No political process can take place as long as large numbers of armed men and heavy weaponry remain in the capital. Stabilizing the security situation in juba is only the first step. Any political process to be credible and viable must be inclusive. I believe what is needed for political and military leaders in and out of government to meet together to figure out how to jointly shoulder responsibility for preventing further blood shed. However, this can only succeed if those currently in power are willing to accommodate legitimate interests of others. The violence in early july drove out significant factions of splm, in opposition of former detainees and other political parties. These groups must be deterred from supporting any further violence. Thus they must see a path for peaceful engagement. South sudans leaders must look ahead to the creation of a professional Inclusive National army and other security institutions. They need to be able to articulate an agreed end state of Security Sector reform. As any International Support for contonement or ddr activities will depend, among other things, of the credibility of envisioned Security Sector end state. The Transitional Government should prioritize legislation establishing an open process for drafting and ratifying a new constitution under which elections will be held at the end of a transitional period. In addition, the Transitional Government should prioritize legislation regarding African Union led hybrid court. A recent Opinion Survey showed 93 believed there can be no enduring peace without accountability. We agree. What i have described is a sequence of interdependent events. Im describing them as a way forward not because it will be easy to implement them, but because it is difficult to see any other path that does not lead to a future of oppressive one party rule, renewed conflict or most likely both. I am not naive about the chances of these things happening. Our ability to influence events and steer leaders towards more constructive behavior is limited. The Security Councils permanent representatives just returned from a trip to south sudan. We were pleased that the council is able to come to agreement with Transitional Government on several key issues, including the governments consent to deployment of the Regional Protection force and to work with u. N. Mission that is already there. However, we now need to see those words turned into action. If the secretary generals report finds the government is obstructing deployment of Regional Force or continuing to prevent from fulfilling the mandate, we are prepared to support an arms embargo in the Security Council. Beyond an arms embargo, we stand prepared to impose restrictions on individuals involved in public corruption as official corruption has a long history in south sudan and played a direct role in furtherance of conflict in the country. I would have liked to come before this subcommittee today with better news. Unfortunately, we now face a difficult and uncertain path for south sudan. It is a frustrating and disheartening situation particularly for south sudanese. Its their future that grows breaker by the day. With them in our minds, i believe we must continue to press to give peace a chance. Thank you for inviting me to speak today. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you so very much for your statement and your work, your fine work. Without objection your full statement will be made a part of the record. Just a few opening questions. I want to add my congratulations and thanks to u. S. Ambassador to south sudan and her staff who have been working around the clock to try to secure the peace, provide for access of humanitarian aid workers, which is one of the biggest impediments and why so many people are dying of mall nutrition and why so many young people especially children and babies are succumbing to starvation. They are working hard. I want to thank her for her leadership. Let me ask you about the zero tolerance policy that the defense minister when i asked him said they would do against rape and Sexual Assault. He made it very clear that he was going to call the president to try to get him to do it, as well. We did meet and i raised it with him and he said he would do it. We called back since then, a little over a week. It hasnt been promulgated yet. Of course, the mere issuance of a statement without implementation is not worth the paper it is printed on. We are hoping that the two will go hand in hand. Good strong statement, hold the service members, armed forces to account and police and put them behind bars when they Sexual Assault and rape and kill and maim. Your thoughts on that. Secondly, ambassador limen, who will be testifying on the second panel who performed your job with great distinction when he was special envoy, makes a point in his testimony that the new rapid Protection Force should not be under uness. The u. N. Mission there. Greg simpens and i met with head of United Nations mission. She said they tried to get commanders to make the trip which is only less than a mile away to try to save people who are under assault. They wouldnt go. This isnt the first time it has happened. Several times. They have the right rules of engagement. They have a robust rules of engagement and charter seven powers. He suggested it be under a separate authority or mission. And then the access issue. It seems to me that if we as i said, people will do if there is not humanitarian access. The huge majority of workers are south sudanese who are in a special category of risk. Your thoughts on what we could do there. And then Security Sector. When you testified last time, you put the agreement under four basic baskets which are mutually inclusive of each other. Security sector reform and justice and reconciliation. I think as you pointed out the court ought to be set up to hold people to account for acts of impugnity and crimes against humanity. The Security Sector reform seems like the most daunting challenge with all the militias and all the lack of chain of command that appears to be the situation there. Your thoughts on the prospects of meaningful systemic reform of the military . Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Let me go through those. First of all, i want to thank you for being such a strong advocate for the zero tolerance policy on genderbased violence for rape and other such crimes and raising that at the highest levels during your visit to juba. It is certainly something that we are following up on. Unfortunately, like many commitments that are made when we meet with senior officials in south sudan the promises are not always turned into reality. But it is something that certainly is important and we will continue to push on that. We will let you know what success or lack of success we may have in that regard. Secondly, as regards to the Regional Protection force, there are a number of reasons why egad proposed and we have supported putting a Regional Protection force as part of the u. N. Mission in south sudan. First of all, there is the issue of funding it. And a separate stand alone force under an African Union or egad flag would have faced problems of being funded and would have severely delayed the ability to be deployed. Doing it under the u. N. May not always be the fastest, but that is one of the things that i have been engaging on in my many trips to the region and talking with chiefs of defense and Foreign Ministry officials as well as other Senior Leaders to ensure that the three countries that have pledged troops to this Regional Protection force would be prepared to move their forces very quickly. And we would be prepared to help them to move them quickly to do that. Also, this force was designed in a way that it would be under one commander and that commander would report to the force commander but would have the authority and the mandate from the troop contributing countries to use that force for the very specific tasks of the mandate in u. N. Security Council Resolution 2304, which is to ensure the Free Movement of people in juba to protect Critical Infrastructure and in intervening should anyone be planning and engaging the attacks on u. N. , civilians and a very broad mandate. Again, in our discussions with troop contributing countries, they have assured us that troops they would deploy to do the mission would have the political backing to indeed enforce those tasks. So i understand the skepticism that many may have having looked at other u. N. Missions, but this seemed to be the most practical and expedient way of getting troops on the ground who could actually provide a security umbrella in juba. But as i said in my testimony, just putting those forces on the ground will not solve the problem. They need the cooperation of the government and in the Peace Agreement particularly in the security arrangements that followed it that were negotiated after the signing of the agreement. In august 2015, there was a limitation of number of forces and the opposition could have in juba. And all other forces were to be at least 25 kilometers outside of the city. So that is at least the starting point for taking the heavy weapons and many of the Security Forces that are currently in juba and getting them out, and we would hope that the government would cooperate in further reducing the military footprints so that the citizens of juba can feel more secure and so that there is the room for the political dialogue that i have talked about. On humanitarian assistance, this is indeed a terrible situation. Since the outbreak of this conflict, 59 humanitarian aid workers have been killed, making south sudan the most dangerous place for humanitarian aid workers, more dangerous than syria i am told. So this is a serious problem. Its something we have engaged repeatedly on in my visits, many visits to juba i have engaged with president kier defense minister and others on this. We keep receiving assurances that this issue will be addressed, that orders are issued, that they simply need to have a specific example so they can go after individuals who might have been harassing aid workers or stealing aid. Frankly, this has become a systemic problem. Shortly after the fighting in july, there was looting of many Different Stores in juba. One was the World Food Program warehouse. It was very organized. A truck came with a crane, not only to loot the food, but to take the generator from the compound. So this indeed does need to be investigated and people need to be held accountable. I think that is the only way that the message will get out that the government is truly serious, that humanitarian aid workers and their supplies are meant for the people of south sudan and should not be interfered with. This is going to be a continued engagement and a hard slog, im sure, with the government in juba. On Security Sector reform, the Peace Agreement and the security arrangements negotiated after it called for a security and Defense Sector review board to outline sort of the end state of the security arrangements of south sudan, what the army would look like, police, et cetera. That board had just begun meeting when things fell apart in july this year. But even under the Peace Agreement, it was foreseen it would not come to conclusion for about 18 months into the transitional period. Whereas the idea of contoning forces and beginning a ddr process was to start prior to that. What i am proposing, and i have said in my testimony, is that we really need to have an idea of what the end state is. South sudan has suffered for too long as a heavily militarized state. Probably understandable and it was the product of a long liberation struggle against the government, so almost 50 years of struggle. It is time that south sudan, in order to be able to be at peace and to prosper, needs to be a less demilitarized state. So can we get them to agree on the end state and if we agree that it is a sustainable and reasonable end state that is something we can look to support. Really our leverage on getting a meaningful Security Sector reform is that we will not fund things if it isnt a reasonable outcome that we are driving towards. And then on the hybrid court, again, we share frustration that this is moving more slowly than we would like. I have engaged numerous times and we had our legal experts engage with the African Union. We are at the verge of giving them 3. 3 million to actually begin some of the work. We have encouraged them to move forward on at least establishing an officer of the prosecutor so that testimonies and evidence can begin to be collected even before the court is established and judges can decide on who would be indicted or who would be looked at by the court. So that is something we want to push forward. I have discussed that with the African Union special representative for south sudan, honorable president , former president of mali who has been deeply engaged for the past year, as well, in trying to sort out the problems of south sudan. Thank you. Mrs. Bass. Thank you, again, mr. Ambassador. I wanted to know if you could tell me the status of the former president and if you can review the role he is playing and then the status of that. We have talked about humanitarian aid. And i know no one wants to see that end, but how can humanitarian aid get to the population . You mentioned the World Food Program and the theft, the organized theft that took place. I wanted to know if that was the government or the opposition. You talk about we have talked about an arms embargo. I mention that in my opening. I wanted to know, one, what is the position of the administration on arms embargo and where are the south south sudanese getting their arms from now . I also wanted to mention a couple of other items. Thank you, congresswoman. Let me start with the question about the joint Monitoring Evaluation commission. He was appointed by egad to fulfill the role as chair of jmeg, a committee that is made up of south sudanese parties as well as members of egad plus. Who are both guarantors and in our case a witness of the Peace Agreement. And he chairs monthly meetings of that group. His function is to oversee the implementation of the agreement and where the parties get stuck in implementing it, he to recommend ways forward. If the parties are blocking implementation, his recourse is to report to the u. N. Security council. He has done a number of reports to those various bodies. He has tackled issues, such as the problem of the 28 states, the impasse in seating of members of the Transitional Legislature and other elements of the agreement that the parties were unable to find a way to implement because they were not working in good faith with each other. After the events of july 811, it temporarily moved operations. They have gone back to juba. And one of the tasks that the Security Council asked to undertake is to hold a Security Work shop to determine the level and arming of forces that should remain in juba. I understand that president mohi has convened a meeting held on the 22nd and 23rd of this month to look at that. Those are the types of activities. We are one of the major supporters of jmec. We have contributed over 3 million to the operation of it. We believe it is a critical component for successful implementation for any part of the Peace Agreement. It has been criticized by the government in particular for being a usurping government authorities. We do not see it that way at all. We see it as the neutral arbiter of implementation of the agreement. On humanitarian access, i just really would like to clarify one thing on what secretary kerry was expressing in the press conference. I really think what he was expressing there was not a plan to cut off humanitarian assistance from the United States, but rather a frustration with the continued interference with the humanitarian assistance that we are providing. And really trying to put south sudans leaders on notice that they have to get serious about dealing with this. That was the message. Maybe i wasnt clear with my question. Its a systemic problem and its partly related to the criminality of the wfp warehouse incident, for example, occurred after Opposition Forces were driven from the capital. So it would have to have been Government Forces that were doing that looting. And again, thats the type of thing that needs to be investigated and examples need to be made of people involved in that activity. Of the people that the government claims it has arrested for looting in the aftermath of the fighting in july, its not clear to us that any individuals of those individuals are particularly involved or being looked at for involvement in this attack. And then the arms embargo. What we have tried to do with the arms embargo, as it is a major tool, is to achieve progress toward peace by threatening it, and we have used that on a number of occasions, and we think its one of the reasons that the government is seriously looking at allowing the deploymen