[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SOUTH SUDAN'S BROKEN PROMISE?
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 15, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-104
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
TREY RADEL, Florida GRACE MENG, New York
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
TED S. YOHO, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
LUKE MESSER, Indiana
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Assistant Secretary,
Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State............ 5
The Honorable Earl W. Gast, Assistant Administrator, Bureau for
Africa, U.S. Agency for International Development.............. 14
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Linda Thomas-Greenfield: Prepared statement........ 8
The Honorable Earl W. Gast: Prepared statement................... 16
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 52
Hearing minutes.................................................. 53
The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign
Affairs: Material submitted for the record..................... 55
The Honorable Gregory W. Meeks, a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York: Prepared statement...................... 59
SOUTH SUDAN'S BROKEN PROMISE?
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2014
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o'clock a.m.,
in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Royce. This hearing will come to order.
I'm going to ask all the members if you could take your
seats at this time.
As noted by our hearing title, ``South Sudan's Broken
Promise?'' the pledge the Government of South Sudan made to its
people and made to the world may be slipping away from us.
In recent weeks, a political power struggle and the
outbreak of fighting across Sudan--South Sudan has led to the
loss of thousands of lives. Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese
have now been displaced. With both sides digging in their
heels, there is no end in sight.
The people of South Sudan sacrificed for decades to achieve
independence. That makes the latest round of fighting, largely
attributable to their leadership's unwillingness to build an
inclusive and viable South Sudan, all the more infuriating.
Indeed, it appears that the greatest threat to South
Sudan's post-independence is South Sudan itself. This is a
depressing picture for many in Washington.
It's safe to say that were it not for the United States
Government's sustained engagement, including a massive
investment from Congress, South Sudan would not be Africa's
newest nation.
During this critical period, then-Senator John Kerry played
a key role on behalf of the administration, declaring that ``we
helped midwife the birth of a new nation.'' The U.S. is proud
of our role in this historical event. But the sad truth is that
this crisis is no surprise.
During the 1990s, much of the fighting was among
Southerners themselves with competing factions showing blatant
disregard for human rights.
Since South Sudan's independence, experts have been
sounding the alarm about rising internal tensions. The entire
cabinet was sacked. Many journalists were assassinated.
Humanitarian aid workers were expelled from the country.
A 2010 threat assessment by the director of national
intelligence found that mass killings or genocide was most
likely to occur in South Sudan over the next 5 years in that
report. In fact, Ranking Member Engel and I sent a letter to
President Kiir last summer.
We warned that in the absence of marked improvement in the
rule of law and in the presence of continued violence we fear
South Sudan may be headed toward a longer and entrenched period
of instability.
Despite these warnings, I am afraid that our investment and
diplomatic success may have skewed the judgment of U.S.
officials on more than one occasion.
For example, if we go back to 2012 when the U.N. Security
Council proposed instituting sanctions against South Sudan for
corruption and for human rights abuses, the administration
reportedly led the effort to block their consideration.
There was no tough love when needed. I understand the
administration is now considering a proposal to target those
political leaders responsible for the latest atrocities and I
will say it is about time, and it's useful to remind the
leadership of South Sudan that significant U.S. assistance is
at stake.
Forceful actions are needed before this new country is
completely torn apart. Failing to resolve the current crisis
will cost countless human lives and all but guarantee state
failure in a strategically important region.
But U.S. standing in Africa is also at stake. If we don't
leverage our considerable influence to help resolve this
crisis, our ability to influence events on the continent of
increasing economic, political and security importance will
also surely shrink.
At the end of the day, resolving this crisis is first and
foremost the responsibility of the South Sudanese. Leaders must
put their country first.
History will remember for better or worse the actions they
take in the coming days and weeks, and I will now turn to Mr.
Sires for his comments. He's filling in for Eliot Engel, our
ranking member for our committee.
Thank you, Mr. Sires.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm not going to read the ranking member's comments. I'm
just going to make some observations myself. Here we have
another effort of the newest country where we tried our best to
ensure that people have a democracy, that people have--there is
no human rights violations and we are on the brink now of
probably having one of the longest civil wars starting.
I hate to think in terms of what the cost of this is but I
think it comes down to oil in many respects. I think people
should realize that we have made a great effort, pumping in
millions of dollars to try to build this democracy in this
newest country.
So I look forward to the testimonies that we have here
today--of the people that we have here today and I thank you
for being here today. Thank you very much.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Sires.
We'll go first for 2 minutes to Mr. Chris Smith, chairman
of the Africa Subcommittee----
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Chairman Royce [continuing]. And then to Karen Bass from
California.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this very
timely and important hearing and welcome to Secretary Thomas-
Greenfield and Assistant Administrator Gast. Thank you for your
fine service on behalf of our country.
Mr. Chairman, since the 1980s Congress has championed
efforts to end the enslavement of African southerners by Arab
northerners, pressed for a declaration of genocide in Darfur,
pushed for the peace agreement to end the north-south civil war
and sanctioned the Khartoum government for its many violations
of human rights.
Unfortunately, two U.S. administrations have failed to take
actions sufficient to sustain the gains Congress and the
administrations have achieved. The comprehensive peace
agreement of '05 was supposed to not only end the long north-
south civil war but also provide for a mutually beneficial
working relationship between Sudan and South Sudan.
However, before the provisions of the agreement were fully
realized the Bush administration had diverted its attention
from--to the horrific crisis in Darfur, a kind of tyranny of
the urgent mentality and it had to be done, of course.
But the other part of this should have been done and that
is the implementation and the implementation was left
unfulfilled. The Obama administration focused on the north-
south agreement again just before the South Sudan was to become
the world's newest nation.
But by then it was too late to conclude all the provisions
of that accord before independence. Consequently, South Sudan
started as a sovereign nation without a completely established
border and serious jurisdictional questions remaining with the
nation from which it was seceding.
Since independence, the administration and others have
either ignored or not fully understand the warning signs
including incidents of continued discord among the new nation's
ethnic groups, reports of corruption and concern over lack of
inclusion in the constitutional process by the outside--those
outside of the ruling SPLM.
The current scope of the conflict in South Sudan belies the
confidence expressed about problems being effectively managed.
To end the current conflict, we do need--we don't need just
another piece of paper that makes us feel good, although maybe
there needs to be agreements and signatures to that paper.
But we do need a longer-term strategy that works on social
reconciliation from the grass roots up, creates a more open and
inclusive political process and better guarantees more
accountability from the government of the day.
Meanwhile, we do have to do everything humanly possible to
make sure that the refugees, the maybe as many as 10,000 or
more people who have died and all of the horrific consequences
from this fighting that to the best of our ability we meet that
humanitarian crisis and I look forward to this hearing and any
answers to any of those questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Congresswoman Bass.
Ms. Bass. Chairman Royce, as always I want to thank you for
both your leadership of this committee and for holding today's
important hearing. I also want to thank our witnesses today.
I've had the pleasure of working with both Assistant
Secretary Thomas-Greenfield and Assistant Administrator Gast
and I look forward to hearing your perspective on the
developments in South Sudan and the actions taken by our
Government to help South Sudan reach a peaceful resolution.
On July 9th, 2011 we all watched with great excitement,
anticipation and joy as after decades of violence South Sudan
became the world's newest nation.
But that--but today that excitement, anticipation and joy
is being tested as South Sudan is engulfed in conflict--the
terrible violence including the ferry that sunk recently and
the over 200 people that died trying to escape the violence.
To address this, first and foremost the violence needs to
stop and the healing needs to begin. The parties involved must
understand this and look to the future of their country and to
their responsibilities and leaders.
As members of the international community, I know we're
fully engaged regarding this crisis and must remain so to
ensure peace and stability in South Sudan.
Most immediately we must work with the parties toward the
success of the ongoing negotiations in Addis. I look forward to
hearing from the assistant secretary regarding the efforts of
the U.S. special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, Ambassador
Booth, and specifically what more we can do.
We must also ensure the provision of critical humanitarian
relief to the internally displaced persons and other victims
caught in the middle of this conflict and I look forward to
hearing from Assistant Administrator Gast in this regard. I
want to acknowledge both of your efforts currently.
I know that we are contributing hundreds of millions of
dollars toward the humanitarian efforts and that you have
reallocated funds specifically to deal with this situation. We
know that for the future of South Sudan the countries' citizens
and their leaders must live up to the responsibilities as the
newest nation in Africa.
I'm committed to continuing working toward the promise of
South Sudan and I look forward to working with my colleagues
here in Washington, and I recognize that the situation looks
dire now but I would just encourage all of us to maintain that
commitment and not give up on South Sudan.
Thank you. I yield back my time.
Chairman Royce. This morning we are pleased to be joined by
representatives of the Department of State and by the U.S.
Agency for International Development.
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield serves as the assistant
secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs. Since beginning
her Foreign Service career in 1982, she has worked in Nigeria,
in Kenya, in Pakistan and as Ambassador to the Republic of
Liberia where she served during the critical 2008 to 2012
period.
Mr. Earl Gast is a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Agency for
International Development who serves as assistant administrator
for Africa and prior to his appointment he served as USAID's
mission direction for Afghanistan. He was once one of USAID's
first employees to be stationed in Iraq.
Without objection, the witnesses' full prepared testimony
will be made part of the record.
The members here will have 5 days to submit any questions
or any statements, and also without objection the statement of
John Prendergast, co-founded of the Enough Project, is
submitted for the record and we will begin with Ambassador
Thomas-Greenfield.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Thank you, Chairman Royce.
Chairman, Congressman Sires, members of the committee, let
me start by thanking you for the opportunity to testify before
you today.
As you know, Special Envoy Booth is unavailable to testify
today because he is in Addis and he is working tirelessly on
the peace process. I know that this subject before us today is
one about which you and other Members of Congress care deeply.
Mr. Chairman, last week marked a major anniversary for
South Sudan, one that few celebrated. January 9th marked 3
years since South Sudan's historic referendum for independence
and 9 years since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement.
Today, South Sudan again is riven by conflict, not with
Khartoum but with itself. The title of today's hearing, ``South
Sudan's Broken Promise?'' while appropriately framed as a
question, those words accurately capture what has been
unfolding in the world's youngest country not just in the last
few weeks but over the past few months. The fact that South
Sudan faces internal challenges is not in and of itself
surprising.
Internal political tensions were building for months.
Political space was shrinking, intercommunal tensions are long-
standing and the country's institutions are weak.
Nonetheless, the speed of this is nothing short of
astonishing. During--days after hosting an international
investment conference on December 4th and 5th, which we thought
went quite well, political struggles at a party meeting on
December 14th, just 10 days later, it is still unclear how the
clash began and erupted on the 15th into the devastating
broader conflict that now grips the country today.
It is heartbreaking for the people of South Sudan and for
us as Americans who have made an enormous investment, as you've
all noted, in this country and who so much want to see it
escape the terrible cycle of violence that marked its past and
now, today, threatens its future.
This conflict is exacting a terrible price on the people of
Sudan who already face some of the most daunting development
challenges in the world. The numbers are grim and grow more so
every day. The International Crisis Group has estimated that
more than 10,000 people may have been killed.
Over 400,000 have fled their homes including 65,000 who
have sought refuge in neighboring countries. We don't know
whether these numbers of dead are accurate but we know that a
lot of people have died.
There are reports of forced recruitment, sexual violence
and the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Political
rivalries have taken on ethnic dimensions. Atrocities are being
committed. Men, women, and children are caught in the
crossfire.
Lest there be any doubt, I would like to make crystal clear
where we stand when it comes to this conflict. First and
foremost, neither the United States nor the international
community will accept the armed overthrow of the
democratically-elected Government of South Sudan.
Second, hostilities must stop. Any and all violence
directed at civilian populations must end and those responsible
for perpetrating the violence and abuse must be held
accountable.
Third, this crisis will not be resolved on the battlefield.
Finally, all parties must permit immediate and unconditional
humanitarian access to all in need, to the now hundreds of
thousands of South Sudanese men, women, and children who are
the real victims of this violence.
The United States has engaged in an all-out diplomatic
effort to help bring an end to the fighting with engagement by
Secretary Kerry, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Special
Envoy Booth, Ambassador Page and other high-ranking past and
present officials with President Kiir and former Vice President
Machar as well as with the heads of state and governments'
ministers in neighboring countries and around the world.
The immediate security situation remains critical,
particularly for the thousands of civilians forced from their
homes. As the crisis began to unfold, we proposed and the
Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution nearly
doubling the authorized troop ceiling for UNMIS.
In turn, we are now actively encouraging member states to
provide additional troops and police units. The special envoy
to Sudan and South Sudan, Ambassador Booth, is actively trying
to resolve this crisis.
He has been in the region since December 22nd, working
around the clock. He has met with President Kiir and other
officials. He travelled to South Sudan to meet with Riek
Machar.
He secured the first official visits with the group of
political detainees in Juba and he sat down with local
religious leaders and civil society members to help find a way
forward. He has also been working closely with the other
special envoys in the region.
In Juba, Ambassador Page and her team have led an
extraordinarily hard--difficult diplomatic effort under very
difficult circumstances.
This said, and as I said before, an all-out effort on our
part, and, especially given our special history with Sudan, is
ongoing. We are working closely with South Sudan's neighbors
through the East Africa's Intergovernmental Authority on
Development, who are spearheading the mediation efforts.
A special summit on South Sudan was held at the heads of
state level 12 days after the conflict began and, thanks to
robust engagement, representatives of both parties arrived in
Addis for negotiations just a few days later.
We are encouraged by IGAD's leadership in convening the
parties and strongly support the efforts of former Ethiopian
Minister Seyoum and Kenyan General Lazaro Sumbeiywo to find a
peaceful solution to the political dialogue.
And over the past weekend, Ambassador Booth travelled with
the mediators and other members of the diplomatic community to
South Sudan where they met with Riek Machar to directly press
him to enter into a cessation of hostilities immediately and
unconditionally.
An agreement to end hostilities will provide much needed
time and space for dialogue to begin on the core political and
governance issues that really are the root causes of this
crisis. Both sides must recognize that there can be no military
solution.
We have made clear to the rebels that we will not recognize
a violent overthrow of a democratically-elected government and
at the same time we have urged the government to open political
space to allow for greater inclusion. Each day that the
conflict continues the risk of all-out civil war grows and
tensions continue to rise.
Let me conclude by saying that I am gravely concerned that
the crisis in South Sudan has the potential to escalate even
further.
South Sudan's leaders on both sides are breaking their
promises to their own people. While we do not know the scale of
the atrocities that have been committed thus far, there is
clear evidence of targeted killing. Dinkas are killing Nuer,
Nuer are killing Dinkas.
Each violent act threatens to return Sudan to the cycle of
conflict and destruction that South Sudanese of all ethnicities
and backgrounds voted to end in their vote for independence in
2011.
But just as each act of violence may ignite retribution,
each step toward peace offers the chance to rebuild. Breaking
this cycle and ensuring that Africa's newest nation continues
to move forward rather than backward is the highest priority of
the United States Government.
I thank you for your time, I thank you for your commitment
to the people of South Sudan and for our efforts in that
region, and I would be happy to take your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Thomas-Greenfield follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you very much, Ambassador.
We go now to Mr. Gast.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE EARL W. GAST, ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR AFRICA, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Gast. Good morning, Chairman Royce, and also good
morning, Congressman Sires and members of the committee, and
thank you for inviting me to testify on the crisis in South
Sudan and the U.S. Government response.
The U.S. Government, especially members of this committee,
have been strong supporters of the people of South Sudan for
decades throughout the civil war, during the implementation of
the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and since independence.
Yet today this new nation's hopeful future has been
obscured by an outbreak of horrific violence that threatens its
hard-won struggle for peace and stability.
Even before the conflict emerged, much of South Sudan was
staggeringly underdeveloped and vulnerable to conflict. Forty
percent of people needed humanitarian assistance.
The lack of roads and services made providing that aid
uniquely difficult and recurrent droughts, floods, violence,
macroeconomic shocks and returnee and refugee inflows have only
exacerbated existing needs, and these challenges have
multiplied since the fighting began.
This conflict has now claimed thousands of lives and driven
more than 480,000 persons from their homes. While aid agencies
had already prepositioned stockpiles of relief supplies for
humanitarian needs that existed before the fighting erupted
last month, violence has prevented some organizations from
accessing them and it's also disrupted supply chains.
Offices and warehouses have been looted. Drivers
transporting supplies have been killed and we are routinely
denied access to roads by the SPLA, the army, and armed groups.
The Nile River, which is typically a major conduit for the
movement of supplies, has been off limits for weeks. So USAID's
challenge and the challenge that humanitarian agencies face are
twofold.
We must not only respond to emergency needs, those that
were caused by the conflict and those that pre-existed the
conflict, but also continue to work toward long-term
development, goals that will help lift the South Sudanese out
of this cycle of poverty and conflict.
Toward that end, we are developing a nimble platform that
allows our partners to adapt their activities to meet shifting
needs.
The additional $50 million announced earlier this month is
supporting a multi-sector operation for humanitarian assistance
to help protect civilians and survivors of violence, manage
sites hosting newly-displaced persons and reunify families that
have been separated by the fighting.
Importantly, it also helps support the U.N. Humanitarian
Air Service which is currently the main means of transporting
aid workers and lifesaving supplies to nine UNMIS bases that
are now sheltering some 66,000 persons.
Over decades of work in South Sudan our partners have
developed the relationships and expertise needed to run these
operations. The U.N. estimates that relief agencies have
reached about half of the newly-displaced persons.
However, insecurity and obstruction continue to impede
their ability to reach all those in need so we continue to push
for unfettered humanitarian access and respect for humanitarian
workers, which are critical to an effective response.
Concurrent with our emergency response we are also
reviewing how our broad portfolio of long-term development
activities might support South Sudan's recovery from the
immediate crisis as well as address the root causes of
violence.
Conflict mitigation and reconciliation processes will be
key to helping alleviate the current conflict, rebuilding trust
among communities and supporting local and national healing to
re-knit South Sudan's social fabric.
Civil society and the media, which serve as the eyes and
ears of the people and hold the government accountable, must
play a central role in that process alongside a diversity of
other voices including political parties.
We also need to protect development gains in health,
education and agriculture while continuing to help build the
institutions of a functioning, legitimate and viable state.
However, our assistance will have limited impact without
the sustained commitment of South Sudan's leadership, something
that is currently missing, to set the country on the right
course of inclusive reform and development.
Unless that happens, this crisis will deal another major
blow to South Sudan's future as a nation and to the hopes of
its people.
Thank you for your time today and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gast follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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Chairman Royce. Well, thank you.
If I could start with this question. When we look at
Khartoum's machinations over the years and their activities in
South Sudan, I think that they have a long history of meddling
within the factions there. And so now you have Bashir making a
trip--a recent visit to Juba and I was wondering if we have any
indication that he might have made any guarantees to President
Kiir.
At the same time, Machar had that history prior to the
establishment of South Sudan of switching sides, of joining the
regime, of working with Bashir, and I wondered if you have any
indication that he's reached out to Bashir for any form of
assistance.
It wouldn't surprise me if both--if, you know, Bashir and
those in the north who have a long history of repression down
there and connections with both sides in this--in these
factions that they might be strengthening their hands in their
interaction with the south. But I don't--I don't have--other
than the trip there I don't have any information.
Has the State Department conveyed any messages to the head
of state in Sudan about meddling there? I just wondered what
you could tell us.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Thank you for that question.
We are aware of Bashir's trip to South Sudan. He initially
travelled in with the IGAD heads of state as a member of IGAD
but he went in separately. We initially heard rumors that he
would be providing security for the oil fields in--around the
border.
They later announced that they had agreed to provide
technical assistance. But I think all of that remains to be
seen. It is something that we are concerned about and we are
watching very closely as well.
We have not had any direct conversations with President
Bashir, as you know, but we have conveyed across the region
that we do not see this as being resolved militarily and we
have encouraged countries to be very circumspect about any
assistance to the warring parties.
Chairman Royce. Let me ask you this question. I brought up
the issue of the U.N. attempting to exert some leverage on that
government in South Sudan with respect to bringing sanctions in
play. Now we have a new report.
I was going to ask you if it's accurate and if the
administration is considering sanction there and specifically
whether you'd try to sanction individuals in the government.
Would they be targeted if they were complicit in this
implosion?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Sir, we are looking at a variety of
options to hold accountable those individuals who are
responsible for the atrocities and violations of human rights
and, particularly, we're looking at those individuals who are
blocking efforts to--who are spoiling our efforts to achieve
peace. They are on both sides, both within the government as
well as those anti-government forces.
Chairman Royce. And one of the other observations that I
made in my opening statement was that in many ways the writing
was on the wall here. You had an enormous amount of, shall we
say, authority being consolidated in the presidency. At the
same time, you had corruption that was evident.
This was a concern--the magnitude of it--by the U.N.
report, and the authoritarian rule was moving forward step by
step. First, the local governors were pushed out by the
President.
Then in March, behind closed doors, when he was approached
by the Vice President for his increasingly strong-armed, you
know, tactics the Vice President was dismissed. Machar was
tossed. So was the entire cabinet--the entire cabinet.
So throughout the year when these episodes occurred and
almost monthly we were reading something about the difficulties
at hand, what was the engagement from the administration?
Did someone go from Washington to Juba to say enough or to
engage or what was going on?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Well, first and foremost, our
Ambassador was actively engaged and----
Chairman Royce. I understand that.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield [continuing]. Issued public and
private statements concerning the situation. We also had
meetings here in the U.S. on the margins of the U.N. with
President Kiir. I can't answer whether anyone travelled. I can
check on that and get back to you.
Chairman Royce. I think it's very important because I think
we perhaps had an opportunity to bridge that internal divide.
But that probably was not going to happen without a tremendous
amount of international pressure, either the--at the U.N. where
they tried to leverage, you know, their force with the threat
of sanctions there to stop the corruption, stop the
authoritarian rule and--or, you know, with direct engagement
from the highest levels here in the United States where we laid
out the consequences should this road of just destroying any
viable opposition and tossing out cabinet members and, you
know, taking away all the governorships.
I mean, it would seem to me that it would be pretty clear
that in an environment like that without our direct engagement
in terms of sending high-ranking officials there to sort of
spell out the consequences that we would----
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I'm being passed a couple of notes
that----
Chairman Royce. Yes.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield [continuing]. Indicate that both Gail
Smith and General Rodriguez travelled out to the region. But I
do know that there were high-level meetings with Salva Kiir in
New York on the margins of the U.N.
Chairman Royce. Let me ask you also, we had--I appreciate
that information. Our Embassy in Juba, I guess, is the old
USAID compound. Doesn't meet safety standards.
In a briefing for the committee, Undersecretary Kennedy
described the physical security there as pathetic and this
latest evacuation, I think, underscores the importance of the
committee's work to have enacted the Department of State
Operations and Embassy Security Authorization Act, which we
passed in a bipartisan way overwhelmingly in the Senate. We're
trying to get that into law.
The draw down of the Embassy was reinforced and I think
that was the first use of new military units created in the
wake of Benghazi. These units are the Djibouti-based East
Africa Response Force and the Spain-based Marine Task Force.
What are the lessons learned from the first deployments of
these units and will we use them differently in the future? And
the FAST Team Marines based in Roda, Spain are also designed to
respond to these types of contingencies.
I don't think they were deployed in this case. I was going
to ask about that, and let me just ask you about that aspect of
security.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Good. Thank you.
As you no doubt know, the security of our people in Sudan
and everywhere where we have Embassies in the world is our
highest priority. So that was the very first thing that we
looked at.
We did an initial draw down of our staff and now we're down
to minimal staff being supported by a very large security team.
We have 45 from the East Africa Response Force who are there.
In addition, we have nine diplomatic security officers and
seven Marines who are there with a very, very small staff
headed by the Ambassador there. We're looking at the situation
and monitoring the situation almost on an hourly basis.
We come together several times a day to review security in
and around Juba and at any point when we determine that we can
no longer keep our people safe we'll have to make the difficult
decision of bringing down our flag and bringing our people
home.
It is important, we believe, to continue to maintain a
diplomatic presence. We think there is a key role for our
Ambassador to play in terms of political engagement with the
parties there but also to not--to be there to encourage the
Sudanese who are going through this difficult time.
So our flag going down will send a very, very strong
signal. But, again, we know that our--the safety of our staff
is our most important priority.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ambassador. Mr. Sires.
Mr. Sires. Can you comment how much of the struggle is an
effort to control the revenues of oil? Can you expand upon
that?
I mean, obviously, there's a lot of corruption and I think
behind all this there's an effort to control the only real
source of money that Southern Sudan gets.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I'd say that that is part of it but
there are a number of issues related to the constitution and
how the government is organized and how inclusive the
government is that has also led to this.
But I'm certain that all--having access to all revenue
plays a key role in the motivations of those who are involved.
Mr. Sires. Can you comment on that?
Mr. Gast. Well, certainly, we've seen a significant
reduction in oil production as many of the international staff
of the Chinese companies and Malaysian companies have left.
So that's something that we're concerned about and,
obviously, Sudan, which benefits from the oil, is also
concerned about, and as the chairman had mentioned there was an
offer of technical assistance to come across the border to help
with the maintenance of the wells.
I agree with Ambassador Greenfield that there are many
motivations for this. One is personal ambition. The other is
control of resources, which would include oil but also,
basically, a battle for control of the political party and for
political domination.
Mr. Sires. What role is China playing in all this? Are they
being constructive or are they just staying on the sidelines
like they usually do?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. The Chinese have some major
investments in the oil fields so there is a Chinese envoy who
has been in Addis throughout most of the talks that have gone
on in Addis and there was a visit by a senior Chinese official
as well.
They have been playing a very positive role in trying to
push for peace talks and peace negotiations because I think
it's in their interest to have a stable South Sudan that--where
the oil production is flowing. Right now, workers--many of the
Chinese workers have been evacuated from the oil fields.
Mr. Sires. And I think we give over $300 million a year in
humanitarian help. How do we--do we track it to make sure it
gets to the people that's needed or how do we track this?
Mr. Gast. It's a very complex and broad architecture that's
been developed by the U.N. The U.N. has been there for years
and it includes multiple U.N. agencies that are coordinated by
a humanitarian coordinator who also serves as the deputy head
of mission for UNMIS.
So that's the major infrastructure. Below that are the
service-oriented NGOs that support the actual delivery of
services and so we support a group of between 15 and 20 NGOs
that are out implementing it.
We also support the U.N. organizations and it's roughly a
60-40 split. Sixty percent of what we provide in humanitarian
assistance goes toward the U.N. agencies and 40 percent goes
into humanitarian NGOs.
We are currently tracking our assistance through NGO
reports, U.N. reports. We have a DART team that is based in
Nairobi right now and they're constantly coordinating with our
people in the field--our Embassy--as well as the U.N. agencies
and also the NGOs that are operating in country.
Mr. Sires. Thank you very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Let me ask a couple of questions, if
I could.
First of all, let me begin, again, thank you for your
service. I know that we are all--I was glad to hear you say
that the U.S. has engaged in an all-out diplomatic effort and
it's not surprising.
But I do have a question. You did mention that meetings
with Salva Kiir occurred on the perimeters of the U.N. That
would have been last September, though, wouldn't it? Or was he
here more recently than that?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. No. The high-level meetings occurred
in--on the sidelines.
Mr. Smith. But it would have been September?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes. Not since----
Mr. Smith. Not since the crisis, just so we're clear?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We've had a number of high-level
calls to Salva Kiir since this started.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. But----
Mr. Smith. Does that include President Obama?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. No, sir. Susan Rice from the
National Security Agency. The national security advisor called
and Secretary Kerry has made numerous calls to Salva Kiir.
Mr. Smith. Would the President consider doing that? I do
think, you know, just as Bush made a huge impact on getting the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement in the first place it would be
very helpful to, I think, have the President engage both
individuals, Machar as well as Salva Kiir. If you could take
that back I think it would be very, very useful.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I will.
Mr. Smith. You mentioned the 10,000 people who may have
been killed--International Crisis Group. How did they arrive at
that number?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I don't--I can't say how they
arrived at the number. We heard a number from the U.N. of about
1,000. We think that is extraordinarily low.
I think the 10,000 figure may be high but, truthfully, we
don't know the number because we have not had enough access to
get in to do that kind of assessment and that's one of the
things we're hoping with the cessation of hostilities, working
with the U.N. Human Rights Commission and others that we can
get better fidelity on those numbers.
Mr. Smith. You said over the weekend Ambassador Booth met
personally with other diplomatic individuals with Machar. Was
there any breakthrough? Did he give any kind of assurance that
he may be moving toward peace as opposed to continued
hostility?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We felt a bit of confidence that he
was close to agreeing to a cessation of hostilities. It has not
happened yet and we're still pushing that.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask you, has there been an effort to try
to bring the faith community into this? You know, I know Bishop
Eduardo Kussala. I've met with him many, many times.
There are large numbers of unbelievably competent--he's
testified here, as have others--individuals who might be able
to bridge the hostility gap and the fact is, as we all would
recognize, this could go from unbelievably horrific, as Mr.
Gast pointed out, to even worse.
The 10,000 could double, triple unless there's a huge
tourniquet put on this killing. Has the faith community been
asked to become mediators in this crisis?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. They have been actively involved.
Secretary Kerry was in Rome over the weekend and spoke to the
Pope. The Pope has mentioned South Sudan several times in his
statements. Secretary Kerry, while in Rome, raised the issue.
Ambassador Booth has met with the faith community in Juba
and has been supporting their efforts to call for peace.
Mr. Smith. Again, I would respectfully submit that putting
them in a more pivotal situation might make or diffuse at least
some of the hostility as it grows in intensity. Yes?
Mr. Gast. Congressman, just to add, you're absolutely right
and we're engaging with faith-based organizations and leaders
to help at the community level and we're using the support that
we provide to a network of independent broadcasters around the
country to get those peace messages out.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that.
You mentioned, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, very
importantly that humanitarian access is extremely important--
you know, the idea of unfettered access and unconditional.
Has either side been--could you give a detailed analysis
either now or for the record as to who has been more
cooperative on both sides of this divide?
Are they allowing it? Is Salva Kiir allowing it?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I think both sides are equally
guilty but we have been able to recently get some humanitarian
flights into some of the northern areas where we were--the U.N.
was blocked. Earl may have some more detail on exactly what has
been done but we--recently the U.N. has been able to fly in
humanitarian assistance.
Mr. Smith. But where is it being blocked? We all remember
during the South Sudan when UNICEF testified right here as well
as our own administration how difficult it was to get in. They
had to get permission from Khartoum. Is this deja vu now in
terms of humanitarian access?
Mr. Gast. Well, they require--they certainly require
approval from Juba and often it's the circumstances on the
ground that affect whether or not flights can come in.
So, as the Ambassador mentioned, it's mainly in the areas
where there's conflict like Malakal, Bentiu and Bor. Those are
the areas that are most difficult to access.
Mr. Smith. Two very quick follow-up questions or questions.
Mr. Gast, is there any evidence of any disease outbreaks
occurring, and secondly, Ambassador, South Sudan has a
population of about 8.2 million people. The Dinka are 1.5
million, the Nuer 800,000.
Where are the other ethnic groups breaking in terms of are
they aligning themselves with one group or the other? Do we
have a breakdown of that? Because that could, of course,
exacerbate the situation if coalitions are built.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. In terms of the other ethnic groups,
I think they have been quietly staying on the sidelines hoping
that this situation eventually resolves itself.
I think if it continues over a long period of time we'll
see some of those people who've been standing on the sidelines
joining one side or the other and we're hoping we don't get to
that point.
Mr. Smith. Before Mr. Gast answers, the Americans who have
been airlifted and gotten out of the country are there still
Americans at risk?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes, sir. We have evacuated 450
Americans since this conflict started and we're monitoring
another 200 to 300 who are still in South Sudan who have not
either requested evacuation or we have not been able to reach
them.
But this is something that we monitor, again, on an hour to
hour basis. We have phone numbers of individuals. We reach out
to those numbers on a regular basis.
They know where to call us. We have many of them calling
out to us. Some of them are connected with the U.N. and are
there on official responsibilities.
Mr. Smith. Have any of them been injured besides the
service members that were during the rescue attempt?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We have heard that two American
citizens were killed in the battle. These were Americans of
Sudanese descent who were in communities. That, again, is not
information that I can confirm. There could be more. There
could be fewer.
Mr. Gast. Congressman, going back to your question about
outbreaks of disease, early on there were rumors of potentially
cholera breaking out in some of the camps in Juba. Those proved
to be unfounded.
Nonetheless, it really did spark a drive by the U.N.
organizations and NGOs to ramp up sanitation efforts as well as
immunization efforts in the camps. So no disease outbreaks.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. Congresswoman Karen Bass from California.
Ms. Bass. Thank you.
Actually, just following up briefly on Mr. Smith's question
about the Americans that are there, who are they? Are they
primarily Sudanese-Americans? I know you said some of them are
affiliated with the U.N. but what are they doing?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Some of them are working with NGOs.
Some are with humanitarian organizations and some are private
citizens who are there.
Ms. Bass. I see.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Again, we are monitoring the numbers
that we have. Some of them were brought to our attention by
relatives who are here in the United States and they've given
us numbers that we have not been able to successfully reach
people on.
Others have been in touch with us on a regular basis. We
have encouraged, in fact, strongly urged that all American
citizens leave Sudan in our travel warnings and that's a
warning that we repeat on a regular basis.
There are still commercial flights that are flying out. We
are no longer providing the charter flights that we were
providing but commercial flights are still available and we----
Ms. Bass. Really?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield [continuing]. Encourage people to
take advantage of those and leave.
Ms. Bass. Okay. Thank you.
So I wanted to ask a few questions to understand some of
the nature of the conflict. So I know that there are--that
Kiir--President Kiir is holding political prisoners. I wanted
to know who these people were.
Are they combatants? Who are they? I know that our effort
is to try to get them released. But how many, who are they, et
cetera?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Currently, we are aware that there
are 11 political detainees who are being held. Some of them
were in government positions. They have made clear in the
meetings that we have held with them and the negotiators have
held with them that they are not combatants.
They do not want to be connected with the cessation of
hostilities because they are not involved in that. But they
have political interest and we think they ought to be involved
in any political dialogue that should take place. So we have
been pushing for them to be released along with the IGAD
leaders and others in the region.
Ms. Bass. Is Machar still holding on to his position that
President Kiir has to step down in order for there to be a
cessation of the violence?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We have not heard that from him. The
only condition that he has announced is that the detainees must
be released before there is a cessation of hostilities. We're
trying to separate those two issues out.
We think there should be a cessation of hostilities
immediately and we're pushing at the same time but separately
that the detainees be released so that they can participate in
the political dialogue and in the negotiations that follow.
Ms. Bass. And in terms of the conflict that's going on
currently, are you concerned about fighters from Al-Shabaab or
other folks or efforts, terrorist groups from outside of Sudan
coming in? Is there any evidence of that?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We have not seen any evidence of
that. Of course, it's always a possibility but it's not
something that we've seen any evidence of and certainly the
South Sudanese, most of whom--all of whom are Christian, I
would not assume that they would welcome that kind of
participation and I hope they would not welcome them.
Ms. Bass. Thank you. And then we--you've mentioned in both
of your presentations about the blocking of humanitarian
efforts and I wanted to know if the blocking of the
humanitarian efforts is on both sides.
Is it one side? And is China involved in any of the
humanitarian efforts either financially or logistical support?
Mr. Gast. It is on both sides, Congresswoman Bass. It's
also in the areas primarily where there's conflict going on and
so that's what's really impeding our ability to deliver
humanitarian assistance in those conflict areas primarily right
now concentrated in Malakal, in Bentiu and Bor.
Ms. Bass. Okay. And in terms of our efforts, is there
anything else that you could think that we need to be doing as
Members of Congress, what could we do to be helpful to the
effort?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Let me just say that what you're
doing today is helpful. It lets the South Sudanese know that
what is happening there has a tremendous interest across our
Government.
Calls to Sudanese officials, the kinds of public statements
that have been made--those are all very, very helpful because
they are listening to those statements. They're very conscious
of what we are thinking and what we are saying.
Ms. Bass. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. We'll go now to Mr. Rohrabacher of
California.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Are we confident that the two sides here
can control their own people? Did they make an agreement? Does
that mean anything more than just two men making an agreement
or are they in control of their own forces?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We do have concerns about command
and control. There are a lot of militias that are formed
separate from this battle and it is not clear that either side
can control these individuals should they decide to continue to
fight.
So that is an ongoing concern that we all have, and as we
push for a cessation of hostilities between the two major
forces I think we'll still be trying to bring under control the
efforts of militias who have joined in to the fight for their
own reasons.
Mr. Rohrabacher. That's pretty tough.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes. What other countries--what role are
other countries playing in this? Do you have some--a good guy
list and a bad guy list of countries that are doing something
and contributing in a way that you would think is a positive
thing versus some other countries that may be actually hurting
the situation?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Right now, everyone seems to be on
the side of trying to bring this conflict to an end, and the
IGAD countries who are all the neighbors have been playing a
very, very positive role.
We have worked closely with other special envoys such as
the U.K and, as I mentioned earlier, the Chinese special envoy.
There's an EU special envoy.
So I think right now we all see this as problematic for the
region and we see there are no benefits to be achieved here by
any of the countries who neighbor South Sudan or those
countries with an interest in South Sudan. So I think that's a
good place to be right now.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And you say even the Chinese are--you
believe even they are playing a positive role?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Wow. That's something.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Got interest.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Who's providing all the guns to
these people? I mean, if they were militia and all they had
were, you know, spears or something like that we probably
wouldn't be too concerned. But they, obviously, are well armed.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We think the rebels have been taking
arms from the SPLA. There are SPLA soldiers who are in the
north of South Sudan. In areas where they have been able to
succeed in overtaking them they've been able to get those
weapons. Also, we know that there have been some defections and
those individuals are defecting with their arms.
We have not seen any evidence of where the arms are coming
from other than what they may have had in their possession when
this started.
Mr. Rohrabacher. You know, when people are fighting, people
who've never seen this up front don't know how fast the
ammunition has dissipated in any type of a--you know, when
you're in the middle of some fight you're running out of
ammunition within a few minutes of the time that something
starts. Isn't there a supply line of ammunition coming from
somewhere?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I am sure that is the case. We have
not seen it. But it is something that we are looking at very,
very closely and we're encouraging, again, all of the neighbors
and others who they might approach for supplies that they
should not respond to any of those requests.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Chairman, I would think that our
intelligence services should be able to track something like
that down and there should be some repercussions if we are
serious about trying to get this conflict under control, at the
very least of shutting off the supplies so when people shoot up
with the bullets they've got they aren't going to have to--they
won't know where the other bullets are coming from.
That would be a great service and I would think that if our
CIA can do anything they should be able to find those big
trucks lumbering across filled with bullets and filled with
land mines and filled with artillery shells.
Thank you very much and good luck to you.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
We'll now go to Mr. Cicilline of Rhode Island.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
our witnesses for being here today and for the work that you're
doing.
I'd like to focus first on the capacity of the U.N.
peacekeepers in South Sudan on their ability to protect
civilians who are seeking refuge in the bases, which I think is
somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 people and, of course,
people outside of those bases.
As you know, we currently have legislative caps which
prevent the United States from fulfilling its responsibilities
unless Congress acts and I think the shortfall in terms of our
making payments is about $10 million and it means, I assume,
that critical resources to the U.N. mission there are not
available and it also, I suspect, means that countries who are
providing troops, particularly, I understand, Bangladesh and
Ghana are not being fully reimbursed for their services.
So would you speak a little bit about the capacity of the
U.N. mission as a result of this? What impact it has on other
countries who are part of this effort and what the long-term
implications are?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. The U.N.--well, let me just start
there. About 100,000 IDPs have taken refuge around the U.N.
bases and the U.N. does not have the capacity at the moment to
provide full protection and support that is needed.
So one of the first actions that we took was to ask for the
Security Council to increase the number of troops and there was
an additional 5,000 approved for South Sudan.
Mr. Cicilline. Which we supported?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes, sir.
Mr. Cicilline. Okay.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. And we have been working with the
troop-contributing countries, with the other supporters of the
U.N. to try to build up that capacity. I just heard that Ghana
has agreed, despite the fact that they're not being paid, to
provide 850 additional troops.
We have heard from the Tanzanians who have agreed to
provide additional troops. The Nepalese have provided foreign
police. The Bangladeshis have provided additional troops and we
continue to push for other countries to build up the capacity
so that we don't have a more disastrous situation to occur.
Mr. Cicilline. Some have--as you know, South Sudan has--I
want to just move to a different area--has not adopted or
developed a constitution and some have suggested that that
process by itself would help to address some of the underlying
issues surrounding the conflict.
Do you think that's true? Is there someone who you think
has the leadership standing to begin that process? I know it
seems hard to talk about--the development of a constitution in
the middle of this conflict. But it seems as if we should be
thinking about helping to support that kind of approach.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes, sir, and thank you again for
that question.
We think one of the key areas after the cessation of
hostilities and the political dialogue starts is that there are
discussions on their constitutional formation and how they want
their country to be developed as a democracy in the future.
So that is being given a great deal of thought. I can't
give you a name of who might be the person to lead this process
but I know that Ambassador Booth and others in the region are
working very diligently on this.
Mr. Gast. South Sudan currently operates under a
transitional constitution and you're absolutely right, they've
been very woefully delayed in moving forward to develop a fully
vetted constitution, meaning being inclusive.
They have set up the National Constitution Review
Commission. It does include a large number of civil society
groups but it's not fully constituted and we also believe that
that would be a very good vehicle to help support a national
dialogue of reconciliation after the immediate hostilities are
addressed.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you. And finally, I think no matter
how it unfolded there's no question that Machar has led an
armed rebellion against the government and so when you talk
about reconciliation and negotiation and resolution do you
envision that there's a scenario in which he returns to the
government and is part of the government?
Is that something which is probable, likely, supportable,
sustainable? How does that happen?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I think all of that remains to be
seen. I think there are some rifts now that have developed that
will be hard to turn back. We're not going to be able to take
South Sudan back to where South Sudan was before the fighting
began.
So I think this will be a decision that the Sudanese--South
Sudanese have to make as they look at how they reconcile and
move forward. But I think it's going to be difficult for him to
play a helpful role.
Mr. Cicilline. Yes. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Cicilline.
We go now to Mr. Weber--Randy Weber.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
Ambassador, thank you all for being here and, Mr. Gast,
thanks for being here. I came in late so you may have already
answered a couple of these questions but I'm going to take a
shot at them anyhow.
The population of Sudan and South Sudan--do we know what
that is?
Mr. Gast. 12 million in South Sudan.
Mr. Weber. Of South Sudan?
Mr. Gast. South Sudan.
Mr. Weber. And how about Sudan itself?
Mr. Gast. Something in that range. We'll get you the exact
number.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And what is the main economy of each?
Mr. Gast. So for the south they're almost entirely reliant
on oil and oil production. For Sudan, Khartoum, also oil
production is a major export but also agriculture is a mainstay
of the economy.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Who is their main trading partner, would
you say?
Mr. Gast. South Sudan?
Mr. Weber. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Gast. Main trading partner would be with the exports of
the oil so it would be with the Chinese consortium and with
Uganda.
Mr. Weber. How about close countries? Does Uganda trade
with them at all?
Mr. Gast. Absolutely. So a lot of imports come in from
Uganda.
Mr. Weber. And I'm reading that in response to the crisis
Uganda has sent 1,200 troops into South Sudan and we get
reports that Ugandan military aircraft have bombed several
rebel-held positions and that Uganda itself says that that
action came at the request of President Kiir. Is there a treaty
that exists between South Sudan and Uganda?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I don't know that there is a treaty.
We've spoken to the Ugandans on this and they've been very
clear in public about what their motivations were.
Initially, in the communique that the IGAD governments
issued after they visited South Sudan they announced that
Uganda was going in to protect the key infrastructure--the
airport and the road to Nimule from Juba.
Since then, the Ugandans have been involved militarily and
they have indicated that they have an interest in a stable
South Sudan but they also have an interest in ensuring that a
democratically-elected government is not overthrown by violent
means.
Mr. Weber. So have they set up checkpoints, military
personnel to control or protect that infrastructure?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes. They are--they have troops
stationed at the airport and they have troops stationed along
the road and as well to support the bridge leading into Juba.
Mr. Weber. Done with or without the administration's
knowledge--foreknowledge?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Oh, they're very aware. They've been
very public.
Mr. Weber. Foreknowledge, I should say.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes. They've been very public about
it. They were very public in the announcement. This was
initially announced in the communique so it was done in a very,
very public way.
Mr. Weber. And I understand that the U.S.-Ugandan security
partnership includes significant support from us to Ugandan
troops that are engaged in regional counterterrorism and
stability operations. Has our support been used in effect to
get involved in that civil--in that war?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We have watched that very closely
and I think I can say that we have not seen any evidence that
any support we are providing for that operation is being used
to support the separate operation that we're not connected to.
Mr. Weber. Troops are not engaged in the actual fighting
itself, just the protection of the infrastructure--the Uganda
troops?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. No, I think we have seen that they
have been involved in some of the fighting. We understand some
of the gun ships were used to assist the government in Bor.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And you--some of the reading I did said
that a lot of the fighting was over scarce waters and grazing
lands disputes. How does that get fixed?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. That's a long-term problem that I
think I can turn to my colleague here to talk about some of the
activities that we've been involved in to assist them in
addressing that issue.
Mr. Gast. It's a long-standing conflict between
pastoralists and farmers and it's over scarce resources to
include land, to include water. And so what we have been doing
at the community level is helping peace commissioners and
helping tribal leaders work together to address those issues so
that they're able to negotiate access to land and access to
resources.
Mr. Weber. Do they have property rights? Do they own
property?
Mr. Gast. That is something that is starting very soon.
There are multiple systems in South Sudan but we were very
instrumental in coming up with a land policy.
Mr. Weber. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Lowenthal of California.
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr.
Chair for your--for the memorandum that really provided for me
a context for today's hearing and I also want to thank the
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield and Mr. Gast.
My question regards the emerging infrastructure in South
Sudan and U.S. companies that invest in infrastructure projects
to help develop this young country. As you know, quality
infrastructure, as you both pointed out, can provide that
economic freedom and the prosperity for a country.
Last April, at the suggestion of a constituent and with the
support of Congressman Rohrabacher, I wrote a letter to
Secretary Kerry and the Acting Secretary of Commerce Blank
asking for their support for an American or for American
companies, really, interested in building oil pipelines in
South Sudan.
The oil project would bring--was projected to bring in over
$3 billion to the South Sudan economy. With this conflict what
his happening to U.S. investment? I don't even know if this
project is even moving forward at this time. Where are U.S.
companies now?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I would guess that they're all
standing on the sidelines waiting to see how this conflict is
resolved. I mentioned earlier that December 4th and 5th there
was an investment conference.
Business people visited South Sudan. They saw the
possibilities for investment there. But as long as there is a
conflict ongoing, none of these companies will be able--whether
it's infrastructure or other types of investment, will be able
to follow through on any investments in that country.
Mr. Gast. I agree they're also sitting on the sidelines. As
the Ambassador mentioned, the investors conference that was
held in Juba was very much a success.
More than 500 persons attended from several hundred
companies to include U.S. companies. That was followed up by a
special event that was held in Washington with the CCA where
the keynote speaker--that's the Corporate Council for Africa--
it's a community of business persons that are interested in
investing in Africa--where the keynote speaker was the minister
of foreign affairs.
So there is interest. There are some U.S. investors. But,
obviously, this conflict is keeping everyone on the sidelines
now.
Mr. Lowenthal. Another question I have has to do with
humanitarian needs. In our report, with the displacement of
about 350,000 within the country and about 40,000 have left the
country for neighboring countries, it talked about that
approximately half of the displaced people within South Sudan
have not yet been reached. About half have, half haven't.
What does that mean that they have not been reached? What
is their status?
Mr. Gast. Part of it is trying to identify where the
displaced persons are moving to. That is a phenomenon that
happens very frequently in South Sudan when there is a crisis
predominantly driven by violence.
People flee towns and go in--what they say into the bush,
meaning that they're no longer visible and they're surviving
based on what supplies they brought or whatever humanitarian
assistance can be provided.
Mr. Lowenthal. But these are the ones that we have not been
able to reach. Do we know where they are or----
Mr. Gast. We have a good sense of where they are and that's
primarily because the U.N. agencies as well as the NGOs have
been able to go out and do assessments. The challenge, of
course, is getting humanitarian supplies that are already
within country but into the areas where the IDPs are.
Mr. Lowenthal. And the final question I have is was talked
about. You know, Vice President Machar really is--kind of
oversees the rebel forces or those fighting the government. Are
those--all the people that are fighting are they really
responsive to the Vice President or are there other interests
going on?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. There were--there are a large
number, a variety of militias and rebel groups who have formed.
We've heard about the white militia--the White Army. They're
under the guidance of a prophet.
It is not clear that Riek Machar has command and control
over all of the militias who are supporting--who are supporting
his efforts.
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back my
time.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Lowenthal.
We'll go now to Mr. Yoho.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate you two being here and I hope you can shed
some light on what we can do different or what needs to be done
different in Sudan and South Sudan.
You know, looking back over the history since 1956 when
they got their independence this war has been going on or the
conflict has been going on. What do you see the main reason for
the cause of the conflict between the two entities, south and
north Sudan? Is it different in religion? Philosophical
beliefs?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. The initial fighting between the
conflict in Sudan that led to the creation of South Sudan was a
very, very long-term conflict that had a basis in religion, in
ethnic prejudice between the Arab north and the African south,
and in a result of there not being political inclusion.
Mr. Yoho. Okay. And that's what I see over and over and
over again. That's like the movie ``Groundhog Day.''
You know, we wake up to the same thing and, you know, I've
got here in a report right in front of me that we spend $2
billion annually in recent years between the north and the
south--$2 billion of the American taxpayers' money and we've
been doing this for year after year after year.
Yet I'm reading an article here about China, and China has
become South Sudan's largest trading partner, the single
biggest trading partner, having overtaken the United States
over the past decade but professes to remain neutral and not
interfering in African states in their internal politics.
Of all the oil that's produced in South Sudan, who
purchases most of that? What nation purchases that?
Mr. Gast. So there are two consortia that have concessions
with the Government of South Sudan--one principally Chinese,
the other one Malaysians. But there are Chinese--there's
Chinese ownership on both.
And so if one were to look at, you know, the revenues--
where they go to--roughly 45 percent of the revenue goes to the
Government of South Sudan. Then another 40 percent goes to the
consortia and then another----
Mr. Yoho. Let me rephrase that. Who benefits for--I don't
want to say benefit--who uses the majority of that oil? What
country? Where does that go to?
Mr. Gast. So it would be going--it would be going eastward.
Mr. Yoho. Right. China is what I have--80 percent of that.
Mr. Gast. Yes. Yes.
Mr. Yoho. How much foreign aid does China put into that
country?
Mr. Gast. I wouldn't call it foreign aid but they have
provided--they have provided buildings----
Mr. Yoho. Investment.
Mr. Gast. Investment. Some investment and some----
Mr. Yoho. And your answer on the money that goes to USAID,
you know, no offense but it was kind of a gobbledy-gook answer
because it wasn't going--there was no accountability is what I
saw, you know.
And, again, we're putting billions of dollars--you said 60
percent of the money that we send over there kind of gets
filtered through the end through these different agencies and
what I've seen in my short time here of a year is there's no
accountability.
I think we need to focus on aid--or trade, not aid. I think
China is ahead of us in here and it's reflected in that they're
the largest trading partner.
If we become trading partners with a country like Sudan,
instead of forcing Western ideals on a country that does not
want those and it's been proven over and over again, and if we
can build economic base in trade they'll come our way and in
the meantime China knows this and they're kicking our rear end
and our competitiveness is getting killed.
Mr. Gast. You make some very good points, Congressman.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you.
Mr. Gast. Let me just add to that. What I mentioned was the
amount of humanitarian assistance that we're delivering. I
didn't mention the development assistance which amounts to
about $300 million a year.
Now, you're talking about trade. Unfortunately, there's
very limited capacity within the country for trade----
Mr. Yoho. I agree.
Mr. Gast [continuing]. To include the development of
businesses, infrastructure, government systems and that's what
we're trying to do is build that foundation so that businesses
can develop and that South Sudan can take advantage----
Mr. Yoho. So instead of going through the U.N. and letting
that money go through there why don't we use American companies
and invest in infrastructure and things that we can trade and
start from the ground floor up instead of filtering it through
the U.N. where it never gets to seem, like, where it needs to
go?
I mean, I just read in here that 10 percent of one of the
food drops that went over there got hijacked and it was enough
to feed 180,000 people. And, you know, we keep doing those
things.
China is putting in infrastructure, trading with them and
they become a reliable partner, and you guys, between the two
of you, you've got 50-some years of foreign aid experience.
Help us redirect policy to where we get the bang for our
buck, and it's not about the money. It's about results. And if
we have good economic development over there the people of
Sudan will grow their economy and they'll settle a lot of their
own problems.
I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you.
We go now to Dr. Ami Bera of California.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
witnesses.
You know, before I ask my first question, just in December
we followed pretty closely the evacuation or the initial
attempt at evacuation of Americans from the conflict zone in
Bor and then, ultimately, getting them out.
So Ambassador, are the Americans that are in South Sudan
being evacuated or, you know, or how is that going?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Since the conflict started we've
evacuated more than 300--no, more than 400 American citizens.
We have also evacuated other citizens who've expressed a desire
on a space available basis.
We're tracking an additional 300 or so American citizens
who still may be there who have not asked for assistance and we
are urging in no uncertain terms that American citizens
consider--in our travel advisory that they consider leaving
South Sudan because our ability to continue to evacuate is
limited.
As you know, our Embassy is down to minimal staffing and we
are no longer providing the charter flights that we were
providing.
There are still commercial flights, as I mentioned earlier,
that are available for those American citizens to depart and
we're encouraging them to take those commercial flights.
Mr. Bera. And we do have adequate contingency plans should
things deteriorate rapidly?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Absolutely. We're watching this
situation almost on an hourly basis and, as I mentioned
earlier, we come together several times a day to do an
assessment of the security situation in Juba.
But, again, I want to stress how important it is for us
without taking the security of our people for granted for us to
keep our flag flying in Juba.
Mr. Bera. Sure. And we have taken steps to protect our
diplomats and Embassy personnel in Juba?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Currently, we have about 45 East
Africa Response Force military troops in South Sudan protecting
our Embassy facility.
Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you.
Now, shifting to the conflict, just so I can better
understand it, would you characterize this as a religious-based
conflict, Muslim versus Christian, or would you characterize it
more as an inter-tribal conflict?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. This is inter-tribal and it's a
clash of personalities.
Mr. Bera. Okay.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. It is a result of political
ambitions and a combination of lack of political space in a
country where the institutions are not well established to deal
with those kinds of conflicts.
It's a new country and so we're hoping that if--when the
cessation of hostilities stop that we can get the parties
around the table to work out what are currently their political
issues.
Mr. Bera. And if I recall, some of the early media reports
and so forth as they were characterizing the conflict has there
been prevalent use of conscripted child soldiers in this
conflict by the rebels?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I think that is something we're
watching and we're very concerned about. We are hearing about
youth militias. Individuals are being armed in communities.
It would not be surprising to hear that some of these are
individuals who are underage and that is something that is a
real problem and a real concern for us.
Mr. Bera. Okay. Shifting to Mr. Gast, clearly, our focus
right now is de-escalating and finding resolution of the
current conflict. But, you know, if we were to step back and
look at, you know, the 3 years of South Sudan's independence
and some of the investments that we've made--and you touched on
the development assistance--how would you assess that and what
are some of the successes we've had as well as some of the
challenges we've had?
Mr. Gast. The overwhelming challenge is lack of capacity
and that includes human capacity. Because of the three decades
of war with the north, people weren't educated and those who
were educated left. And so it means starting from scratch and
building a country.
So there have been some accomplishments and, you know, over
a 2\1/2\-year period of time and even some of the work that we
had done pre-independence.
But building institutions of economic governance. There is
a functioning central bank. It has its own currency. It's
managing the foreign exchange fairly well albeit with
assistance from the international community.
There's a ministry of finance that is managing a budget and
trying to include principles of transparency so that one can
see how the money is spent and track not only at the national
level but moving down to the state level and even to the county
level.
So there are those systems that are being built. We do see
some significant development gains. For example, enrollment in
schools has more than quadrupled over the past--over the past
5, 6, 7 years.
So that's a major accomplishment. There's more to be done.
We're not satisfied with the percentage of those who are
registered in schools who are girls. It's currently 39 percent
and we want to push that effort as well.
But education is a major thrust because you can't have
institutions without educated persons.
Mr. Bera. Right. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Mr. Meadows is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you both for
your testimony.
I wanted to follow up on one area that has been addressed.
But as we look at some of what has happened over the last few
months, what would you say is the number one thing that we
could do either from a policy standpoint or from a legislative
standpoint to provide a more stable environment so that we
don't have a repeat of this? And either one of you who would
like to comment on that I'd love to hear your position.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Sorry. I think we have to stay
engaged with South Sudan. This is--I think Congressman Royce
referred to this as really depressing and it is depressing for
all of us.
But we have to sustain our engagement with them to get them
through this process. It's a very young country. It's only 3
years old and a lot of the institutions that need to be
developed to help them address these kinds of fissures in their
society are not there yet.
And so, again, I just think it's important that we remain
engaged. We have to make certain in no uncertain terms to the
warring parties that we do not support their efforts and that
those who are involved in activities that are interfering with
peace, who are committing atrocities and human rights
violations will be held accountable and we should certainly
support the efforts of those in the region who are trying to
bring about peace as well as support this country as it moves
forward.
Mr. Meadows. Being sensitive to the diplomatic component of
this, how do you feel Congress, or Members of Congress, can
express in more than words the need for these warring factions
that--you know, you say it won't be tolerated. There's a lot of
things that we say here in Washington, DC, that we'll never
tolerate that we do.
And I guess what I'm saying is how do we go beyond that to
put some meat behind the words that may come from us, not
necessarily from you? Where could we address that? Is that an
economic component or an aid component?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I think it's a number of components
but I would appreciate the opportunity for consultations with
you and other members of the committee on how we might address
some of these issues of accountability as we move forward.
Mr. Meadows. All right. Mr. Gast?
Mr. Gast. Let me just add a few more things. Let's say that
the immediate hostilities are addressed. I think at that point
we'll have--the international community will have some leverage
on the reforms taking place in South Sudan.
As we mentioned earlier, one is moving forward with the
constitutional process and included in that could be national
reconciliation and international dialogue and we do know that
2015 elections are coming up for national level and state level
positions. And so that is an important part, the national
dialogue and leading to the elections.
With regard to your comment about or your request for
assistance from Congress, I think what we would like to do
because we're in a pause right now--we don't know how the
situation will work out--but it will certainly affect our
thinking--our strategic thinking on how we deliver development
assistance and that's a dialogue that we would like to have
with you and others on the committee.
Mr. Meadows. I've had a couple of conversations with the
U.N. Ambassador and her particular assessment of the situation.
Without being too illuminating, would you say that your
assessment and her assessment would be one and the same or
where would they be different if indeed they are different?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I'm not sure what her assessment----
Mr. Meadows. You're not sure what her----
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I'm not sure what her assessment
was.
Mr. Meadows. Well, she was fairly--before a lot of this
happened there was some action that was going to be taken here
in the House. She made a plea for that action to not happen and
it was fairly optimistic that progress was being made.
Do you--would you characterize it as progress being made or
not?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I'm sure at the point that she spoke
to you we may have been making progress and, certainly, having
gone through what we've gone through over the past 2 weeks in
dealing with the situation on the ground there we are certainly
reassessing that.
I think we're moving forward toward a cessation of
hostilities so maybe that's a bit of progress right now. But I
think it remains to be seen how we move forward on the talks
and the negotiation on the constitutional efforts and dialogue
in the future.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you both for your heart and your
testimony, and I yield back, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, Mr. Meadows.
Mr. Kennedy is recognized.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Madam Chair.
To the witnesses, thank you very much for your time, for
your persistence, your patience this morning and, most
importantly, for your years of service to our country.
I also want to thank the State Department and some of your
colleagues there that were instrumental in helping to get,
working with a couple folks in my office, some constituents
from Massachusetts out of the region in the time of crisis. And
so many, many thanks from some grateful friends.
I guess I'd like to start with you, Madam Ambassador, if I
can and both of you, really, open--I'd like your thoughts on
both of these issues.
You affirmed in your testimony that there's not going to be
a military solution to this crisis--that it's got to be
diplomatic--and I just wanted to try to pin that down in
perhaps a little bit more long-term approach.
Oil counts for nearly 100 percent of all of the state
revenues in South Sudan but we haven't seen yet the South
Sudanese Government invest those funds in meaningful ways in
education, agriculture, infrastructure, as some of my
colleagues touched on.
Nearly half of the country's population is children and
two-thirds of the South Sudanese population is under the age of
24. So in terms of population and population growth,
particularly, South Sudan is the third fastest growing country
in the world.
As natural resources and the expanding human capital of
South Sudan could undoubtedly allow for a different path
forward, how can the international community, your agencies--
State Department, this committee--help to take a longer-term
view to ensure that with the demographic changes we're not
going to be here 10 years from now seeing the exact same or
similar levels of instability? Why don't we start with that?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Let me start and then I'll turn to
Earl.
The statistics that you quote we're very conscious of and
very aware of and we know that we have to work with this
government to turn those statistics around because otherwise we
will be here 10 years from now with the same problems.
So in terms of our own aid strategy, these are some of the
things that we're looking at, and I'll turn to Earl.
Mr. Gast. So you're right. I mean, are they making the
investments in their own population--talking about the
government--and for the '13 and '14 budget that the government
submitted there was a significant line item one investment in
people, an investment in infrastructure, recognizing that the
donor community would still absorb most of the burden.
And I think what we have seen because of the oil shocks
that won't happen this year. They do have, and I would say that
it's a world class standard petroleum revenue management bill
that was about to be signed by the President, which conforms
with EITI standards.
And in that bill, absolutely focusing on transparency,
transparency in terms of the revenue received by government as
well as the revenue paid by the companies to the government,
there was--and the Norwegians helped develop this--an
investment fund where they would draw down on resources in a
transparent way to invest in the country.
I think because of this conflict and also because we're
seeing a significant reduction in oil production because of the
conflict I can say that it's probably fair to say that that's
not going to happen in the near term.
We do have a focus on youth and part of it is through
education programs, not just at the primary level but also the
secondary level. But we have seen a lot of idle youth who have
very few employment opportunities and also are very much one to
generally get involved in conflicts.
So that's part of our peace dialogue on reconciliation
programs is looking at livelihoods and getting young people
involved in things that are income producing rather than
destructive for the nation.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, and I'd love to just continue the
conversation about that longer-term horizon with you after the
hearing.
And then, Madam Ambassador, very briefly following up on
one of my colleagues from--in the Senate, Senator Markey, last
week I think asked you a bit about U.S. arms exports and the
potential to look at those policies a little bit more closely.
You said that was kind of on the horizon or on the radar
screen. Any more you can--care to elaborate on that at this
point?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Thank you for giving me an
opportunity to clarify on that. We have not provided any lethal
support to South Sudan at all. We have provided them with some
communications equipment.
We've provided them with other non-lethal equipment and we
have been providing them with training to help them become a
more professional military. But we have not provided them any
lethal weapons. I think all of the weaponry that they have in
their possession they have purchased.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you. Thank you to both--you both and I
yield back negative 15 seconds.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, Mr. Kennedy. I'll
take your 15. The chair recognizes herself now.
I, like all of the members of our committee, am gravely
concerned with the ongoing crisis that we see unfolding in
South Sudan, and when I was the committee's ranking member I
had the honor of co-chairing a fact-finding mission to Sudan
with then House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer which included a
site visit to an internally displaced persons camp in Darfur
and a meeting with Salva Kiir, the President of Southern Sudan.
There we saw firsthand the dire conditions that this
horrific conflict has brought to the people of this region, and
as we watched the long-awaited independence ceremony following
the 2011 referendum, we were all hopeful that South Sudan could
achieve a stable and durable democracy.
But it was clear that South Sudan's referendum and
independence would not mark the end of this crisis but that
harder work still remained ahead.
Education, good infrastructure--those are the keys toward
building a successful South Sudan. But it will require, as we
know, a lot of time and resources to change conditions in the
country that is plagued by deep-rooted tribal tensions, by
poverty, and by underdevelopment.
South Sudan has one of the most fertile soils in Africa yet
only a small percentage of that soil is being cultivated.
It has the potential to be the food basket for Africa,
which would help it in becoming self-sufficient and becoming
prosperous, and as the highest donor country we have put
immense political capital and U.S. resources into South Sudan.
So I ask you what efforts is USAID making to improve
literacy, to improve transportation, to improve its
infrastructure programs? And I will continue. Also, a prolonged
war in South Sudan would lead to massive flows of refugees.
This could destabilize the entire region. And just
yesterday we saw this sad report. Two hundred civilians or
more, many of them women and children, died as a result of
trying to flee across a river on a raft and this tragedy
underscores the grim reality that the Sudanese people are
facing daily. And we're all so wary of foreign governments
investing in South Sudan's oil industry.
South Sudan is rich in natural resources, as we've
discussed, so China and other countries who have invested there
may view this conflict as an opportunity to expand their
influence.
Given our vested interest in South Sudan, losing influence
in this region would be a severe blow to our U.S. national
security interest. And so I ask if the situation with the
security deteriorates how can we secure our interest in South
Sudan?
Despite the great challenges that are facing South Sudan, I
think that we all remain hopeful that the world's youngest
country will unite, will move forward toward building a stable
and prosperous future for its people.
South Sudan has great potential to become a true success
story in the continent that can be a model for other developing
countries to emulate and we hope and we pray and we will work
so that this conflict will be resolved in a prompt and peaceful
manner.
And so I ask about USAID and the efforts that we're making
on literacy, transportation and infrastructure in South Sudan
and what are we doing to secure our interests in South Sudan
with all of these competing countries being invested there.
Thank you.
Mr. Gast. Thank you, Congresswoman, for your questions.
You're absolutely right. Conflict and war more than
anything affect development and so South Sudan and Sudan had a
conflict that lasted nearly 30 years, and now we see more
conflict in South Sudan. And so we hope that that doesn't rob
the development results that we've achieved over the past few
years.
We have made a concerted effort to focus on education and,
as I mentioned earlier, we're very pleased with enrollment
rates more than quadrupled over the last 6, 7 years. But we're
still not satisfied with the number of children or percentage
of children who should be in school who are actually in school.
That is roughly 50 percent. And so now we're making a
concerted effort to focus on those areas and not--surprisingly,
those areas where there are lowest enrollment rates are those
that are vulnerable to conflict.
And so we have a new program that's part of the Room to
Learn agenda of UNICEF and others that really looks at
providing security to those students and families where
students are going to school and that, of course, affects
girls' enrollment too. So we hope that will have a very good
effect.
You mentioned transportation. We actually, with the support
of Congress, spent $200 million on rebuilding a highway from
Juba to Nimule which is the border of Uganda, which is
absolutely critical to the economy of South Sudan. More roads
like that are needed.
We feel that our comparative advantage is supporting feeder
roads that support agriculture and we're doing that--more than
1,000 kilometers of feeder roads.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, and I apologize, Madam
Ambassador, but I've run out of time. Thank you very much.
Thank you, and I know you have more to say but let me turn
to the committee's ranking member, Mr. Engel, who's just come
back from a grueling trip to Israel and we thank him for his
perseverance and strength in being here today.
I know those trips are long and hard. Thank you, Eliot.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank both of you
for your good work and your hard work.
Let me start with you, Assistant Secretary Thomas-
Greenfield. Obviously, we're a month into this crisis. Neither
side is budging. The fighting is continuing.
What more are we doing--the administration doing to get the
two sides serious about negotiating a cease fire? Are we
looking at targeted sanctions or are any of our partners--U.K.,
any of the other countries--putting additional concrete
pressure on President Kiir and former Vice President Machar?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Thank you, sir, for that question.
We are putting a tremendous amount of effort into pushing
the two sides to the negotiating table once there is a
cessation of hostilities.
Ambassador Booth has been out--our special envoy has been
out there since the 22nd of December and he has been relentless
in his efforts coordinating, very closely with the negotiators
as well as the other special envoys.
We are exploring possible options for pressuring those
individuals who have been spoilers to the peace process--those
individuals who have committed atrocities and who are
committing human rights violations.
We're looking at what pressures we can put on those
individuals in the future and we are letting them know that we
are exploring those possibilities so that they know that there
will be consequences to what they are doing.
Mr. Engel. Thank you.
Mr. Gast, let me ask you. The ordered evacuation of USG
personnel and contractors from South Sudan, obviously, affects
our ability to conduct critical aid programs. That's both in
the areas affected by the crisis, the worst areas, and in areas
that have remained stable.
How has this evacuation affected our ability to conduct
these aid programs?
Mr. Gast. It's actually affected our ability on the
development side. We do have--as the assistant secretary
mentioned, we do track all Americans and we do have about 25,
26 Americans who are working with NGO partners and we are
seeing actually a number of expats--significant number of
expats returning to provide humanitarian assistance.
We do have a few development programs that are continuing
but, as I mentioned earlier, with the conflict we're taking a
pause to assess where our priorities might change moving
forward.
Mr. Engel. The whole thing--I know my colleagues have
mentioned this--is such a tragedy because we had and still do,
I mean, high hopes for this country. So let me just say--ask
either one of you--we are still, obviously, the largest donor
to South Sudan.
What should we be doing differently moving forward to help
make South Sudan a more successful state, and given the
widespread abuses that have taken place on the part of the SPLA
is it even possible to continue providing that force with U.S.
assistance?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. First, to your question what can we
do differently, and I think what we need to do is focus intense
attention on institution building so that the government is
able to sustain itself when there are these kinds of political
frictions that take place that allows a government to continue
to operate even when the political players are not talking to
each other, and those institutional--that institutional
stability doesn't exist now.
It's only been a country for 3 years. But I think our
efforts have to be intensified on that front. And yes, we have
to continue to work with the SPLA. We have to continue to work
with them to professionalize them. They are a huge group.
I think I've seen numbers as high as 120,000. Many of them
were extraordinary fighters. They were militia. They were never
trained military and so they need to be professionalized--and
if we don't do it I don't think anybody else will--so that we
can ensure that in the future when this kind of thing happened
we have a professional military and not militias who have been
pulled together under a so-called army.
Mr. Engel. Thank you.
Mr. Gast, anything under the wire?
Mr. Gast. Sure. I would add that we need to support other
voices and redouble our efforts in supporting civil society,
media and also new political parties that are emerging.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. Thank you, both. Thank you, Madam
Chair.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, Ranking Member
Engel.
And now we turn to Mr. Vargas for his 5 minutes.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate
it, and again, thank you for this hearing.
What a tremendously sad situation we're in. I think that
both South Africa and Sudan have been the two African nations
that have received the most attention by Americans. I know that
my children certainly know about Sudan and South Sudan because
of Darfur, the genocide there and all the problems that these--
that this region and this country, now these two countries,
have had, and it seems that our efforts have sometimes not gone
very far in the sense of actual outcomes.
I know you hear some frustration here today and I think
we're starting to hear it more and more in our districts that
we've put so much time, attention and money into this situation
in this country, in these two countries, and, you know, the
outcomes seem to be terrible--seem to revert back to old tribal
fights, personalities.
I'm glad you did mention the upcoming election because it
seems to me that a lot of it was based on that. One person
wanted to stay in power. The other person wanted to challenge
him. Didn't seem like it was going to work so one person
decides to leave, you know, starts a fight.
All of a sudden, you know, it breaks down under ethnic old
fights. I mean, what do we do? I mean, the American people are
starting to get, I think, really weary of this. Even though,
again, I think we're the most generous people in the world.
Always when you see a massacre we're the first people who
want to help. But, man, this is going on forever in this
particular region. What can we do?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We feel the frustration as well
because so much has been invested in South Sudan, not just 3
years ago when the country became independent but for many,
many years prior to independence, and you described it as sad
and, as I mentioned, Congressman Royce said it was depressing
and we all feel that.
But we think we have to stay engaged and I think the
American people would want us to stay engaged, that we have to
continue to push this country forward, to nudge them in the
right direction.
Ultimately, the decision is theirs. We didn't cause this
war. They caused the war. They're responsible for what has
happened. But at the same time, we have to keep working for
those voiceless people--the men, women and children who are
victims of this war.
Mr. Vargas. And I agree and I apologize for interrupting
you, and I think the American people, certainly, people in my
district feel the same way.
Whenever they see massacres, whenever they see, you know,
people drowning they want to help. I mean, that's our natural,
I think, as Americans inclination. But at the same time, you
have to have some outcomes that are positive.
I mean, and here we--you know, we thought we were going to
have a very positive outcome. I mean, you had all these real
problems because, I mean, let's be factual about this. I mean,
Sudan's an interesting country, part of Egypt for a while, more
Arab north, African south--Muslim north, Christian south.
All of a sudden we think we get, you know, some of those
things straightened out and all of a sudden there's these
fights that break out and we're saying well, wait a minute--now
it's down to the tribal level and they're fighting. I mean,
what do we do? I mean, there's real frustration here.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes.
Mr. Gast. Congressman, you ask what are we getting with our
assistance. We're keeping people alive, which is greatly
important, and also we're providing opportunities to people and
we're seeing that through education. More kids are going to
school than ever before.
We're seeing really positive outcomes in health. People are
getting vaccinated. They're able to go to school. We're also,
through our assistance, creating employment opportunities.
Now, they're small opportunities but they're very important
opportunities to the people that they affect and that is
getting them involved in farming and increasing their yields
and increasing what money that they take home.
Mr. Vargas. Last question and then I'll yield back.
I'm glad you brought it up--the issue of children and
children soldiers. Obviously, it's been a horrific issue in
this area. What are we doing to make sure that that doesn't
happen?
So many of the people in this country are young. What are
we doing to assure that these poor kids are not being dragged
in as soldiers?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Part of the problem is the lack of
opportunity and education for children. So trying to reach
those children to provide them with educational opportunities
is, as Mr. Gast said, are part of what we're doing.
But we're also pressuring the governments in this country
as well as around the region not to use child soldiers and
making sure that they understand that there are consequences
should they use child soldiers.
There are children who are being armed, I believe, in this
current conflict and this is something that has us quite
worried.
Mr. Vargas. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much.
Mr. Meeks is recognized.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Madam Chair.
You know, this is a sad situation. I, first, want to thank
you for your testimony and but taking everything into context,
all of the investments, the hopes that we had of establishing a
good new nation and, quite frankly, you know, I still have the
faith and confidence over the long haul we can't give up.
We've got to get it done. It is significant. Not just for
us and the United States--it's significant for the region. It's
significant for the continent of Africa. It's significant for,
I believe, the entire area.
And any time that you have a new nation of the sorts of
South Sudan there's various people that have interests, I
think, and I know that it's oftentimes we want to do it as the
United States and we should lead.
My question is, though, part of that leadership, I think,
should also be how are we helping coordinate and strengthening
because I think that we do more or we're more successful when
we do certain things in a multilateral way as opposed to a
bilateral way because other countries have interests also.
And we sit down and we talk to them and we work
collectively in a multilateral way to try to get a result and I
would imagine that there are other governments that have
leverage also, not just us but have leverage also to the South
Sudanese Government.
So what are we doing or how are we partnering with others
so that it's not just the United States? I hear education and
roads where we're talking about that. Are we leveraging and
partnering with others so that it's our dollars and whatever
dollars that others are also putting in so that we are still
creating these institutions and they can feel if there's
pressure? Pressure not just from us. Pressure from others also
in a multilateral way to try to start moving this in the right
direction and to try to get them to understand even when they
get to the point of trying to do a constitution that's going to
be difficult and everybody has to be involved therein.
So talk to me about our leadership and trying to work
together in a multilateral way.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. We have been working very, very
closely first and foremost with the regional players, with
IGAD. They are leading the process of trying to get the parties
to the negotiating table.
We have been very--we've been backing that effort with
Ambassador Booth and others in the field. But they're taking
the lead. We're not taking the lead and they're putting the
pressure on both sides along with our pressure.
We are also working closely with other special envoys who
are out there. The Chinese are there with their special envoy.
The U.K. has an envoy.
EU has an envoy and we are coordinating closely with them,
putting pressure on--using leverage that we all have to put
pressure on the various parties. And here from the Washington
side we've been closely coordinating and working with capitals,
one, to get, you know, the Vatican, for example, and with the
U.K. foreign minister and the French foreign minister to get
them to add their voices to the parties who are involved in the
fighting.
So there are a lot of different pressure points we're using
but we're coordinating closely. We don't see us as being the
solution to this problem. We see working together with others
and we've also gone to the U.N. to get support in the Security
Council.
We're working with troop-contributing countries. So, again,
we're just one of the players, not the only one.
Mr. Gast. Those countries that are most active on the
political side also happen to be the ones that are most active
on the development side and so there is a very active group of
countries, representatives in Juba as well as headquarters that
interact on a daily basis--the Norwegians, the EU, the Brits,
the World Bank, the IMF, the African Development Bank.
I'm leaving others out. But there is a very strong core
group and it's been very important because we together have
come up with policies that we're going to push on that are
critical to transparency and establishing strong institutions.
And so when we--what we have found is when we work together
we're able to work more effectively with the Government and the
people of South Sudan.
Mr. Meeks. Unfortunately, I'm out of time.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Mr. Meeks.
Proud to recognize Mr. Connolly of Virginia, who is not
retiring.
Mr. Connolly. Sorry to disappoint some of my friends on the
other side of the aisle. I'm here.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. Madam Ambassador--and welcome to
you both--in the case of some skeptics doesn't this current
violence and instability suggest or call into question the
logic of creating this as a nation state to begin with?
I mean, critics--skeptics might look at this and go well,
part of it's predicated on the lack of logic of South Sudan as
a nation state to begin with. How would you address that?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. I think that would disappoint a lot
of people who have spent most of their lives in South Sudan
fighting for their freedom in a country where the rights of
people of African descent and those who are Christian were
ignored and denied for many, many years.
That was the genesis of the battle that the South Sudanese
fought in Sudan. We supported that battle for 50 years. There
are many Americans who have been part of that battle and there
are now many Americans of Sudanese descent who have sacrificed
and lost their families to support the right of South Sudan to
exist as a country. And we're all disappointed. We're all
disappointed at the current failure.
Mr. Connolly. But, Madam Ambassador, excuse me.
My question wasn't about blood--you know, the valor or
nobility of the cause. It was the logic of the cause, though.
Does this in retrospect cause some in the international
community to question the logic of South Sudan as a nation
state despite our best efforts, despite all of the noble blood
shed? Nonetheless, one wonders what have we done here. Is that
a fair question, from your point of view?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Probably not a fair question. I
think that no one is questioning the logic of South Sudan. If
we question the logic of South Sudan, we'll have to question
the logic of almost every African country where there are
artificial borders that have crossed lines that they should not
cross.
Mr. Connolly. Fair point.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. So I don't think we question the
logic. We still support the right of this small nation to
exist.
Mr. Connolly. Okay. You also in response, I think, to Mr.
Bera's question you came down on the side of this is more
tribal than anything else. I think I heard your answer
correctly.
But what about the political overlay which certainly
there's a lot of bleeding between the two but between, say, the
President and his former Vice President, the latter making
certain political charges against the President and already on
an authoritarian streak and so forth?
Isn't there that political overlay that maybe has helped
spark this violence?
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. It actually started the violence----
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield [continuing]. And it is becoming more
ethnic and tribal but it didn't start that way.
Mr. Connolly. Gotcha.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. There's no religious component to
it. It's political ambitions and people are dividing along
tribal lines.
Mr. Connolly. And a final question. The U.N. added some
peacekeeping troops for South Sudan last month. Two questions,
real quickly--what's been the history of peacekeeping
operations, from the U.S. point of view, in Africa? Is there
reason to be a little skeptical or are we fairly happy with
results?
And, secondly, what about our own responsibilities? We are
in arrears in our payments to peacekeeping missions. So here we
are putting and supporting another burden on them but we're not
always willing to step up to the plate and fully fund our fair
share of the PKO.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield. Yes. That question came up earlier
on us not funding our share. But we still support the use of
peacekeeping operations on the continent of Africa.
Some are more successful than others but the important role
that they play I think there's no question about and I have to
say that we are tremendously appreciative of the countries who
are troop-contributing countries. Ghana just added another 850
troops.
They are one of the countries where their troops aren't
being paid. The Bangladeshis, the Nepalese have added
additional troops. Tanzania has also added additional troops.
So we appreciate that and we think they do have a positive role
to play, particularly in this situation now.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Madam Chairman, obviously, if I
had more time I'd ask Mr. Gast a string of questions about
infrastructure and what we're doing in terms of investment and
what we hope the outcome is going to be in 10 years.
But, of course, I don't have that time. I won't be able to
ask those questions but maybe we'll have some----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. He will be around so that you can----
Mr. Connolly. He'll be around?
Mr. Gast. I'll be around for questions on the record.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much. And on behalf of our
Chairman Royce, I would like to thank both of our witnesses for
joining us today. As many members have noted, this committee
has long been involved in Sudan policy and we'd like to work
with the administration to give South Sudan a chance of lasting
peace.
Thank you, and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
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Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Edward R. Royce, a
Representative in Congress from the State of California, and chairman,
Committee on Foreign Affairs
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