UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : HRC - Human Rights in South Sudan Press Conference, 19 February 2021

So in a very punctual fashion, perhaps we can start our press conference this morning with the Commission on Human Rights, Commission of Human Rights in South Sudan.

Thank you very much for joining us here online.

I should note that I've just shared the press conference of the rather the press release with you, which means that the embargo on the report of the Commission, the conference paper and the press release, they're all the embargoes have obviously been lifted.

So I would like to welcome you again to the press conference with Miss Yasmin Sukka, the Chairperson of the Commission, Barney A Farko and Andrew Kloppa, members of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.

Miss Sukka will deliver some opening remarks.

And over to you for your questions as usual.

And I should just note that the Commission is scheduled to present this report, which is now published on the 10th of March to the Human Rights Council.

So without further ado, Yasmin, over to you.

Thank you, Rolando.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today for the launch of the Commission's fifth report.

I'm joined by my fellow Commissioners, Andrew Clapham and Barney Effarco.

As you know, the Commission is mandated by the Human Rights Council to investigate and report on the human rights situation in South Sudan.

It's also mandated to gather and preserve evidence and make this evidence available to any existing or future transitional justice mechanism.

The Commission has now compiled a total of 101 dossiers of evidence on individual alleged perpetrators, whose names and accompanying materials will be presented in a confidential file to the UN **** Commissioner for Human Rights.

We expect this information to be made available to support future prosecutions before the Hybrid Court, regional or national courts and tribunals, subject to the fulfilment of the conditions set out in the confidential protocol the Commission has prepared on access to the Commission's classified material.

On Monday, it will be 1 year since the formation of the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity in South Sudan.

While the signing of the Revitalised Peace Agreement has led to a reduction in hostilities at the national level for the second year in a row, South Sudan at the same time has witnessed a massive escalation in violence perpetrated at a localised level.

In our latest reports, we have documented the new levels of militia violence engulfing more than 3/4 of the country at a localised level in which children carry weapons and women are traded as spoils of war like chattels.

We are deeply concerned that the conflict at localised level places the entire country at great risk.

The violence between February and November 2020 has been perpetrated by 10s of thousands of men found with increasingly **** tech sophisticated weapons, wreaking particular devastation in central and southern Jungle state and the greater Pibo administrative areas.

Levels of violence have already surpassed the levels documented in December 2013 when the civil war broke out in South Sudan.

In Jungle and the greater Pibo area, homes have been systematically and deliberately torched.

Murders and forced displacements have been perpetrated.

Women and girls have been abducted.

They have been raped and gang raped, sexually enslaved and in some instances forcibly married off to their captors.

Abducted boys have been forced to fight and in some instances forcibly assimilated into rival armed groups.

Eight of the 9 humanitarian workers killed in South Sudan last year lost their lives in Janglei and the greater Pibo administrative area.

Janglei State, of course, has experienced some of the most brutal violence between June and August last year, including incidents of killings and the maiming of civilians, the raiding of more than 175,000 head of cattle, the systematic and deliberate torching of civilian homes, and the looting and destruction of international and national NGO compounds.

In Gomeruk village, one woman told the Commission that our abductors raped us for 10 consecutive days.

We did not cook nor wash for them.

They just used us as their wives to have sex.

The sheer number of fighters involved in these localised conflicts is also shocking.

Up to 50,000 fighters took part in one attack in Padui in Janglei State, and at least 15,000 fighters in an attack against Linguanglo village, also in Janglei state.

Civilians described combatants using newer weapons which they'd never seen before, one man told the Commission.

I went to Pibo town and I saw guns being sold there.

There, the black guns used by the NSS were being sold for 25,000 S Sudanese shillings, each less than a few $100.

He also said the children all have guns.

The ongoing conflict is, of course, directly linked to the lack of commitment by the parties to the full implementation of the Revitalised Peace Agreement or engaging with S Sudanese challenges.

As a consequence, vast areas of South Sudan now lack any pretence to governance or security, with ethnic, intercommunal and intercommunal violence escalating.

Since the revitalised agreement was signed, there have been serious delays in the formation of the new revitalised government, which has seriously compromised the possibility for the transformation of South Sudan.

The delay has affected not only the executive but also legislative functions.

Since the new transitional National Legislature was not established.

Numerous new laws including much needed constitutional laws which impact on critical issues such as national security, electoral reforms, economic and financial management as well as anti corruption measures could not be passed.

And while some of the delays can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing competition for access to political power and control of the country's resources is responsible for much of the obstructions and continues to drive the conflict with staggering levels of violence.

As I have described, mainly in the Central Equatoria, Warrup Jungler and the Greater Pibo Administrative Area.

In this conflict S Sudanese women and girls bear the brunt and are subject to gruesome violations and abuses by all side.

Abductions, sexual slavery, **** and torture and forced marriages have become the norm.

Women and girls are prized for what they represent in terms of bridal wealth and in conflict aborantly are regarded as legitimate spoils, traded and treated as chattels, all in the conflict in these areas.

In Central Equatoria, since November 2018, the South Sudanese army, local militias and the National Salvation Front have continued fighting for power and control of territory, gold mines or giving them opportunities for extortion.

The Commission also documented several accounts of **** and multiple incidents of gang **** perpetrated by the National army soldiers, many of whom have not received salaries or food rations, consequently extort food and household items from civilians who are themselves hungry and malnourished.

A successful effort last year to bring 26 government soldiers to justice for these crimes improved the situation in just one village of Lasu in Central Equatoria.

Although a few perpetrators were convicted and sentenced, victims did not receive compensation or any acknowledgement of the harms they had endured.

Many were left not knowing the whereabouts of loved ones.

An elderly woman who witnessed her daughter-in-law beaten and raped and was herself a survivor of **** and multiple robberies and beatings told the Commission.

I am tired of all the *****.

I am old and no longer ashamed.

[Other language spoken]

Critics of the government are, of course, systematically silenced, intimidated, detained, and many have been the subject of enforced disappearances, mainly at the hands of the National Security Service.

Since the independence of South Sudan in July 2011, one ethnic group has dominated the state security apparatus and in particular the NSS.

The Commission recorded numerous incidents with South Sudan's state.

Security actors have unlawfully detained, tortured, harassed, intimidated, disappeared or murdered journalists and human rights defenders whom they perceive to be critical of the government.

The Commission is also consistently warned of concerted clampdowns by the Government of South Sudan and national security services on freedom of expression and opinion.

The NSS has expanded its surveillance and infiltration beyond security institutions to civil society organisations to media houses and universities countrywide.

The use of criminal defamation charges has created a chilling effect and resulted in self censorship.

As one man detained by the NSS in 2020 explained, the government is desperate and therefore anyone who is criticising it, irrespective of wherever he's from, will face consequences and of course, at any time.

There are approximately 100 to 200 detainees in the notorious NSS detention facility, Blue House in Juba.

The Commission is also in possession of credible information identifying 21 men who are unlawfully detained and tortured and murdered by the NSS of the Blue House and the Riverdale detention facilities in Juba between 2016 and 2019.

Each of the 21 men had been tortured before being murdered and the majority had been sexually tortured, including acts of ******.

In terms of transitional justice, since the Revitalised Peace Agreement was signed nearly 2 1/2 years ago, South Sudan has made no progress in establishing either the Hybrid Court for South Sudan, the Commission on Truth, Healing and Reconciliation or the Compensation and Reparations Authority, all provided for in Chapter 5 of the Peace Agreement.

The Commission has in the last year engaged with the Government of South Sudan and the African Union, calling upon them to set a timeline and a road map for implementing Chapter 5.

The Commission also provided benchmarks to the Government on elements that would constitute a road map for establishing these mechanisms and we are extremely pleased that our engagement has had some impact as the Government of South Zunan announced on the 29th of January 2021 that it had agreed to begin the process of establishing the Hybrid Court and the other TJ mechanisms.

Nevertheless, we continue to urge that the rhetoric should be matched with action and that the government and the African Union Commission should now fast track the establishment of the Hybrid Court and the other transitional justice mechanisms to begin the process of building accountability and sustainable peace.

The Commission considers that while the Hybrid Court is critical to dealing with those most responsible for serious crimes, the delays in establishing the Commission on Truth Healing and Reconciliation has impeded the possibility of dealing with the structural fault lines which underpin violence in South Sudan.

Truth recovery processes through the Truth Commission would provide a meaningful space and opportunity for affected communities to begin an honest dialogue and exploration of solutions to historical grievances and the ongoing violence.

In an increasingly bitter, polarised country where ethnic identity is prized above the notion of what it means to be a S Sudanese, the country desperately needs a collective engagement for building trust, restoring dignity, building national unity and rebuilding trust in national leadership and institutions.

I thank you for giving us this opportunity and my colleagues and I would welcome your questions.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Yasmin for those very important remarks.

It's a, it's a very chilling story.

We have a few questions from journalists.

We have the first coming from Laurent Ciero of Swiss News Agency.

Then we'll turn to Nick of the New York Times.

We can unmute to Laurent, please.

Thank you, Rolando, and, and thank, thank you, Commissioner, for for the press conference.

You mentioned that the the scale and the scope of the violence is in the period between February and and November are in a way unprecedented.

But at the same time, in the report I just found one mention on war crimes that is in war state for that.

[Other language spoken]

How do you explain that, that there aren't more qualifications such as war crimes and and and crimes against humanity that you mentioned more in your previous reports in in that one?

[Other language spoken]

I'm going to ask my colleague Andrew Clapham to respond to that.

Thank you very much for that question, and it gives us the chance to explain that just because we don't qualify something as a war crime, it doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't massive violence.

[Other language spoken]

War crimes need to be attributed when there's a level of organisation in the group that is fighting either the government or another group.

And some of the time the level of organisation might not necessarily, strictly speaking, qualify as a war crime.

But the violence qualifies obviously as a torture or as an act of sexual violence.

And because of the way the hybrid court is set up, it doesn't actually require the crimes to be war crimes.

It's enough that they're torture or sexual violence.

So the fact that we don't mention war crimes explicitly in the report shouldn't be taken as an indication that we don't consider that it's unprecedented levels of violence.

There's not, strictly speaking, a connection between the level of violence and whether something is a war crime or not.

And to be clear, as you've pointed out, crimes against humanity could be completely separate from the question of war crimes.

And we do mention that crimes against humanity may have been committed.

I might just add at this point that as the Chair said, a lot of our concern is about enforced disappearances, particularly by the the national security services.

And again, those, the context of those detentions and the fact that the families don't know where people are is not related to the law of war crimes.

It's related to human rights, to torture, to ******, and of course, enforced disappearance.

And we are, we are using a separate regime there.

That's the explanation.

Thank you for the question, though.

Thanks for the answer, Andrew.

We have Nick from the New York Times who can unmute.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much and thank you for the briefing.

[Other language spoken]

The report talks about a lower level of of national violence even as it talks about staggering and unprecedented levels of violence at a local level.

And I wonder if you could just clarify that apparent dichotomy and to what extent the violence we are seeing at a local level is strategically coordinated by central authorities or, or how how we can have this this kind of apparent contradiction.

And a second question, if I may.

It seems to be that you're looking to a national leadership that is at the heart of all the abuses and atrocities of the last sort of six or seven years to set up the mechanisms for correcting that.

And I, I wonder if how realistic that is and what other organisations, institutions or international opinion can be called on to, to actually get this process moving.

[Other language spoken]

I'm going to refer that to Bonnie.

[Other language spoken]

Let let me take the second part of that question about the reliance on on national leadership.

We are aware of the weaknesses of the national system and we also believe, and indeed our mandate requires us to do everything that is possible to help the South Sudanese authorities and people to strengthen that system because however much we we wail it, external solutions for justice will not be nearly enough.

You'd only scratch the surface.

You may be able to deal with a handful of people, but most of those crimes that we have described were the perpetrators and the victims may be from the same locality and community do need to strengthen national assistance.

But at the same time, our mandate is also to work with regional bodies like the African Union, which has a particular mandate in help to establish the hybrid court and the other transitional justice institutions.

And so we're looking to them to to put political pressure and also to assist the authorities of South Sudan to establish those mechanisms.

You will also have seen from our reports that part of our mandate is to collect and preserve evidence, which we keep confidentially, which is available to other accountability.

Mechanisms on certain conditions so that if either the domestic system or the regional arrangements do not work, increasingly we will be seeing that others may take the lead to begin to ensure that there is at least some form of accountability.

But our preference and, and in this we are, we're looking to support the government to implement their own agreement, is that the national systems would be strengthened as far as possible.

And this can be done.

And we're beginning to see it in the example that we cited in Central Equatoria.

We'd like to see a more strengthened military court system as well.

[Other language spoken]

Yasmin, you want me to take the first part of the question?

Thank you, Nick, for the question.

I think what we're saying is that with the exception of Central Equatoria, where government troops are in action against the National Salvation Front, the unprecedented levels of violence that we're talking about are not directly involving government troops in uniform, but rather tribes and militia, as we call them, gangs, which are related to the national entities in the sense that, as the report explains and as others have explained, they are using new types of guns that have not been seen in the region before.

So they're essentially being supported by powerful actors from outside of their region.

And that is why we use this expression localised violence, which is connected but not replicating the same sort of national violence that we had before between the IO and the government, which was a different sort of set of actors.

But the connections back to the national actors are there in the documentation about the types of weapons that they're receiving and the coordination and training that we believe they're getting.

[Other language spoken]

And now we have a question from Kara Anna of The Associated Press.

[Other language spoken]

Thanks for the brief.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for the briefing.

And, and you may have already addressed part of this, but when you say that the scope and scale of violence we are documenting far exceeds the violence between 2013 and 2019, are you saying this is worse than the Civil War itself?

[Other language spoken]

I think that what we're saying is that when you look at the, you know, the, the, the, the numbers of people who are being killed and displaced, and in fact, the, you know, the, the, the scale of the way in which women are experiencing sexual violence, then certainly the numbers we see are actually worse than we saw in 2013 or in any other period thereafter in South Sudan.

So all we've seen is that the conflict has shifted really from a national level and the way in which it is engulfing, as we say, almost 3/4 of the country.

The only difference, of course, is that these are not people only in uniforms, as Andrew explained earlier, but they also involve community groups, militias, and to some extent, you know, we've we also speak about the role that is being played by tribal chiefs and religious figures as well.

So it's also taken on both an intercommunal and intracommunal character.

And yes, it's a lot worse.

[Other language spoken]

We have a question now from Robin Milliard of the Oceans France Press.

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, I was, I was going to ask pretty much the same, the same question actually, but on that same point about the the scope and scale far exceeding 2013 to 2019.

Do you do you mean that that it's, it's just targeted incidents that are that are more violent rather than the the whole picture being more violent?

[Other language spoken]

Can I refer that to you, Andrew?

I think, as I go back to maybe a point I was making earlier, that the, the level of state suppression and the inability of civil society or journalists to operate is now completely different.

The sort of levels of fear and the state's oppression and the fact that you can be picked up and tortured and killed is, is rather different.

But as Yasmin Sukka was saying, we're also concerned about the the, the levels of sexual violence and the levels of displacement, which, although they're not the same patterns as before, are intense and not quite countrywide, but exactly, as the chair said, over vast swathes of the country.

And so, you know, it's sort of invidious to compare sort of one type of violence to another type of violence.

But what we're talking about is, is continuing killing, continuing sexual violence, continuing displacement and people not necessarily always related to COVID, but suffering levels of malnutrition and desperation that are in the same sort of register as what we saw during the civil war.

[Other language spoken]

Andrew, we have another question, a few more questions, another one from Laurent Ciro, if we can unmute Laurent again, please.

[Other language spoken]

You touched briefly on the the effect of the pandemic on the constitution of, of the national unity government.

Are you concerned that the pandemic might also play a role emphasising local conflicts in the future when vaccines arrive or through instrumentalization by some stakeholders?

[Other language spoken]

The, you know, the, there's quite a strong civil society grouping in South Sudan, which has been engaging with the government on the whole question of the COVID-19 pandemic and of course the consequences.

And I have no doubt that I think there will be a problem in terms of distribution of vaccines because that is happening in the Global North as well as in the Global South.

And one of the things we all have to be really careful about is monitoring the way in which the vaccines are going to be distributed, but also not instrumentalized by government forces or powerful groups in any society.

And so from that perspective, I would say that probably the civil society group that the Commission is working with to obtain information around the consequences and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will certainly be monitored.

And this is an issue that not only we, but civil society and the international community is also keeping an eye on.

Before I, you know, I'd like to just give the opportunity to Bonnie O Farco, who also wanted to speak about, I think the questions around the localised violence because I think the question of targeting and organised and systematic is certainly out there.

[Other language spoken]

It was just to make a brief observation that it would be useful for for the media and journalists to take interest in the history of this localised violence.

If one goes back to 2012, before the outbreak of of the civil war that 30 years saw saw a huge escalation of of community violence in Jiang Lei and the mobilisation went to the 10s of thousands.

And when the conflict broke out, one of those groups, if you recall the White Army was mobilised by by one side.

In fact, in some say itself mobilised and joined in in in the violence.

So in the period since 2013, because the violence has been more coordinated and centralised, some of the most spontaneous forms of local organisations became subsumed in, in, in, in, in the civil conflict.

And ironically by signing the the cessation of hostilities and ceasefire.

This left a vacuum in the communities because because the parties, the conflict, although they've signed the agreement, didn't then go on to set up localised governments.

There were no governors in place with no county commissioners in place.

So there's nobody to deal with those cleavages which had remained.

Instead, what we saw was that the weaponry that had been left in the community as well as that which is now supplied by others fuelled this communal violence.

And precisely because it was more decentralised, precisely because it needs to unaccountable and fuelling this for local contestation around the question of the number of States and and internal boundaries.

We, we, we, we saw, we saw this exponential growth in the violence.

And, and this really makes the political point that one has to accompany these peace processes with more effective governance at the local level, more effective systems of of accountability for violations.

And when you have impunity, these, these are the consequences that we're now seeing.

[Other language spoken]

We have a question now from Lisa Schlein of Voice of America on Mute.

[Other language spoken]

Thanks, Rolanda and good morning, everybody.

Thank you for this briefing.

I have some may be a little repetitive 3 three questions, but I'll be quick about this.

First, in regard to the arms trade, who are the main suppliers and is it possible to stop this trade?

If so, how?

And then I'm wondering, going back to the issue of the violence being reduced on a national level but continuing escalating on a local level, were the, if the government and the opposition leaders were really serious about peace, could they do something about about tamping down on the violence on local level?

And what is their gain?

What did they get from the continued turmoil?

I mean, I have to believe that they're getting something from this, otherwise they might be a little more energised and trying to stop this violence.

And then lastly, what is it that the international community can do?

[Other language spoken]

You talk about pressuring the AU on having more political pressure on on the government and so forth.

And this is kind of a consistent cry and nothing really happens.

I believe the United States was involved with the independence situation some years ago.

We have a new administration.

Is there something in particular that the US can do?

[Other language spoken]

But I do think that in terms of the arms trade and the main suppliers, you have had, you know, the panel of experts who have been collecting evidence on this, supplying that kind of information to the sanctions committee in the Security Council.

And so I don't think that, you know, this is anything new, but it certainly goes to the heart of who stands to gain from the political economy of conflict.

In terms of the violence at a local level, I think the gain is quite obvious.

And, and you know, we set that out in our report.

It is about access to political power, which comes with the control of territory.

And I think that that's what we're seeing is also a fight for territory because when you begin to look at the multiple displacements of people, and this is usually ethnically based, then of course you see that there's a purpose behind that.

And then of course, we also talking about access to economic resources.

And I mean, while South Sudan is mainly known for the oil fields that it has, and that's where a lot of the earlier contestation was, South Sudan is also in fact, has lots of gold and timber and lots of other kind of really valuable minerals.

And so the fighting is also about that as well.

And the fight for political power and territory goes hand in hand with a scramble for resources because access to government gives you access to being able to control all of that.

What is there that the international community can do?

I think it first leads to keep South Sudan on the international community's agenda.

I think there's some fatigue with so many countries having invested in seeing the youngest country come to birth in the world and these incredible disappointment that that is not leveraged out really to what we call South Sudan.

And in fact, today in my statement, I said that this question of what does it mean to be a South Sudanese, I think is something that has to be explored beyond the notion of an ethnic identity.

But in my view, the first issue is certainly accountability.

The violence is continuing because people know that they can get away with it.

There is no doubt that the national leadership at the top are also linked to what is happening at a localised level and certainly the organisation, the systematic way in which weapons are being supplied.

When you look at the kind of weapons that are being used in the conflict at a localised level, there is no doubt that the coordination is really coming from the top.

And so from that perspective, impunity I think must be addressed.

And that means greater pressure on the African Union to really get this memorandum of agreement signed by the Government of South Sudan and in fact, to begin the process of setting up the office of a prosecutor.

Because we have given a lengthy memorandum oath to governments and to the Minister of Justice in which we set out quite clearly what the requisite benchmarks are for beginning to deal with the transitional justice mechanisms which are set out in Chapter 5.

These are not meant to be mechanistic, but really set out a plan for beginning to deal with building sustainable peace in South Sudan.

But to do that, you need to begin to identify those who are most responsible, which we are doing.

And you need to ensure that there is a way of holding them accountable and also of really taking them out of the process in which they can continue to perpetuate the violence that we see, which is quite shocking.

The South Sudanese citizens deserve no less.

Thank you very much, Yasmin and Lisa and colleagues.

I should just remind you that the United Kingdom did announce that they would be tabling a resolution on South Sudan at the upcoming session.

They made that announcement last week at a public organisational meeting.

It's in the list of resolutions I've shared with you.

If we can now on mute, Catherine Fiancon or Francois GAT, go ahead for Catherine, you're unaided.

Thank you so much for Orlando and thank you for this briefing.

I'd like to come back on the main weapon suppliers, foreign suppliers, if you could elaborate a little bit on on that point.

And I'd like also to know a bit more about what you just mentioned about the natural resources of South Sudan.

There are a lot of natural resources and the, the, the conflict is, of course, I would say, helping foreign companies to illegally trade some commodities.

So have you seen that also?

Have you evidence about that in the field?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Catherine.

I'm going to refer that to my 2 colleagues, Andrew.

Can we unmute Andrew, please?

Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

We're going to disappear, point you on the arms trade.

There's a division of labour within the UN that the Security Council has a panel of experts which looks specifically at the arm trade and their reports have details as to where the arms are coming from and they will have a new report and they report to the Security Council.

So I would encourage you to to be in touch with them and, and the Security Council because it's really not our business and we don't have expertise on that.

What we can do is reflect the extent to which the arms are exacerbating the problem.

And as we said before indicate that we consider this is not a purely localised problem because of the type of arms that are used, but where they've come from is a bit strictly speaking, it's completely outside on Monday.

[Other language spoken]

Bonnie, do you want to deal with the question on natural resources to, to a limited extent, yes, because South Sudan is, as you know, very richly endowed, particularly in oil or oil is over 98% of its earnings.

And, and, and the country takes a hit when the price goes down and, and, and, and when it's going up, there is there more resources.

The, the, the difficulty around oil has been the way that the proceeds have been misused.

And, and in our, in our previous reports, we have pointed out how those resources have been syphoned by the elites.

But apart from oil, there are also other revenues.

And, and we've also previously highlighted how how these suffer the same fate in terms of natural resources.

You've got teak, which is a quite valuable timber we're seeing trading in teak not only by people associated with the state, but also certain groups during the course of the conflict.

And you saw greater volumes of South Sudanese teak in, in the rest of, of East Africa.

And what this reflects and and and, and this is a problem that the peace agreement has been trying to rectify, is the absence of systems.

For economic management and accountability.

And that's something that we need to see strengthened because it's also linked to the capacity of the state to fulfil social and economic rights of of the people of of South Sudan.

And Yasmin, if you allow me, I just wanted to go back a little bit to a question that was raised about the capacity of South Sudanese leaders to to dial down the the localised conflict.

I would say, one, they need to take themselves out of the equation of the localised conflict and then we see what remains.

And then secondly, they need to invest in the truth Commission because this is exactly the sort of national challenge that truth commissions are designed to interrogate.

So that S Sudanese come together and in each of these localities where where there has been violence over the years, to understand what is driving that violence and what it will take to begin to move beyond that violence and to have reconciliation and healing at those levels.

So in terms of of the proposed Rd maps and and architecture for addressing these problems, those exist.

What is lacking is the political will and we could start to address that at the national level, but not only leaving it to the national level in Juba, but ensuring that the the other levels of leadership, particularly the communities and outside of the state are also engaged.

Otherwise, this problem is going to be very, very difficult to deal with.

[Other language spoken]

I, I was also going to say that, I mean, one of the things about South Sudan both in terms of the arms trade and of course the question of national resources is also the transnational character of what is happening.

And they of course we did speak a little bit about that in our last report on the economic, the political economy really of South Sudan.

And we certainly are going to address those questions in the economic conference report that we will probably launch, you know, around the middle of March.

And they of course you know, there are many uses of the kind of information around players.

And I think in the confidential protocol that we've prepared in terms of access, we've also made it clear that the information, while primarily servicing the hybrid court and the transitional justice mechanisms, will also be available for other purposes to other governments.

And we have certainly been in con, you know, in conversations with many different countries where there are questions around, you know, whether or not their companies are being exploitative or profiteering or responsible for human rights violations in South Sudan.

And so that is certainly an ongoing conversation as well.

And as we know, you know, you'll really have, I think, Sweden dealing with a company that was once in the sort of mining sector.

And this is something that many other countries are keeping an eye on as well.

Thank you, Barney and Yasmin for those responses.

Colleagues, we only have a couple of minutes left, but we do have two hands, blue hands raised here.

If we could just if, if Nick and Catherine, if you can pose your questions very briefly and if we can get some brief responses from the panellists, that would be super.

So Nick, go ahead with your question.

Thank you very much.

You referenced the NSS being aligned or taken over by a a particular ethnic group.

I wonder if you could into that a little bit and clarify who and who that ethnic group is aligned with?

And then just very briefly, my understanding was that the hybrid court needed for that to go ahead, needed legislation inside Sudan.

And given that the National Assembly is, as you indicate, not really functioning, how do you see this process unfolding?

[Other language spoken]

I mean, I think it's quite obvious who the main ethnic group is that the NSS is aligned to.

And of course, Bonnie can probably speak to the fact that part of the security sector reform issues are meant to address this question really of ethnic diversity in the national security establishment and of course in the security forces.

You, you're absolutely right that there are two things which need to happen in terms of setting up the hybrid court.

The 1st is to sign the memorandum of agreement with the African Union.

And the second is of course to ensure that the legislation passes through the national legislature are in the absence of the legislature being established.

That is obviously a process that is going to be delayed and that is why we make the comment that in fact, if you want to see transformation in South Sudan, then it's absolutely critical to set up the national legislature as a matter of urgency.

The question of the draught legislation itself is not a challenge because this is something that has been put on the table for a long time.

So it's really a question of political will.

And of course, one of the things we argue in in, in, in our report and of course in our communications with the government that, you know, the rhetoric needs to be matched by political will and action.

And, and, and it's really important that this is where the African Union plays a leadership role.

It itself has passed a transitional justice policy framework that is supposed to be utilised in the whole of the region.

And so in compliance with that policy and in compliance with the resolutions that have been passed that giving the peace and security structures within the African Union the authority to deal with these issues, I think the road ahead is pretty clear.

Bonnie, do you want to come in on this as well?

No, I think you've covered it.

Yes, and thank you.

[Other language spoken]

And just a final question from Catherine from Francois Kat, thank you so much.

Following follow up question is lack of political will and action, is there also a lack of funding because in your recommendations there are a lot of programmes and and support that is advised.

So is there also a lack of funding and should the international community be a bit a bit more generous for South Sudan?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Catherine.

I will ask Bonnie to respond to that.

[Other language spoken]

Barney, you're not unmuted.

[Other language spoken]

If we can unmute Barney, please.

Can we unmute Barney ofacco, please?

[Other language spoken]

Sorry, there seems to be a problem.

OK, there you go.

There you go.

[Other language spoken]

I was, I was very quickly going, going to say that funding is, is always the challenge for for for countries like South Sudan.

But what we're saying is that in this case, it has been exacerbated by poor management of the resources, both the resources that the country itself generates, but also some of the resources that have been provided.

And some donors have become wary for that reason.

But having said that, the humanitarian challenges that are faced by by internally displaced persons, by ordinary people, do need assistance and to that extent South Sudan will need to be helped.

It will also need to be helped both in terms of Technical Support, but also resources for setting up the transitional justice mechanisms for completing security sector reform.

These things are costly, but it is both the national system and actors and the international and regional actors accompanying South Sudan in a collective project that will really make it work.

[Other language spoken]

And to thank all of you, Yasmin, Andrew and Barney for for joining us online this morning for this very important press encounter.

I remind you all that this report launched today by the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan will be presented to the Human Rights Council on 10 March.

And I will share with you the remarks that Masuka delivered at the beginning of this press conference.

On that note, I wish you all a good day.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Rolando.

[Other language spoken]