security senior director smith and harris, deputy ec tear of state burns secretary of state burns, assistant secretary of state for Africa Linda Thomas greenfield and i have all traveled and engaged directly throughout the region as well as with president kir and the former Vice President and the heads of state and Foreign Ministers in neighboring countries. Secretary kerry, National Security adviser rice and other high ranking past as well as these present officials have engaged south sudanese leaders. Weve focused our efforts on supporting the egadled mediation efforts, galvanizing support to open a broader dialogue between the two sides and directly supporting the launch of the verification and monitoring mechanism. Let me just mention here the unity of effort behi