Sudan: U.S. Special Envoy On U.S. Priorities in Sudan, South Sudan

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FOREIGN PRESS CENTER WITH AMBASSADOR DONALD BOOTH, SPECIAL ENVOY TO SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN

MS. STAVROPOULOS: Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Daphne Stavropoulos. We are very pleased today to have Ambassador Donald Booth, the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, with us. He's going to make opening remarks that are going to be on the record. After he makes his remarks, we'll open the floor to questions. We may have journalists at our foreign press center in Washington, D.C., and we certainly have some viewing live - via livestream.

So with that, we want to thank you again for coming today, and I'll turn it over to you, Ambassador.

AMBASSADOR BOOTH: Okay, well, good afternoon. I've just come from the Secretary-General's special event on South Sudan over at the UN, which focused on the twin issues of the ongoing crisis in the country, both the political crisis - the conflict - and the humanitarian crisis. And I think there was a general agreement among the participants that the humanitarian crisis, while donors are stepping forward and providing assistance, that the crisis itself is - stems from the ongoing conflict. And the conflict is manmade; therefore this humanitarian crisis is manmade, and it needs to be addressed.

I think one of the panelists put it very well is we need to focus on protecting the people and achieving peace in the country, that the two are inextricably linked. But the humanitarian situation in South Sudan is indeed dire. There are about 3.9 million people in the country that need food assistance. There are close to 1.7 million people that have been displaced by the conflict; 500,000 of them are living in neighboring countries as refugees. Of the ones that are in the country, almost 100,000 are actually in various UN camps, the UNMISS bases that have been turned into protection-of-civilian sites. These people have been there for the most part since the conflict began in December.

The conflict had its origins in political competition within the ruling party, but then ended up splitting the country along ethnic lines, and the conflict has been addressed by a mediation process by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, which is the East African, Horn of Africa regional organization. They were given that mandate by the African Union back in December and they have been leading a mediation process ever since. That process has achieved a cessation of hostilities agreement by the parties. That was accomplished in January, but it was not respected; the fighting continued. In May, they managed to bring together President Kiir and the opposition leader Riek Machar in Addis Ababa, and we got a commitment from both of them to negotiate a transitional government that would bring about an end to the hostilities and usher in the reforms that would be needed, including the writing of a new permanent constitution.

Again, the negotiations since May have not been conclusive. The talks resumed again in Ethiopia formally this past Monday and are continuing now in the city of Bahir Dar in Ethiopia under the mediation of IGAD supported by many of the international partners, supported definitely by the African Union, by the Troika of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway; supported by the European Union and by China as well.

So - and many other donors that are contributing to the efforts supporting the mediation effort and supporting one of the elements that came out of the cessation of hostilities agreement which was the establishment of a monitoring and verification mechanism. This is a civilian mechanism, an unarmed mechanism, that was designed to go in and investigate violations of the cessation of hostilities report on who had done what. And it has been established now in seven different sites in South Sudan and has been providing reporting, though it has been hampered by the fact that it is operating in a non-permissive environment; i.e., an environment where fighting continues.