HUMANITARIAN SITUATION IN SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Humanitarian Situation in Sudan and South Sudan
Special Briefing Catherine Wiesner
   Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Princeton Lyman
   Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance Christa Capozzola
Via Teleconference
Washington, DC
April 2, 2012

MR. VENTRELL: Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Today's conference call is on the record. With us we have Catherine Wiesner, who is a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees, and Migration; Ambassador Princeton Lyman, U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan; and Christa Capozzola, who is from USAID, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance.
Right now, we're going to go ahead and have some opening remarks by Ms. Wiesner, and then we will turn it over to Q&A for all three of our speakers. So without further ado, over to Ms. Wiesner.

MS. WIESNER: Good morning, everybody, and thank you very much for your interest and for being on this call. As Patrick said, my name is Catherine Wiesner. I'm a new Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and I returned last week from a visit to South Sudan. What I'm going to do is give five to ten minutes of introductory remarks before we open it up for questions, and then we will also rely on my colleagues, Christa Capozzola from USAID, and Ambassador Lyman, the special envoy, to help answer whatever questions you may have.

The specific information that we would like to share with you today is about one aspect of the humanitarian situation in Sudan and South Sudan that has resulted from the ongoing conflict in the two areas, so to speak, along the border between Sudan and South Sudan. And I really have three main messages. The first and the reason for this call is to talk about 140,000 new refugees who have been created by the conflicts in South Kordofan and Blue Nile and who have fled from Sudan across the new international border to South Sudan as well as to Ethiopia and a few that have gone as far as Kenya.

Secondly, that the influx of these refugees from Sudan is occurring against a backdrop of very complex humanitarian needs in South Sudan that I think most of you are aware of, but includes hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese who are returning from the north and other neighboring countries as well as significant numbers of people who are internally displaced within the country.

And finally, that with this complex situation, it means that humanitarian needs are really expected to continue in both Sudan and South Sudan for some time to come.
So to set the stage, the fighting that erupted last year within the border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile in Sudan not only threatens the possibility for resumption of direct conflict between the north and the south – that's really been the main concern – but also the violence has resulted in significant displacement and humanitarian need. So in addition to those who remain displaced and in need of assistance within South Kordofan and Blue Nile, 140,000 refugees from the two states have fled.

The arrival of 100,000 of these refugees to South Sudan, as I mentioned, occurs against this complex backdrop of humanitarian needs. According to UN OCHA, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, South Sudan is reportedly witnessing today the largest semi-peacetime movement of people since World War II in a country, and that includes those various populations that I mentioned previously. South Sudan is also a host to refugees from conflict and other surrounding states from the Democratic Republic of Congo, from the Central African Republic, and even Ethiopia. And lastly, there is chronic and rising food insecurity throughout the country, which exacerbates the situation.
WFP and FEWS NET or FAO, I think – Christa can correct me later – have predicted that 4.7 million people will be food insecure in South Sudan this year, of which at least 1 million are projected to be severely food insecure. So that's sort of the broader context by way of intro. And while I think you're all aware of reports – I know you're all aware of reports of clashes over the last week or so in Southern Kordofan state, the focus of my trip was actually the recent influx of refugees from Blue Nile state, where fighting also continues. And the vast majority of the refugees from the two areas have come from Blue Nile state, and it’s Upper Nile state in South Sudan that hosts the largest concentration of these refugees.

There are 86,000 refugees in Upper Nile from Blue Nile, and they’re located in two main sites, which are Doro and Jimam. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and IOM, the International Organization for Migration, are two key partners of the U.S. Government and of PRM, the bureau that I work for, and they receive a significant share of our humanitarian funding. They both issued emergency appeals last month for funds to finance their response operation. So having recently come onboard and with – Africa assistance is one of my areas of responsibility – I took the opportunity to make my first trip to Southern Sudan so that I could see the situation firsthand. And I traveled to Upper Nile state, which again, is on the border with Sudan and where the largest concentration of refugees are.

I had been told in advance that the recent influx had really stretched the response capacity, and – but that things were finally starting into place – to fall into place, and this is really what I found to be true. The area where the refugees are arriving is remote, it’s sparsely populated, and much of it rests in a flood zone that becomes inaccessible by road for much of the six-month rainy season. The rains are set to begin in a month or so, and so in this difficult context, the agencies are really in a race against time to get all the supplies in place, and the sheer pace of influx has really imposed enormous pressure.

In December, the number of refugees began to swell from about 25,000 in mid-December to over 80,000 by the end of February, and it was then that UNHCR initiated an emergency airlift of tents, plastic sheeting, and other relief supplies from Kenya and Dubai. Somewhat paradoxically, because it’s a flood zone, there are few existing clean water sources for hosting such a large population, so water, sanitation, hygiene are all top concerns. And whereas the accepted minimum standards for emergencies call for 15 liters of water a day person, refugees in Doro and Jimam are currently only receiving an average of between six and nine liters per person each day.

Drilling is ongoing. Locating clean water in sufficient quantities has been one of the major challenges. It has also delayed site planning, and it – which has left many refugees living under temporary plastic sheeting awaiting their relocation.

Food distribution was sporadic for several months, but in March, WFP was able to successfully establish a new pipeline by bringing – shipping emergency foodstuff to the port in Djibouti and bringing it in through Ethiopia, so now food supplies have become adequate.

And finally, health actors are bracing for and developing contingency plans against malaria and cholera outbreaks.

As I mentioned, it’s really a complex situation in South Sudan of various humanitarian crises, and Upper Nile is a good example of that. Before this latest refugee influx, it was already home to about 80,000 returnees who had been displaced during the long civil war. If you're aware of stories of returnees being stranded en route during their journey back, the riverside towns of Rank and Malakal along the Nile are in Upper Nile, and in addition, there are approximately 12,000 internally displaced South Sudanese in the state who have been displaced due to rebel militia activity.

So this means that agencies were present in Upper Nile and to some extent were prepared to mobilize quickly for the refugee response, but it also means that their capacity is not unlimited and the new emergency has them trying to cover multiple situations at once.
Maybe before I end, I can just share a few of my personal impressions. In – so, as I mentioned, the refugees are arriving into very remote areas, and that basically means that everything has to be established from scratch. So UNHCR and partners are fixing an airfield, they're building roads, they're drilling boreholes, as I mentioned. They were a bit lucky, because some years back, they had used the nearby town of Funj as a way station for returning refugees from Ethiopia. So they had like one old warehouse and a working borehole or two that they were able to use, but obviously the needs quickly outstripped that initial capacity.

The UN and NGO staff that I met were working flat-out every day. They'd been living out of tents themselves for several months, and their offices are basically a laptop with a plastic chair under a thatch shade in very searing heat.

The refugees themselves arrive exhausted from their journeys, sometimes in need of immediate medical attention, and in talking to refugees in the different camps, I found that most people were really quite relieved to finally be in a place of safety away from the bombings and grateful for the assistance they were receiving, but at the same time, they're definitely worried about loved ones with whom they had been separated and understandably anxious about their daily survival needs.

I had heard worrying reports before I went that people in Jimam Camp were eating leaves to survive, and as it turns out, there – certain wild leaves boiled with spices are, in fact, a traditional dish for some of these tribes. So it would be more appropriate to say that refugees like those who remain in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan have resorted to traditional coping mechanisms of eating various types of wild food, but it’s also obvious that boiled leaves of any kind are not enough for anybody to survive on.

However, perhaps because a month’s worth of food rations had recently been distributed when I arrived, when I spoke to groups of women in both camps their main concern was water. People are really desperate for water. I personally can’t imagine having only seven liters of water per day. I think I drink more than that, much less cook with it or wash with it.
But as I said, people are definitely, overall, most glad and thankful to be in a safe place. At the same, they are carrying their experiences of the last six months with them. Fighting broke out in Blue Nile in September of last year, and most of these people have been on the move since then, and only recently reached these refugee camps.

In Doro camp, for example, I watched – I went to an activities center and watched crowds of children who were playing soccer and jump rope and practicing traditional dances. These are the safe activities spaces that are set up for children so that they have a place to play in the crowded camps, and it’s one of the very important early child protection interventions with – together with schooling, that helps to normalize things. Even so, I was told by the volunteers working with the children that many of them have been digging foxholes for themselves even in the camps. So even though they’re told they are now safe, it makes them feel more secure to have hiding places.

I also met a young woman in the Jamam camp who agreed to show me her small shelter made out of thatch and plastic sheeting. And when we got there, I met her three children, including a very sweet little baby girl that she had given birth to on the way and named Dana, which she said meant “bomb” in her dialect. So the experience of violence and flight is still very close to these people.

I think, to sum up before we go into the questions and answers, clashes are continuing in both Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile. Humanitarian conditions are understood to be deteriorating in both conflict zones, and so additional arrivals are expected in the coming months. The number of refugees in Upper Nile has already exceeded UNHCR’s planning figure, which was for 75,000. They’ve revised that planning figure upwards to 150,000 by the end of 2012. And with these numbers, obviously, the agencies remain in a race against time.

The U.S. Government has provided 6.8 million of initial funding from our refugee assistance monies for the emergency response in both South Sudan and Ethiopia. Three million of this has gone to UNHCR, 2 million has gone to IOM, and 1.8 million to NGOs. The U.S. is currently looking at additional contributions to UNHCR’s $145 million emergency appeal as well as to NGO partners addressing critical gaps. The U.S. Government has also given – let me get this figure – 80.4 million to WFP for their emergency food operations throughout South Sudan that include assistance to the refugees in Upper Nile and Unity states. And USAID can provide information on their operations countrywide.

So I will leave my opening – rather long opening remarks there, and all three of us will be available to take your questions. Thank you.

OPERATOR: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press *1, and you will be prompted to record your first and your last name. Please un-mute your phone before recording your name. And to withdraw your question, press *2. One moment please.

Our first question comes from Shaun Tandon. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Yeah. Hi. Thanks for doing this call. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the situation within Sudan. In South Kordofan and Blue Nile, there have lots of accounts that, due to bombing, there’s been a problem with the harvest, that there could be imminent food shortages. Are those things that you’re hearing now as well? And what do you think in terms of policy ramifications, what if anything the U.S. and other international actors can do to ensure sufficient food within Sudan?

MS. CAPOZZOLA: Hi. This is Christa Capozzola from AID. I can start off with an answer to your question. Thanks for that question. Yes. The conflicts that began last June in Southern Kordofan and in September in Blue Nile did disrupt the planting seasons quite significantly. In certain parts of Blue Nile, it’s estimated that only 15 percent was planted. It disrupted the commercial farming as well, which affects people’s incomes. So that creates a lot of concerns.

And yes, there is definitely rising food insecurity – a very serious level of food insecurity. Our FEWS NET analysts have now estimated that in Blue Nile, the area – the source of the refugees that Catherine’s been talking about, we will be reaching emergency level conditions by August. In Southern Kordofan, it’s actually worse. We are estimating that between 200- and 250,000 people are right now reaching emergency food security – insecurity conditions.

AMBASSADOR LYMAN: This is Princeton Lyman. Let me just add a little bit to that. Thanks, Christa. There is a proposal by the UN, the Africa Union, and the League of Arab States to launch humanitarian assistance into Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile. That is still under discussion with the government in Khartoum. They haven’t yet okayed it. And we’ve pressed very, very hard for that. There are ways to get food in other ways, but they are not sufficient to the scope of the problem, as Christa has described. The UN envoy, Haile Menkerios, is in Khartoum right now pursuing negotiations with the government to get that humanitarian access approved. We think it’s vital, and we think it’s a very high priority.

MR. VENTRELL: Operator, we’re ready for the next question.

OPERATOR: Yes. Our next question comes from Lalit Jha. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Hi. Thank you for doing this. India has just sent a special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan for protecting – for its energy interests. How do you view this, India sending its – also, you know China has sent it a few months ago to protect its oil interest. How do you view the interests of all – of these two countries in Sudan and South Sudan?

AMBASSADOR LYMAN: Hi. This is Princeton Lyman. We welcome that degree of interest. As you know, both China and India have significant investments in the oil sector. And as a result, they both have an interest in a stable and peaceful relationship between the two countries because, as you know, much of the oil is in the south, the infrastructure to export it in the north. So we have been in touch on many occasions with the Chinese, and then – and I’ve been in touch with the new Chinese envoy. I have not yet met the new envoy from India, but we’re delighted that they are taking part in diplomatic efforts to both help ease the tension and encourage the governments to reach an agreement on oil as well as other issues.

QUESTION: And as a follow-up – and what kind of role do you see for India? What kind of steps you want India to take in Sudan and South Sudan?

AMBASSADOR LYMAN: Well, I think for all of us in the international community, and that would – it would be true for India as well, that – to urge a resolution of the conflicts that are going on, because it’s hard to see the full implementation of an oil agreement if the two sides are fighting at the border or if there is continued unrest in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile that spills over between the two countries.
So I think for all of us in the international community, it’s important not only to encourage the governments to reach an agreement on oil, but to reach an agreement on the issues that are dividing them so sharply and creating so much conflict. So it – we all need to engage in a broad diplomatic effort, not just on one issue.

QUESTION: Thank you.

OPERATOR: Our next question comes from Ashish Sen. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Thank you very much for doing this. I had two questions. My first was about the decision by the government in South Sudan to shut off oil, which is a major source of revenue. Can you talk a bit about how that’s put an additional burden on NGOs and organizations like USAID, especially when the south is now coping with this huge humanitarian crisis?

And the second is specifically for Ambassador Lyman. Ambassador, South Sudanese officials have complained that the African Union report to the UNSC portrays South Sudan as an aggressor in the recent hostilities. Do you share that assessment? Thank you.

MS. CAPOZZOLA: Princeton, do you want to go first or do you want me to take it first on impact on USAID? I’m happy to go first. Your question on impact on USAID – I mean, obviously, we’re still hopeful that the situation will be resolved, and the South Sudanese budget will not be severely affected over the long term. We are very concerned about growing humanitarian needs this year in South Sudan, even before we start to estimate how budget shortfalls will impact people in concrete ways.

The number of food insecure people in South Sudan is up this year compared to last year. It’s most recently been estimated at 4.7 million people. Last year, it was less than 2 million people. So this is really a major concern. As Catherine alluded to earlier, we’ve got a large number of South Sudanese returning from Sudan, which puts extra pressure on our partner-NGO capacity to provide assistance – initial assistance and support to communities who are absorbing all these people who are returning.

So we’ve been doing a number of things over the last year and a half to pre-position aid and capacity to deal with this, in particular in the northern states that border the two countries. Thanks.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MS. WIESNER: This is Catherine Wiesner. I’ll just jump in with one anecdote. Obviously, the real concern with the shutdown are the budget shortfalls and the impact that it has on the Government of Southern Sudan’s ability to provide for its own people to the extent that it had planned to. An interesting anecdote that I learned when I traveled to Upper Nile was that the shutdown of the oil facilities has also had a direct impact on humanitarian operations, in that the oil companies had taken responsibility for maintaining much of the roads in the areas where they operated. And that regular maintenance is what’s required to keep some of those roads open to Malakal and other major towns in and around the camps during the rainy season. So this was an additional burden that was now falling on the humanitarian community to figure out how to keep those roads maintained so that relief services could continue.

AMBASSADOR LYMAN: This is Princeton Lyman to take your second question. I think it’s important to note after that UN Security Council meeting that the UN Security Council issued a unanimous statement that was quite balanced and represented a very good statement and a well-received statement by the UN Security Council. I think some of the issues that came up about that have been well addressed in the negotiations subsequently. I was a participant in the negotiations in Addis a couple of weeks ago and have been following the ones going on now.

And I think the Africa Union panel in the South African – South Sudan Government, as well as the Sudan Government, are engaged very well in that process indeed, right now today, even as we speak, a meeting is underway of the Joint Political and Security Mechanism, a very important military-to-military discussion between the two countries under the auspices of the Africa Union panel. So I think the panel is doing outstanding work, and I think both countries are working closely with it.

QUESTION: Thank you.

OPERATOR: Our next question comes from Andrew Quinn. Your line is open.

QUESTION: Hi. It’s Andrew Quinn from Reuters. A couple of quick questions for Ambassador Lyman. Firstly, Ambassador Lyman on the oil sector, I remember before South Sudan shut off – shut down the oil production, you were warning that if they did this for any extended period of time it could damage the infrastructure and it could be hard to get that whole oil machine up and running again. Given that it is now shut off and you have these reports of attacks on Southern Sudanese oil installations, what’s your assessment of the state of their oil industry and how quickly it could be brought back online if that was, sort of, politically feasible? And the second question is: I’m wondering if you can give us an update on what your expectations or hopes are for the Kiir-Bashir summit that has been delayed?

AMBASSADOR LYMAN: Well, I think the – South Sudan was very careful with the shutdown to avoid as much as possible damage. I defer to experts far greater than mine as to problems that will arise if the shutdown goes on for a very long period of time. But I think the general feeling is that it would take a little while to start up production, get it going again, getting the oil flowing. There may be some damage that has to be taken care of.

And I think in terms of the economic impact, it – there is a feeling that from the time of an oil agreement to the time that South Sudan begins to receive payment for oil could be as much as three to four months. So there is a significant time period that’s affected.
I don’t think the attacks in Unity state actually were on the oil installations in Unity state. Those attacks seem to be more related to border issues and closing of borders related to what the government in Khartoum feels is support to those fighting in Southern Kordofan. But I think it’s very important that both sides be extremely careful under the current tensions and fighting at the border, that neither crosses the line of attacking oil installations, because I think that would deepen the conflict very much.

The summit was, as you said, postponed. We’re hoping that out of the talks going on now in Addis and subsequent talks, that it will be rescheduled. And it’s very important because it will not only follow up on agreements that were reached a few weeks ago in Addis on nationalities and borders, but it will create, hopefully, a set of steps that will lead to better negotiations on the other issues, including oil. Because there needs to be serious negotiations on the oil sector, and new guidelines have to come from the presidents to facilitate that negotiation.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. VENTRELL: Operator, do we have any further questions?

OPERATOR: Once again, to ask a question, please press * 1. I am showing no questions.

MR. VENTRELL: Okay.

OPERATOR: We did have a question come in.

MR. VENTRELL: Oh, we do? Okay. Go ahead.

OPERATOR: Ashish Sen, your line is open.

QUESTION: Thanks again. This is for Ambassador Lyman. Ambassador Lyman, in the past, U.S. officials have raised concerns with officials in South Sudan about accusations of them supporting rebels in Sudan, specifically in South Kordofan and in Unity state – and Blue Nile, sorry. Have you any indication that this support still continues? And accusations by the government in Khartoum that it was the South that provoked the recent attacks in Heglig – have you seen any indication to support those claims?

AMBASSADOR LYMAN: This is Princeton Lyman. Thank you. Look, what’s right on the agenda in the meeting going on in Addis today are the issues that you raised, that is there are accusations from Khartoum that South Sudan is supporting the rebels in Southern Kordofan. There are also charges from Juba that the government in Khartoum supports militias destabilizing South Sudan. It’s very important that the two sides sit down and discuss these issues very candidly between them, because neither side should be trying to destabilize the other.

But it would also be a mistake to think that the troubles in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile are only because of possible support from the South. There are internal issues there, political issues, security issues leftover from the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that haven’t been addressed. And the Government of Sudan must address those issues with the people of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile to really end the conflict there.

QUESTION: Thank you.

OPERATOR: We had another question come in. Charlene Porter, your line is open.

QUESTION: Yes. Thank you for doing this. It’s Charlene Porter with the International News Service of the State Department. There’s – you all have mentioned many different aspects of this situation going on, but I’d ask you to step back for a moment and make an assessment about in the young life of this new nation. How do you figure it’s going? Is this better or worse than what you might have expected in the first year of the lifetime of South Sudan?

AMBASSADOR LYMAN: Well, this is Princeton Lyman. I’ll start and welcome Christa’s and Catherine’s thoughts as well. Look, this is a country that was absolutely devastated by war over 20 years, starting from a very, very difficult situation of limited infrastructure, loss of – great, great amounts of loss of life, lack of development, et cetera. So to judge it by a year or even by the autonomous period from 2005, one has to take that into account.

I think a lot of institutions have been developed. I think there’s been serious efforts to take on a lot of these issues. But frankly, the country faces an enormous number of challenges, some of which have been discussed already, major humanitarian needs, problems of returnees, of refugees. There are ethnic conflicts that have taken place in Jonglei and other parts of South Sudan. So this is really a country that has many, many challenges. And the crisis in the oil sector only makes that more difficult because 98 percent of South Sudan’s budget was coming from oil. So resolution of that problem is really quite urgent.

So I would say that, given the challenges, the country has put together its independence and moved forward reasonably well, but these are problems that are going to take years and years to address. And maybe AID and PRM would like to add some to that.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MS. WIESNER: Princeton gave a great – Ambassador Lyman gave a great overview. Maybe I would just add a few things. From the refugee perspective, for example, this government, which has such little capacity to begin with following the years of war, at least one problem we don’t have is the granting of first asylum to refugees. I think based on the history of the war and the experiences that those in Southern Sudan had being refugees themselves in surrounding countries, they’ve been incredibly welcoming to refugees coming into their country, and that’s one positive.

Another related positive is that, as Ambassador Lyman mentioned, institutions have been developed. Capacity is low, but for better or for worse, you do have a number of government employees who have worked with the international community on emergency and humanitarian response over the course of the civil war and so do have some significant experience in that realm and are able to interact with the humanitarian community in a principled way on humanitarian response.

So I think overall this is not the direction we would have wanted the country to go in, in terms of the oil shutdown and the ongoing internal conflicts as well as conflicts along the border, but there are a few bright spots that we see, even in this context.

MS. CAPOZZOLA: This is Christa from USAID. I would just add very briefly that, as Ambassador Lyman said, we’re emerging out of half a century of conflict; it’s not surprising that we’re dealing with resolving layer upon layer of conflicts around these two nations right now. And connected to assistance, there are millions of people who were made vulnerable by these many, many years of conflict and displacement, and this is going to take a lot of time to sort out. And perhaps expectations that humanitarian needs would be over that – once a peace agreement and independence was achieved, was not really realistic. This is going to take years to normalize. Thank you.
QUESTION: Thank you.

OPERATOR: Show no further questions.

MR. VENTRELL: Thank you all for joining the call, and have a good day.

ATTORNEY GENERAL SPEAKS AT NATIONAL FORUM ON YOUTH VIOLENCE PREVENTION SUMMIT

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE WEBSITE
Attorney General Eric Holder Speaks at the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention Summit Washington, D.C. ~ Monday, April 2, 2012
Thank you, Mary Lou [Leary].   I appreciate your kind words – and I’m especially grateful for your leadership of the Office of Justice Programs, and your commitment to the goals of this critical Forum.   I’d also like to thank the many Administration leaders, federal agency partners – and particularly OJP staff members – who have worked so hard to bring us together today.  Each of you has an essential role to play in advancing the Justice Department’s efforts to prevent and combat violence among – and directed toward – our nation’s young people.   And I am proud to stand with you this morning.

It’s a privilege to join my colleagues, Secretary [Kathleen] Sebelius and Secretary [Shaun] Donovan, in welcoming such a diverse group of partners – including my good friend Congressman [Bobby] Scott and Mayor [Antonio] Villaraigosa – back to our nation’s capital for today’s Summit.   I’d like to thank each of you, as well as well as the United States Attorneys who are with us today – Pat Fitzgerald, Melinda Haag, Barb McQuade, Carmen Ortiz, and Ed Stanton – for your collaborative efforts in building a national dialogue about youth violence – and for your focus on sharing the resources and strategies we need to address every aspect of this problem – from law enforcement, to public health, to public housing – and far beyond.

This gathering constitutes the latest step forward in our ongoing conversation about some of the most urgent challenges our young people face.   And it marks an important opportunity – not only to assess and celebrate the progress we’ve made since last year’s Summit – but to explore strategies for taking this work to the next level.

Perhaps more than any other group, I know the people in this room understand the persistent threats – and the significant obstacles – that lie ahead.   I know each of you is here because you’ve seen the shocking statistics.   You’ve heard the stories from young people directly.   And – in communities across this country – you’ve stood on the front lines of the struggle against youth violence.

Especially in recent weeks – as the importance of protecting our children from harm has been at the forefront of our national discourse – the urgency of this challenge has been brought into stark focus.   And the need to take action has never been more clear.

Today, we know that the majority of our young people – more than 60 percent of them, in fact – have been exposed to crime, abuse, and violence.   We know that violence can take many forms, and that exposure can happen at home, during school, on our streets, and even online – where children face new and unprecedented threats every day.   And we’ve seen that exposure to violence – as a witness or a victim – can have devastating, long-term effects on our children – increasing their chances for depression, substance-abuse, and violent behavior.

Recent analysis by Casey Family Programs – one of our nation’s leading child welfare foundations – provides a vivid illustration of what we’re up against.   According to their findings, in just the last 24 hours – on average – more than 2,000 children were confirmed as victims of child abuse and neglect.   Approximately four of those children, most likely under the age of five, died as a result.   And roughly 16 young men between the ages of 10 and 24 became homicide victims.

This is not only alarming – it is unacceptable.   And your efforts have sent the clear signal it cannot, and will not, be tolerated – and that, in this country, we will never give up on our children.

Fortunately, the level of understanding we’ve attained – and the diversity of perspectives represented here today – have empowered us to fight back.   Since October, when we last came together to assess the Forum’s efforts, I know you’ve been busy putting your youth violence prevention plans into action at the local level, and bringing even more community leaders and stakeholders into this work.   And, as we gather this morning, I understand that you have promising updates and innovations to share; success stories to highlight; and additional plans to unveil.

I’m confident that we will all benefit from the lessons you’ve learned.   And I know everyone here is eager to capitalize on the sense of momentum you’ve helped to establish.   Like many of you, I have seen the devastating effects of youth violence throughout my career.   As a prosecutor and a judge, I saw the toll it exacts on communities, neighborhoods, and individual lives.   As a U.S. Attorney, as Deputy Attorney General, I was determined to make the progress that our nation’s young people deserve.   Today, as Attorney General – and as the father of three teenage children – I have made this work a top priority for our nation’s Department of Justice.

From the landmark Defending Childhood Initiative – which we launched in 2010 – to the work of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the groundbreaking research supported by the Office of Justice Programs – over the last few years, we’ve helped shed new light on complex youth violence issues and learn about the impacts of specific practices and policies.   In close partnership with other Cabinet-level agencies like the Department of Education, we’re developing new strategies for understanding and disrupting some of the most urgent challenges our children face – including what’s become known as the “school-to-prison pipeline,” that, in far too many communities, transforms our schools from doorways to opportunity into gateways to our correctional system.   And in collaboration with state and local officials, academic experts, law enforcement officers, frontline practitioners, parents, coaches, and community leaders like all of you – from Boston to Chicago; from Detroit to Memphis; from Salinas to San Jose – we are reaching out, raising awareness – and making a meaningful, measurable difference in countless lives.

In fact, based on an independent assessment released last week, all six cities that are participating in this Forum have positive stories to report.   These results are preliminary – but there’s no question that they constitute promising indications that – already – your comprehensive efforts are working.   Our commitment is paying off.   And we stand poised to build upon the strong foundation you’ve established.

That’s why – this morning – I am pleased to announce that we are currently developing plans to expand the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention to four additional cities – bringing our total up to ten.   And we’ve released a new toolkit – which is available today at www.FindYouthInfo.gov – that will provide guidance on how to gather and use data on youth violence, identify community assets, and even enable additional communities to develop and implement comprehensive youth violence prevention plans of their own.

I am proud that the Justice Department has taken a central role in facilitating these efforts.   And I am confident that the strategies you’re implementing will move us toward a new era of engagement, cooperation, and collaboration across local jurisdictions, state lines, and federal agencies. On behalf of my colleagues across both the Justice Department and the entire Administration, I want to pledge our ongoing support for your work.

Continuing the progress we celebrate today is not simply our professional obligation – it is our moral duty.   Without question, we can be proud of all that the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention has already helped to accomplish.   But, as I know every person here agrees, we cannot yet be satisfied.   Today’s Summit presents an important opportunity to renew our commitment to these critical efforts, and to reaffirm our collective resolve: to protect our nation’s young people in every way we can.   To empower our kids as well as we know how.   And to challenge them to make good decisions – and to contribute to the work of strengthening our nation and honoring our founding principles of security, opportunity, and justice for all.

In advancing this work, I am grateful for your leadership.   I am proud to count you as colleagues and as partners.   And I look forward to where your efforts will take us from here.

Thank you.

VA SECRETARY ERIC SHINSEKI SAYS VA WILL MAKE GOOD ON PROMISES TO VETS

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE

Shinseki Vows to Support Military Members, Vets

By Donna Miles

WASHINGTON, March 30, 2012 - Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki offered assurances that VA will make good on its promises to veterans and those currently serving in uniform, despite growth in demand for its services and benefits and federal belt-tightening initiatives.

Shinseki sat with American Forces Press Service during the 26th annual National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic this week in Snowmass Village, Colo., to discuss VA's $140.3 billion budget request for fiscal 2013 and what it means for those who serve or have served in uniform.

With a 4.5 percent increase in discretionary funding over fiscal 2012 funding levels, Shinseki said it sends a clear message to the nation's 22 million living veterans. "The nation honors and appreciates their service," he said. "It has not forgotten and will not forget."

The funding increases will go primarily toward medical care, disability pay and pensions, jobs and educational and training programs. They also will help build momentum in three priority areas Shinseki has identified: increasing access to care, benefits and services; eliminating the disability claims backlog; and ending veterans' homelessness.

Shinseki said the budget request -- up from $99.9 billion when he arrived at VA in 2009 -- was an easy sell to President Barack Obama, who he said has been a staunch advocate of veterans.

"He gets it, both that sense of obligation, and a responsibility to ensure that these men and women we have sent off to do the nation's business have an opportunity to get back to some kind of normalcy in their lives, and that VA is responsible for carrying that load," Shinseki said of the President's support for veterans.

The VA's workload is anticipated to grow, Shinseki said, with an estimated 1 million service members expected to leave the military during the next five years. And based on the experience of 1.4 million veterans of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan who have left the military as of September, he said the newest veterans will be twice as likely as those from previous generations to take advantage of VA services and benefits.

Shinseki noted that 67 percent of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have come to VA for services or benefits ranging from health care to insurance, home mortgages and Post-9/11 G.I. Bill education. That's a far-higher percentage than for previous generations, he said, noting that roughly 8.8 million, or about one-third of all 22 million living U.S. veterans, are enrolled with the VA.

"So looking down the road, that percentage is going to be pretty significant," he said.

In some respects, VA has become a victim of its own successes and what Shinseki called a "very aggressive" outreach effort to encourage veterans to take advantage of VA programs. "In the last three years, we have pushed very hard to get the message out," he said. It's been a two-prong effort, he added, to educate new veterans, and to "reach out to those who may have tried us and been disappointed in the past to say, 'This is a new VA. Give us another try.'"

The message has clearly resonated, with about 800,000 new veterans enrolling with VA over the past three years and beginning to take advantage of its services.

"As a result, we have been able to present what I think is a good argument for why VA's budget needed to be reinforced, Shinseki said.

The VA budget request includes $52.7 billion for medical care, up 4.1 percent. VA officials estimate that 6.3 million veterans will use its health care services, including about 610,000 veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The request includes $6.2 billion for mental-health, up 5.3 percent from current levels. VA will use the additional funding to conduct more outreach and screenings, better address post-traumatic stress disorder and enhance programs that reduce the stigma of seeking mental-health care, officials said.

The budget also will fund expanded gender-specific care for women veterans and medical research focusing on traumatic brain injury, suicide prevention, PTSD and other needs, officials reported.

New funding in the 2013 budget request, officials said, will help veterans prepare for and secure jobs, building on a national program that includes tax credits for employers, corporate hiring pledges, job fairs and other initiatives.

The budget request will cover Post-9/11 GI Bill educational benefits for an estimated 606,000 service members, veterans and family members during fiscal 2013, officials said. A separate funding increase of $9 million would expand the "VetSuccess on Campus" program from 28 college campuses to 80 to provide outreach and supportive services for about 80,000 veterans transitioning from the military to college.

Meanwhile, VA's vocational rehabilitation and employment program will expand services to wounded, ill and injured service members to ease their transition to civilian life, officials said. Program participants are expected to increase from 108,000 in fiscal 2011 to 130,000 next fiscal year.

The budget request proposes $1 billion over five years for a Veterans Job Corp. This effort, projected to put 20,000 veterans to work, would leverage military-acquired skills for jobs protecting and rebuilding U.S. public lands.

Shinseki said VA and the Defense Department are collaborating better than ever before to ensure a smoother transition from the military to VA-assisted ranks.

A task force that blends both departments' expertise is exploring ways to improve transition assistance programs and weave health care, employment, education and entrepreneurship offerings into them. The idea, Shinseki explained, is to put transitioning service members "on a vector to that next phase of their lives, as opposed to the uniform coming off and then having them ask the question, 'What am I going to do now?'"

The goal, he said, is to gear transition assistance programs toward providing veterans "a clear set of choices," that both departments can help support.

Shinseki noted other areas where the close DOD-VA partnership already is helping service members and their families and veterans. VA is the insurer for everyone in the military carrying Servicemembers Group Life Insurance. VA administers Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits for service members and their families as well as veterans. VA hospitals already provide specialized care to many active-duty patients.

"So the connection is there," Shinseki said. "And I want all service members and their families to understand that we are there for them, and that is our only mission."
 

EPA APPROVES INCREASE IN ETHANOL IN BLENDED GASOLINE

FROM: EPA E-MAIL
April 2, 2012
EPA to Allow 15 Percent Renewable Fuel in Gasoline
Agency approves first applications for registration of ethanol to make E15
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the first applications for registration of ethanol for use in making gasoline that contains up to 15 percent ethanol – known as E15. Ethanol is a renewable fuel that can be mixed with gasoline. For over 30 years ethanol has been blended into gasoline, but the law limited it to 10 percent by volume for use in gasoline-fueled vehicles. Registration of ethanol to make E15 is a significant step toward its production, sale, and use in model year 2001 and newer gasoline-fueled cars and light trucks.

To enable widespread use of E15, the Obama Administration has set a goal to help fueling station owners install 10,000 blender pumps over the next 5 years. In addition, both through the Recovery Act and the 2008 Farm Bill, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Department of Agriculture have provided grants, loans and loan guarantees to spur American ingenuity on the next generation of biofuels.

Today’s action follows an extensive technical review required by law. Registration is a prerequisite to introducing E15 into the marketplace. Before it can be sold, manufactures must first take additional measures to help ensure retail stations and other gasoline distributors understand and implement labeling rules and other E15-related requirements. EPA is not requiring the use or sale of E15.

Ethanol is considered a renewable fuel because it is generally produced from plant products or wastes and not from fossil fuels. Ethanol is blended with gasoline for use in most areas across the country.  After extensive vehicle testing by DOE and other organizations, EPA issued two partial waivers raising the allowable ethanol volume to 15 percent for use in model year 2001 and newer cars and light trucks.

E15 is not permitted for use in motor vehicles built prior to 2001 model year and in off-road vehicles and equipment such as boats and lawn and garden equipment. Gas pumps dispensing E15 will be clearly labeled so consumers can make the right choice.

DEFENSE SECRETARY PANETTA SPEAKS OF EISENHOWER'S LEGACY

American Forces Press Service

Panetta Outlines Eisenhower's Legacy of Leadership

By Karen Parrish

WASHINGTON, March 30, 2012 - Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta offered his perspective at a gathering here yesterday evening on what he termed the "strategic turning point" facing the nation.

Accepting the 2012 Dwight D. Eisenhower Award, presented by members of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress during a dinner in his honor hosted by the group, Panetta said Eisenhower's legacy of "compromise, patience, [and] conviction ... remains valuable and instructive to all of us today."

Eisenhower's life of service, he added, offers lessons on the importance of statesmanship, of long-term strategic planning and of leadership in war and politics.

The secretary reminded the audience of the challenges America faces: the wear that follows 10 years of war; a diminished but determined terrorist threat; an uncertain global geopolitical situation; and a range of weapons that includes a growing nuclear menace and an elusive but pervasive cyber threat.

"At the same time we face this myriad of threat, we also face another national security threat: the long-term debt and the record deficits," Panetta said.

To meet that threat, Panetta noted, he and "the entire leadership" of the Defense Department did the painful but necessary work of crafting "a new defense strategy for the long haul," to shape a defense capability that will sustain the nation's global leadership in a constrained spending environment.

The department must do its part "to help America put its fiscal house in order," the secretary said.

"That's because I agree with what President Eisenhower said in his first state of the union speech," Panetta continued. "'To amass military power without regard to economic capacity would be to defend ourselves against one kind of disaster by inviting another.'"

The new defense strategy will produce a force that is small, agile, technologically advanced and able to confront aggression at any time or place, he said.

The process of developing that strategy and shaping defense spending plans to support it required the department, he said, to "make tradeoffs and that we put our long-term interest ahead of short-term political pressures."

"But that's the nature of governing," the secretary continued. Over his career in public service, Panetta added, he has learned "that governing requires people coming together to get things done, not to pound their fists on the table, not to stand in the way."

One of his greatest concerns as secretary, Panetta said, "is the dysfunction that we see in Washington.

"It threatens our security and it raises questions about the capacity of our democracy to respond to crisis," he added. "But dysfunction is a political crutch, It's a political excuse. It is not a part of the American spirit."

Panetta said he hopes Congress will work with the department to implement the strategy and the budget, and "ensure that we have the strong military the country needs for the future."

Another important lesson Eisenhower's legacy provides, the secretary said, is the service and sacrifice of a single generation can leave all of us a better life."

The Americans who have volunteered to be sent to faraway battlefields over the last 10 years are such a generation, Panetta said.

During his recent trip to Afghanistan, Panetta said he was "struck by how even in a tough situation, these dedicated young men and women remain intently focused on the long-term mission."

The strategy International Security Assistance Force commander Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen and his forces have in place in Afghanistan is effective, Panetta said. Violence is down, the secretary noted, the Taliban are weakened, and Afghan forces are fighting alongside their U.S. and ISAF counterparts.

"We cannot allow the outrages of war to undermine" that strategy, he said.

Panetta acknowledged that the American and Afghan people are tired of war. That is understandable, he said, "but we must summon the will to see this strategy through to success."

The secretary offered another quote from Eisenhower: "Without American leadership in the search, the pursuit of a just and enduring peace is hopeless. Nowhere in the world -- outside this land -- is there the richness of resources, and stamina, and will needed to lead what at times must be a costly and exhausting effort."

Americans and their leaders, Panetta said, must summon the will to "fight for that American dream for a better life, but most of all, fight for a government of, by and for all people."
 

SEC OBTAINS SUMMARY JUDGEMENT AGAINST PONZI MASTERMIND

The following excerpt is from the SEC website:
March 27, 2012
SEC Obtains Summary Judgment against Serial Fraudster Matthew J. Gagnon
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that on March 22, 2012, the Honorable George Caram Steeh of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan granted the SEC’s motion for summary judgment and entered a final judgment against defendant Matthew J. Gagnon of Portland, Oregon and Weslaco, Texas. The Court found that Gagnon violated the registration, anti-fraud, and anti-touting provisions of the federal securities laws by promoting and operating a series of securities offerings through his website, www.Mazu.com, and ordered Gagnon to pay $4.1 million in disgorgement with prejudgment interest and a $100,000 civil penalty.

The SEC filed this action against Gagnon on May 11, 2010, alleging that since 1997, Gagnon had billed himself as an Internet business opportunity expert and his website as “the world’s first and largest opportunity review website.” According to the SEC’s complaint, from January 2006 through approximately August 2007, Gagnon helped orchestrate a massive Ponzi scheme conducted by Gregory N. McKnight and his company, Legisi Holdings, LLC, which raised a total of approximately $72.6 million from over 3,000 investors by promising returns of upwards of 15% a month. The complaint also alleged that Gagnon promoted Legisi but in doing so misled investors by claiming, among other things, that he had thoroughly researched McKnight and Legisi and had determined Legisi to be a legitimate and safe investment. The complaint alleged that Gagnon had no basis for the claims he made about McKnight and Legisi. Gagnon also failed to disclose to investors that he was to receive 50% of Legisi's purported "profits" under his agreement with McKnight. According to the complaint, Gagnon received a net of approximately $3.8 million in Legisi investor funds from McKnight for his participation in the scheme.

The SEC's complaint further alleged that beginning in August 2007, Gagnon fraudulently offered and sold securities representing interests in a new company that purportedly was to develop resort properties. The complaint alleged that Gagnon, among other things, falsely claimed that the investment was risk-free and "SEC compliant," and guaranteed a 200% return in 14 months. In reality, however, Gagnon sent the money to a twice-convicted felon, did not register the investment with the SEC, and knew such an outlandish return was impossible. Gagnon took in at least $361,865 from 21 investors.
The SEC's complaint also alleged that in April 2009, Gagnon began promoting a fraudulent offering of interests in a purported Forex trading venture. Gagnon guaranteed that the venture would generate returns of 2% a month or 30% a year for his investors. Gagnon's claims were false, and he had had no basis for making them because Gagnon never reviewed his friend’s trading records before promoting the offering, which would have shown over $150,000 in losses over the previous nine months.

The SEC's complaint charged Gagnon with violating Sections 5(a), 5(c), 17(a) and 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Sections 10(b) and 15(a)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. In addition to the emergency relief already obtained, the complaint sought preliminary and permanent injunctions, disgorgement, and civil penalties from Gagnon. On May 24, 2010, the SEC obtained an emergency order freezing Gagnon’s assets and other preliminary relief. Subsequently, on August 6, 2010, the Court granted an order of preliminary injunction against Gagnon pursuant to his consent.

In granting the Commission’s motion and entering final judgment, the Court found that Gagnon “purposefully built up an image of trustworthiness in the on-line investing community and exploited this trust.” The Court also found that Gagnon “repeatedly committed egregious violations of the federal securities laws” and “has shown no remorse for his conduct.”

The Court’s final judgment against Gagnon permanently enjoins him from future violations of Sections 5(a), 5(c), 17(a) and 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Sections 10(b) and 15(a)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and orders Gagnon to pay $3,613,259 in disgorgement, $488,570.47 in prejudgment interest, and a $100,000 civil penalty.

SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON'S INTERVIEW ON CNN

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Interview With Jill Dougherty of CNN
Interview Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Istanbul Congress Center
Istanbul, Turkey
April 1, 2012
QUESTION: Madam Secretary, thank you very much for doing this. I want to start with the sanctions, with the pressure. If you look at all of this pressure, something doesn’t seem to be working because Assad is still there, and notably, you don’t have any major defections from the key top leadership, the people who are close to him. Why is that? Could one of the factors be that the United States and others are saying “we don’t want military action, and that could be emboldening him?”

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Jill, I think the sanctions are beginning to have an effect, but we have to do more to implement them, and that’s why we formed a sanctions committee today. And the United States will be working with the Arab countries, the European countries, North African, and others to have them understand the most effective way to implement sanctions. Because, as one of them said to me, “The Americans have a lot of experience in doing sanctions. We don’t.” So we’re making progress.
Also the individual sanctions – the travel bans, the visa bans, the kinds of direct personal sanctions – are beginning to really wake people up. They’re looking around thinking for the rest of my life, I’m only going to be able maybe to go to Iran; that doesn’t sound like a great idea. So we hear a lot from the inside that these sanctions are happening in a timely way. Also, the reserves of the country are being drawn down, marketplaces are not as full of goods as they once were. So this does take time. We’re well aware that time is going by, people are being killed, it just is absolutely horrific what’s happening. But the Istanbul meeting today was quite consequential in terms of the outcomes, and really increasing the enforcement of sanctions was one of the best.

QUESTION: Let’s look at the opposition. A number of them are expats, people who have lived out of the country for years and years. Why should anybody who’s inside Syria right now trust them? And do they actually know the real situation on the ground?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, what’s happening is that the Syrian National Council is expanding. I just met with four representatives, including a young woman who just escaped from Homs. I mean, she is someone who is bearing witness to the horrors of what the Assad regime did to the neighborhoods of her city. And she had very poignant stories of close friends who were tortured and are in hospital, and if they’re discovered as having been in the opposition, will be killed. I mean, it’s a terrible human tragedy, but she is a witness.

So I think, along with the people who started the Syrian National Council, who are in a position to do so – because they had been driven out by the Assads, father and son, over the course of many years – they’re now being joined and, frankly, their credibility is being enhanced by both civilian and military defections. And we think that’s significant.

QUESTION: If you stand back and look at this, you have right now – you talked about those broken promises, the broken promises – if you stand back and look at it, there’s kind of a pattern emerging. And you could say Syria, broken promises by President Assad, you would assert. You have broken promises, you also would assert, from Iran on the nuclear program. And you have North Korea, which also has broken promises.
So in this pattern, what explains that pattern? It’s similar to what I was asking first off, which is: Is there something that this Administration is doing, which is kind of standing back, not being as aggressive as some people might want you to be, that is emboldening them, allowing them to say we’ll just play out the clock?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t think so. I think if you look at what this Administration did, we put together an international coalition – a consensus, really, against both Iran and North Korea that had not existed before with UN Security Council resolutions, very tough sanctions enforcements. But you’re dealing with two regimes that are very difficult to reign in because they have no regard for even their own promises and obligations. With North Korea, that goes back decades. It’s been a constant challenge, and it’s been a process of really trying to prevent them from going too far with their provocative actions that could cause another war in the Korean Peninsula, which – you go to the memorial in Washington and you know what that cost the United States and our allies.

With Iran, we are very carefully building on and then acting on the pressure that we have put in place. We will begin to know, with the resumption of the P-5+1 talks, whether or not there is a deal to be had here. This is something that has to be explored. I think one of the reasons that the Iranians are even coming back to talk is because of the sanctions. But as President Obama has said, all options are on the table. Our policy is not containment with Iran. It is prevention of their getting a nuclear weapon.
QUESTION: But there is that “All options are on the table” that continues to be the mantra, but nothing happens.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, but Jill, I don’t think you want to rush to some of the options that are on the table. I think it’s very important and it’s a requirement of responsible leadership that you exhaust every diplomatic pathway. That is what we are doing. We are very clear about that. We want to have a peaceful resolution. We want Iran to begin to reenter the international community, to stop threatening their neighbors. As you know, I was in Riyadh yesterday. They’re not only worried about the nuclear program; they’re worried about Iran destabilizing countries, they’re worried about it exporting terrorism. And we’re going to test all of that just as hard as we can. I can’t, sitting here today, exactly predict to you what the outcome will be, except I know that we have to keep trying the diplomatic route, knowing that our policy is clear about no nuclear weapons.

QUESTION: And speaking of Iran, are you nervous that Israel will, on its own, take some action, but leave it to the United States to finish that action?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think Israel understands why we think it’s important to pursue the diplomatic route as far as we possibly can in a timely way. We’re not going to enter into endless talks that never see any kind of outcome. But we do want, with the full backing of the international community – because remember the P-5+1 include China and Russia. And they are on record publicly as saying they don’t want to see Iran with a nuclear weapon. So I think Israel understands that there is a necessity for us to pursue the P-5+1, and we have certainly made it clear that – to them that all options are on the table, and we would be pursuing the diplomatic option.

QUESTION: I want to turn the corner to Russia. I was just there covering the election, in fact. And you have these interesting comments coming out from a candidate for president, Mr. Romney, who says that Russia is the biggest – the worst geopolitical foe the United States has. I don’t – let’s – I know you don’t like to talk politics.

SECRETARY CLINTON: (Laughter.)

QUESTION: But what do you think of that?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, without getting into the political campaign, because that’s for others to comment on, I think if you take a look at the world today, we have a lot of problems that are not leftovers from the past, but are of the moment. We’ve just been talking about one, namely Iran. And in many of the areas where we are working to solve problems, Russia has been an ally. They’re in the P-5+1 talks with us, they have worked with us in Afghanistan and have been very helpful in the Northern Distribution Network and in other ways. So I think it’s somewhat dated to be looking backwards instead of being realistic about where we agree, where we don’t agree, but looking for ways to bridge the disagreements and then to maximize the cooperation.

QUESTION: Mr. Putin, soon to be President Putin again, accused you personally of sending some type of signal to the Russians to bring them out onto the streets.
SECRETARY CLINTON: (Laughter.)

QUESTION: And now, you have the United States – this Administration – pushing to release, I think, it is $50 million in democracy support funds, which is guaranteed, of course, not to go over well in Moscow. Why shouldn’t they look at this money and say that the United States – that maybe Hillary Clinton wants to send another signal? In other words, you’re stirring up trouble.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I have to say I was a little perplexed that I would be imputed such power that a mere signal, a mere word, would cause thousands of people to turn out. In fact, I think the demonstrators in the street got it right. They laughed at that. I mean, they knew why there were there. They want democracy, they want freedom, they want a voice in their affairs, and we all support that. And we hope that in the years to come, there will be greater openness in Russia. The Russian people are so smart. You lived there. You know what incredibly talented people, well educated, the ability to really help shape the 21st century – stop the brain drain. Create an environment in which Russians are made to feel that they can build their own country, make a real stake in the future there. And that has nothing to do with us. It has to do everything with the Russian people themselves.

And we in the United States believe that every country would be better off if there were greater freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, because I think we represent that. We have had a great run, and I want it always to continue. I want the United States always to represent these values and to live them. And therefore, we’re going to continue to promote them around the world.

QUESTION: Quick question on Pakistan. The United States apparently is agreeing to a different way of using drones, a very controversial issue. When that happens, could that be to the detriment of the national security of the United States?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Jill, I’m not going to comment on any intelligence matter. That would not be appropriate. But I can assure you that the Obama Administration will not enter into any agreement that would be to the detriment of the national security of our country. I think this President has demonstrated conclusively that he’s ready to take the tough decisions when America’s security is at stake.

QUESTION: One last question. You were just in Burma not too long ago, historic elections. What are your thoughts as you look at that?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I’m very hopeful for the people. The early reports are mostly positive. We want to see these elections conducted in a free, fair manner that is validated by the international community, and we want to see continuing progress. I was very touched by the visit that I made and the commitments that I received from members of the government who were quite sincere in their desire to move their country forward.
I know how difficult it is. I know that there are some who don’t agree with it, who will try to undermine it. That seems to be human nature everywhere in the world. But if this election goes as well as it is reported to have from the early reports, that will be a significant step. And I promised, when I was there meeting with leaders in Nay Pyi Taw, that the United States would match action for action. And we will do that.
QUESTION: Well, thank you very much Madam Secretary.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING

Victoria Nuland
Spokesperson
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
April 2, 2012
TRANSCRIPT:

12:44 p.m. EDT
MS. NULAND: Happy Monday, everybody. I’ve got one thing at the top and then we’ll go to what’s on your minds. We want to call attention to the fact that April 1st, yesterday, the seven leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community marked a – the anniversary of their cumulative total of incarceration of 10,000 days in Iranian prison for their beliefs. We condemn Iran’s ongoing persecution and arrests of Baha’i community members, and we continue to be deeply concerned by the harassment and intimidation of all religious minorities in Iran, including its significant Sunni and Sufi populations, Christians like Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, the Zoroastrians, and others. And we renew our call on the Iranian authorities to release the seven Baha’i leaders and immediately guarantee all religious communities the right to practice their religion freely.
QUESTION: I’m sure we’ll get back to Iran in a minute, but I want to begin with Syria, because I’m a little confused. I wasn’t working yesterday, but I’ve tried to read up on what happened. But I don’t know exactly what the U.S. – what the Secretary committed the U.S. to doing. The 12 million – or the new aid that she announced, which brings it to 12 million, is that correct? That’s all in humanitarian aid, and none of it goes towards this fund which is going to pay the Free Syrian Army? Is that correct?
MS. NULAND: Shall we take a moment and go through all of the outcomes --
QUESTION: Well, no. I don’t want to go through. I just --
MS. NULAND: -- or you just want to go through the money outcomes?
QUESTION: Well, I’m trying to figure out exactly what the U.S. is – what the Administration is doing differently now than it was before yesterday.
MS. NULAND: Okay. So let’s go through some of the results from the meeting of the Friends of the Syrian People yesterday. If you didn’t get a chance to see it, I call your attention to the Secretary’s press conference in Istanbul, where she went through all of these things. But let me just do it again for your purposes.
We’ve been talking about working along four lines – first of all, strengthening sanctions; second, increasing humanitarian support; third, working with and strengthening the opposition in Syria; and fourth now, beginning to help the Syrians to establish dossiers of accountability with regard to the atrocities that have been committed.
So on each of these, first with regard to sanctions, a number of countries, including the United States, announced new targeted sanctions on individuals. And the Friends of the Syrian People also yesterday established a Sanctions Working Group. The goal of this is to look across the lines at what various countries have committed to, to look at how sanctions are being implemented, to help countries implement them increasingly effectively, to shout out when countries are not supporting the general sanctions direction of the Friends of the Syrian People, and that – and also to try to broaden the number of countries who are putting sanctions on the regime. We have a number of countries in the Friends of the Syrian People who don’t have much of a tradition of using sanctions as a tool of foreign policy. A number of them have asked for help in how you implement sanctions, how you track whether they are being followed, so this will be, we hope, more effective.
And as you heard the Secretary say publicly yesterday in some of her TV interviews, we do believe that these sanctions are beginning to have a profound effect, and we’re seeing some cracks within the regime as well as a result of the pressure individuals are under as they find it harder to travel, to move their money, et cetera.
The second is the humanitarian. On the humanitarian side, as you know, many of the Friends of the Syrian People countries have been contributing to humanitarian relief that is delivered by UN humanitarian organizations – Red Cross, Red Crescent, et cetera. Yesterday, the Secretary announced an additional contribution on the U.S. side of 12 million in humanitarian aid, bringing the U.S. total contribution in humanitarian aid – this is food, medicine, et cetera – to almost 25 million, and we put out a fact sheet yesterday on exactly what we’re doing there.
The third line, support for the Syrian opposition. First and foremost, on the political side, I think you know the Secretary, President, other U.S. principals have been calling for the SNC to broaden its outreach to as many communities as possible within Syria and to issue a very clear statement of its goals and intentions for a transition to a democratic Syria. So they put out – as you know, a week ago, they met in Istanbul, and then they published on Saturday – we also pushed this – a copy of this to some of our travelers; if you need to see it we can pass it to you. On Saturday-Sunday, they published what they are calling the Covenant for a Future Syria, I think is the way they described it. But it goes through very clearly their aspiration to have a Syria that is based on rule of law, that is based on a new constitution that is ratified democratically, to have elections, et cetera, et cetera, and also states very clearly their intention to be for a Syria for all Syrians, to protect the human rights of all communities, et cetera.
So that was a very good step. As the Secretary said yesterday, when we met with the Syrian National Council, what we were seeing there is that they are having some success expanding their membership. We now have not only members who have long lived outside of Syria, but we have a number of new members, some of whom the Secretary met with yesterday, who are freshly out of Babr Amr, other parts of – Homs, Daraa, et cetera, and they are now contributing their insight to the group. So it is broadening in scope.
The Secretary also reiterated that we have been supporting the needs of the civilian opposition with communications support, medical support, that we are now looking at how we can expand that. We had a number of consultations on this trip, she did both in Saudi Arabia and in Istanbul, with other countries about the kinds of needs that the civilian opposition has. We haven’t put a public dollar figure on that. There are a number of reasons for that. Partly, we’re still working through all of the needs. But some of this has been moving.
But one of the things that was very much confirmed by the Secretary’s meetings with the opposition leaders, both those who are formally members of the SNC and those who are just affiliated, and particularly with those who are freshly out of Syria, is that one of the biggest issues that they face is communicating among themselves – communicating inside Syria, communicating even in the same city. The woman that she met with from Homs made clear that when Homs was under shelling attack, they didn’t even know what was happening on the other side of the city, let alone be able to talk to opposition leaders in cities across Syria, and also to connect the external opposition with the internal opposition.
So this is something that we are very much committed to and that we will be continuing to work on. Britain and a number of other countries have also indicated their support. Other countries made clear that they will be providing a different kind of support. They will be providing support directly to the Free Syrian Army. I won’t speak to them, but as the Secretary made clear yesterday, this is something that was very much welcomed by the SNC.
The last line here is the accountability line. So the Syrian opposition is trying now to keep good records of the atrocities that have been witnessed. There is a lot of international experience in how you build accountability dossiers that can be used later in trials. Whether they are domestic trials or whether they are ICC trials is an issue, obviously, to be decided by the Syrian people. But we announced this – after consulting with a number of countries, we announced this accountability hub center initiative, and we put out a fact sheet on that today. That will do a number of things. It’ll train Syrians in how to keep these records. It’ll will provide a safe and secure storage place for the records. It’ll start connecting a number of the groups internationally that do this, including the UN. And the message that we want to send with this is that people committing atrocities, particularly regime figures, but frankly anybody committing atrocities inside Syria, should know that justice will find you eventually.
QUESTION: So wait, wait. Hold on – I think – I – congratulations, by the way. I think, A, that was – you may have set two records.
MS. NULAND: The longest answers? Yeah.
QUESTION: One was the longest answer ever uninterrupted.
MS. NULAND: Good. Good. That was my goal.
QUESTION: And secondly, the longest answer that didn’t answer the question. (Laughter.)
MS. NULAND: Go ahead, Matt.
QUESTION: What is the Administration doing differently today than it – which was my question, remember?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Back 10 minutes ago when – before you started? The question was: What is the Administration doing differently today than it was before Sunday?
MS. NULAND: It is supporting the sanctions working group to help tighten the --
QUESTION: Which you did before that, though, correct?
MS. NULAND: Well, every nation was involved in individual sanctions. We were not working together as intensely to try to strengthen them, to try to find the holes, to try to help countries that want to do more that don’t know how. We also obviously increased our own sanctions. We increased our humanitarian aid. Okay? That’s the second thing. We made clear in consultations with other countries and in working with the SNC that we are looking at how we can increase the nonlethal assistance that we provide to the civilian opposition. We consulted with countries that are doing other things to make sure that what we are doing and what they are doing is well-coordinated and worked with the opposition on how all of those things can work. And we stood up this accountability center.
QUESTION: But one, I remember the sanctions – this coordination of sanctions was discussed in Tunis as well back in the first --
MS. NULAND: Not in terms of a formal working group and at that --
QUESTION: All right. Two, you were providing --
MS. NULAND: -- and having staffs working on it permanently.
QUESTION: Two, you were providing humanitarian assistance before. Now, you’re just providing more, right?
MS. NULAND: We’re doubling it now. Yeah.
QUESTION: Three, you are providing communications equipment to the opposition? That is something that you were doing before, no?
MS. NULAND: We were doing it in a very modest way, and now we are looking at what more we can do, and we are trying to key it specifically to the needs that we’re hearing about.
QUESTION: Okay. So can you be more specific? When you say you were doing it in a modest way before, what does that mean? What – I mean, does that mean people were being given cell phones, computers? What was going on before, and what’s different about it now when you talk about more focused or directed – how is it going to be different than what was the modest program before?
MS. NULAND: Well, let me start with the goal here. As the Secretary said yesterday, the goal is to help the opposition communicate with itself, communicate with the outside world, to help it to organize better and to help it to have better situational awareness so it can evade a regime attack. So you can imagine that getting into precise specifics about exactly what we’re providing to whom and how we get it in there would defeat the purpose of helping them evade regime efforts to disrupt their communications, which have – which is precisely the goal here. So I’m not – we’re not going to talk publicly about exactly what this means, neither the kinds of equipment nor where it goes. What I will say is that we had a pretty modest program through MEPI, as we do in many countries. We will now be expanding this in scope.
QUESTION: Has that actually happened, or is it still in the process of happening?
MS. NULAND: It is beginning to happen.
QUESTION: Victoria.
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Can you tell us why the term “clearing house”? Has this been used in this context before? I’m talking about the language, the term --
MS. NULAND: The accountability. Yeah.
QUESTION: Accountability clearing house.
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: What is -- because I think the Arabic language, we don’t have a similar term, “clearing house.”
MS. NULAND: Well, I think what we were trying to convey here is that while our expectation is that there will be a small bricks-and-mortar center for this, probably in Turkey, it’s bigger than that, because there is a huge virtual web-based component where our goal is to build networks among organizations that have – keep accountability records, whether they are human rights NGOs or whether they are the UN agencies that do this, and to provide a way, web-based, for Syrians who are bearing witness to get their information in.
So when we say “clearing house,” that’s designed to convey this kind of hub-and-spoke relationship, but also to train Syrians outside and inside in how you store these kinds of things securely, because you can’t just throw stuff up on the internet and hope that it won’t be compromised. These kinds of records, particularly if you want people to come forward with very sensitive material, they have to be assured that it’ll be protected and that they won’t make their own personal situation worse by bearing witness.
QUESTION: So this will be a physical structure somewhere?
MS. NULAND: The hope is that there will be a small bricks-and-mortar structure for training, for coordination, but it’ll be a much larger effort in a virtual sense.
QUESTION: Okay. And a quick follow-up on topic of aid. When you say communication and when you say we welcome aiding by others, perhaps, the Free Syrian Army or the Syrian Free Army, are you advocating a militant aspect to this revolt now?
MS. NULAND: What I said was --
QUESTION: Has there been a marked change in your position?
MS. NULAND: What I said, and what the Secretary said yesterday, was that the Syrian National Council very much welcomed these initiatives. From a U.S. perspective, one of the things that was important on this trip was we had a chance to coordinate with a number of the countries that are providing different kinds of assistance than we are so that we can ensure that this is mutually supportive.
QUESTION: As I understand you correctly, you still officially oppose any kind of increase in violence or the committing of violence by different opposition groups, be it by the opposition groups or the regime, because you want the violence to end rather than increase; correct?
MS. NULAND: Of course we want the violence to end. We want an immediate ceasefire.
Please.
QUESTION: These communication materials you mentioned, who are you going to deliver exactly? It’s going to be civilians or it’s going to be FSA elements within Syria?
MS. NULAND: Our support will be for the civilian opposition. Again, I’m not going to talk about the details for obvious reasons because we don’t want to – we want this to be effective; let’s put it that way.
QUESTION: You stated before that you are not exactly happy with the coordination between SNC and the FSA after this latest Istanbul conference. How do you assess this?
MS. NULAND: I don’t think I’ve ever spoken, or we’ve ever spoken, to coordination between the groups. We are – what we have seen – and the Secretary spoke to this yesterday – is that the SNC, which began as a group primarily made up of longtime exiles from Syria, is now becoming more of an umbrella organization. And there are – both in terms of its membership – that you see folks who are – have recently fled Syria, joining – there were people at this conference under the SNC umbrella yesterday who we all had a chance to speak to who had been out for a week, for a month, for six weeks, and are able to provide a real perspective on what is needed and what will help. They also have very close contacts, more effective contacts, back into Syria, which is helping the SNC.
But the SNC is also adopting an approach where there’s the organization itself, but it’s also providing an umbrella for those who are not ready to necessarily sign up with the SNC, but want to be affiliated. So what this covenant does is it allows groups who don’t necessarily want to call themselves SNC to nonetheless say we support these goals and principles as outlined in the covenant.
QUESTION: One more question relates to Istanbul conference. Were you able to meet with the Kurdish part, Kurdish National Council, or – it appeared that their delegation walk out last week.
MS. NULAND: We – there were some – as you know, the Secretary’s senior advisor on this issue, Fred Hof, was at the conference the week before. He’s had a number of contacts all through the week with the Kurdish group. They continue to talk to the SNC about some of their issues. And again, when we talk about the SNC becoming more of an affiliated structure, this is part of what we’re talking about, that they are – even if some of these Kurdish groups haven’t signed up to the SNC, they’re nonetheless in dialogue and trying to work through principles.
QUESTION: I just have a couple quick questions.
MS. NULAND: Yeah, Andy.
QUESTION: First, on the accountability clearinghouse --
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: -- is it possible or likely that the Syrian Government could avail itself of these services to put forward its own arguments about atrocities that armed opposition may have undertaken?
MS. NULAND: Well, it would strike me as unlikely that the Assad regime would want to avail itself of the structure that grows out of the Friends of the Syrian People. But it is – the accountability clearinghouse is designed to receive information about atrocities of any kind committed by any group, so it’s --
QUESTION: So there isn’t any sort of barrier to them?
MS. NULAND: It’s – correct.
QUESTION: Okay.
MS. NULAND: It’s an equal-opportunity clearinghouse.
QUESTION: Okay. And the second one is on the proposal, or fact of various other members of the Friends of the Syrian People bankrolling some of the salary costs for the FSA. Was this an option that was presented to the United States and rejected, that you guys decided no, we don’t want to do that? And if so, why, if you think, broadly, as a member of this broader group, it’s a good idea?
MS. NULAND: It didn’t go that way. This was an initiative of some specific countries on which we were briefed.
QUESTION: And does the United – I mean, you presumably do back this as a good idea in that it’s a Friends of the Syrian People sort of – part of this broader initiative. Why is it a good idea?
MS. NULAND: Again, this was something that was put forward at the meeting to the SNC. As we’ve made clear, as the Secretary’s made clear, we are going to contribute in the ways that we’ve talked about. Other countries are going to contribute in the ways that they deem most appropriate. What’s most important is that the Syrian opposition get the help that it needs.
QUESTION: But isn’t there – is there any concern that by – in having this happen through a sort of Friends of the Syrian People process, that you are leaving yourselves open to the Assad regime accusations that you’re essentially funding an uprising against his regime, that you’re funding --
MS. NULAND: Again, this is not an initiative of the Friends. It doesn’t appear in the communique. It’s something that was made known in the context of the conference, but it’s a bilateral initiative, or an initiative of a few countries to the SNC.
QUESTION: But the point – I mean, is the Administration comfortable with the idea that some of its friends and allies are going to be paying – essentially paying mercenaries that fight the Assad regime?
MS. NULAND: Again, we’ve – the SNC made clear that this is very welcome. We are coordinating closely with these countries to make sure --
QUESTION: Well, I understand, but --
MS. NULAND: -- that our efforts are mutually reinforcing. I’m not going to give it a grade one way or the other.
QUESTION: Well, no, no, no, but – we’re not asking for --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: We’re not asking for a grade. We’re asking whether you think it’s – whether the Administration thinks it’s a good idea for these countries to do that.
MS. NULAND: Again, they are making their own sovereign decisions about what they think is important. We have not discouraged this initiative, and we are coordinating closely with them.
Please.
QUESTION: Okay. You haven’t – you have not discouraged the initiative?
MS. NULAND: Correct, correct.
QUESTION: Could I ask a quick follow-up --
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: -- on that? On the clearinghouse itself, on the secretariat, let’s say, if it has a secretariat, will we have organizations like the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, sent out there to vet whatever data and information that would come in?
MS. NULAND: If you look at the factsheet that we put out --
QUESTION: I did, yeah.
MS. NULAND: -- it talks about a steering group, right, which includes association with these other international organizations. Again, this is not designed to be the only place where accountability can be kept. It’s designed to be an enhancement to current, ongoing UN-NGO efforts at accountability. It’s designed to be a resource for Syrians and to be affiliated with all the other efforts.
QUESTION: I understand, but it will have an international dimension or a component where you have these organized --
MS. NULAND: No, of course, yes, and it’ll have links to all those organizations, yes.
QUESTION: On the clearinghouse --
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: -- is it at all a response to the recent criticism that there’s been human rights abuses committed by the opposition?
MS. NULAND: Primarily, this is an initiative to ensure that regime elements, who are continuing not only to obey the Assad orders to fire on their own people, but are also committing gross abuses themselves – some of this horrible reporting we’ve seen about the killing of children, about the impressing of young people, about the travel bans on men, about the mining – all of that stuff can be documented. But as I said in response to Andy’s question, obviously, it’s an opportunity to, if there are abuses that can be documented on the other side, there’s a place to catalogue them. But most importantly, we’re trying to send a political message here that those who are still carrying out his bloody orders, there are people bearing witness to that and they will be held to account. And folks anywhere who are committing atrocities need to know that justice will find them.
QUESTION: Do you hope that it will be a deterrent in the opposition?
MS. NULAND: That’s exactly the hope and the hope that it will --
QUESTION: But a deterrent for the opposition. For example, on Libya --
MS. NULAND: A deterrent for anyone who would commit atrocities in Syria.
QUESTION: Last week --
MS. NULAND: Are we still on Syria?
QUESTION: Yeah.
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Please.
QUESTION: Last week, you said the world is more united against Syria regime. What is your understanding of China’s absence to the Friends of Syria meeting again?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, China was invited to attend this time and declined not to attend. I’ll refer you to the Chinese with regard to their decision there.
QUESTION: So – do you think the world is more united against – to the regime?
MS. NULAND: There’s no question. I mean, starting with the Security Council presidency statement, which China joined. Yeah.
QUESTION: So are you disappointed that China is not – didn’t --
MS. NULAND: It’s China’s choice whether it wants to attend the Friends group. We’ve made clear that the door is open.
QUESTION: Speaking about the UN Security Council --
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Kofi Annan’s told them a couple – a little while ago that the regime is ready to withdraw from civilian – withdraw troops from civilian areas by April 10th or on April 10th. Is that at all okay with you?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, after the Security Council meeting, Ambassador Rice, in her capacity both as presidency of the council this month and speaking in her U.S. hat, had a comment on --
QUESTION: I missed that.
MS. NULAND: Yeah. So --
QUESTION: What did she say?
MS. NULAND: I actually didn’t see the precise words. I spoke to her people, because we were coming out concurrently. But my understanding is that – and if I’m not right, then whatever she said is binding in terms of our response, but – that as you know, the Secretary and the Friends had called for a real timeline, that Kofi Annan has set a timeline now. Obviously, we all hope that the implementation will be as rapid as possible – will be more rapid than April 10th and that we will judge him by his actions, not by his words.
QUESTION: Right. But I mean this gives him another eight days – I mean, more than a week.
MS. NULAND: Again, we all want to see this happen immediately, and we will judge him by his actions.
QUESTION: Do you expect that – a week ago, you and the Russians were coming closer and closer. But today, Lavrov, the foreign minister, said that we don’t accept the idea of a timeline or a shelf life for this initiative by Kofi Annan. Do you expect that there will be some sort of animosity between you two?
MS. NULAND: Well again, I didn’t see what Lavrov had to say. It probably was just in the --
QUESTION: Well, in a press conference today, he was very clear on the issue of a timetable.
MS. NULAND: Well, we feel very strongly, as did all 80 of those countries that were represented yesterday, that we can’t allow Annan – we can’t allow Assad to do what he’s done time and time again, make promises and break them, that the time – as the Secretary said yesterday, that the time for excuses is over. So we were very firm, and the Secretary made absolutely clear again and again that a timeline is necessary.
QUESTION: Do you believe that the Russians are giving Assad a cover -- that they’re
stalling?
MS. NULAND: Again, we are determined that there not be cover created by the situation.
QUESTION: So (inaudible) one week if this deadline is correct and it’s going to be implemented. What is the plan B? Surely should be some plan for a short time. What kind of steps are you willing to take if Assad, again, doesn’t do what he promised to?
MS. NULAND: Well, I’m obviously not going to prejudge where we’re going to be on April 10th, but I think if you look at the outcomes of the Friends of the Syrian People meeting, it’s very clear that our intention is to maintain as much pressure – build the pressure through all of these lines that we talked about on the regime. So --
QUESTION: On Egypt.
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Please – still on Syria? In the back. Yeah.
QUESTION: Yeah. All I want to say is just to follow on something Matt, I think, was getting at.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Setting aside what you think about the (inaudible) plan, in particular, it seems pretty clear that the Saudis are stepping up their role in Syria and some of the Gulf countries too. Does the Administration worry at all that the conflict might start to be seen, even if it isn’t in fact, start to be perceived as a conflict between the Saudis, the Gulf countries, and the regime rather than between the people of Syria and the regime? Is that a concern at all?
MS. NULAND: Well, we had a chance to have broad consultations, as you know. The Secretary saw – we were in Riyadh on Saturday. The Secretary had a chance to talk to all of the GCC members about this. There is no daylight between us, that the number one goal here is to increase the pressure on Assad until he stops, and that we’ve got to do all that we can here. Countries are making their own decisions how to do that. What’s important is the coordination among us.
The additional thing I would say here is that there is no doubt that all of the countries, all 82 countries, join the SNC in our commitment that this new Syria that we seek, this democratic Syria we seek, has to be a Syria for all Syrians, not to replace one ruling clique with another ruling clique, that what we are seeking is a democratic Syria where all ethnic groups are welcome, are part of the political process, have their rights and their freedoms protected. And the Gulf countries made statements to that effect that was – those principles were in the statement that the GCC plus U.S. issued on Saturday.
Please.
QUESTION: New subject?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: A couple of questions. Victoria, have you been in touch with your allies in Azerbaijan and Israel over the reports of Israeli access to airbases in Azerbaijan on the Iranian border?
MS. NULAND: I think Mark spoke to this on Friday. We don’t have any information to indicate anything new on this front.
QUESTION: So since --
MS. NULAND: Yeah, please. Please.
QUESTION: What is going on with this P-5+1 meeting? Is it happening on the 13th in Istanbul, as someone who you know, we all know very well, said? Or is it not happening? Because she seems to be the only one who’s saying it’s going to happen on that time – at that time and that place.
MS. NULAND: We have made, as a P-5+1, a proposal to have this meeting on April 13th, 14th in Istanbul. There seems to be some issue as to whether the Iranians have accepted that, but we will be there if they are ready to accept those terms.
QUESTION: Okay. So you’re going to – so someone’s going to show up. Wendy Sherman or Bill Burns or whoever is going to be there on the 13th and 14th with a sign that says, “Welcome Iran.”
MS. NULAND: Well, obviously --
QUESTION: And if they don’t show up it’s their fault? Is that the idea? (Laughter.)
MS. NULAND: I mean, it’s simply been interesting to us that we are getting different signals out of Iran as to whether all of this is locked down. But we are – and we’ve been waiting for some time for the Iranians to – in all of their components – to confirm that they’re ready. But we are ready if they are ready at that date and venue.
QUESTION: Okay.
MS. NULAND: Okay?
QUESTION: On Egypt?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: There’s been a lot of talk in the Egyptian media recently that one of the presidential candidates, Abu Ismail -- Hazem Abu Ismail’s mother has American citizenship and that under Egyptian electoral law this would disqualify him, because both of your parents are supposed to be only Egyptian nationals and nothing else. Recently, this presidential candidate himself has talked to the election commission in Egypt, which says that it’s investigating the matter.
So my question is: Has the U.S. Embassy in Cairo received any questions on this matter from the Egyptian election commission to verify this and if there’s – if this is something that you could verify or not?
MS. NULAND: Wow. That sounds like one I’m really not going to wade into. I’m going to send you to our Embassy in Cairo as to whether they’ve had any inquiries from the election commission. Frankly, we try very hard to stay out of these kinds of issues.
QUESTION: But this specifically has to do with somebody’s citizenship. Is this something that you could confirm or deny?
MS. NULAND: Can we verify citizenship?
QUESTION: Yes.
MS. NULAND: Again, I will refer you to our Embassy in Cairo as to whether we’ve had any inquires of that – in that regard.
Please.
QUESTION: On Afghanistan --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Al Jazeera has had a series of --
QUESTION: Can we stay on Egypt?
MS. NULAND: You want to stay on Egypt? Yeah, I’m sorry. Let’s do Egypt, and then --
QUESTION: Do you have any comment on the new Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Al-Shater? He claims that he has the support of the United States of America.
MS. NULAND: Well, the Secretary spoke to – she was asked this question yesterday --
QUESTION: Oh, I’m sorry. I missed it.
MS. NULAND: -- and she spoke to the principles that we expect to govern these elections, which are the same principles that the Egyptians themselves went to Tahrir Square to have.
QUESTION: Okay. But let me tell you what he said today. He said he does enjoy support of the international community, implicitly saying the United States of America. Do you support --
MS. NULAND: We’re certainly not going to be – as we don’t anywhere in the world – endorsing any individual candidate. We want the Egyptian people to make their decision.
QUESTION: But do you look at the Brotherhood as a buffer against the Salafists, for instance?
MS. NULAND: Again, I’m going to refer you to what the Secretary had to say about the principles that we espouse for this election.
Please.
QUESTION: (Off mike.)
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: So Al Jazeera found in a series of reports from Kunar province in Afghanistan that the Taliban has instituted a policy of persuading Afghans who have joined the security forces or the police to switch sides and join them. They’ve also have – are now playing the role of vice and virtue police, scrutinizing what people wear, their appearance, making women stay at home, et cetera. In lights of these revelations, is it the right strategy to continue negotiating with the Taliban, even indirectly, and to hand over control to the Afghan security forces?
MS. NULAND: Well, all of the things that you cite are not new in terms of what those Taliban who insist on fighting the Afghan constitution, fighting Afghan security forces, terrorizing the Afghan people have been up to. So our policy remains that those Taliban who want to continue to have their way by force, to try to overthrow the Afghan constitution, to fight the people of Afghanistan, fight the freedoms and human rights that they have attained, we are going to support the Afghans in meeting them on the battlefield.
However, we are also, as we’ve made clear, willing to support a process of reconciliation with those Taliban who are willing to renounce violence and get into talks. But we have to, as a next step, as we’ve made clear for a couple of weeks – given the multiple signals that we’ve had out of the Taliban and the multiple voices, the next step will be for those Taliban who want to sit down to issue a statement that renounces violence and makes clear that they are committed to a real peace process.
And then as we’ve said, at the end of the day, this process will only succeed if it results in a conversation with people who are ready to completely renounce violence, break ties with al-Qaida, support the constitution of Afghanistan in all of its manifestations, including the rights for women, minorities, and all Afghans.
QUESTION: Are you saying that talks are not ongoing?
MS. NULAND: As – you know what we’ve been saying forever, that we are at a preliminary stage of trying to support an Afghan-Afghan process. It’s been hard to get that going, but the door is open, but only if the Taliban are prepared to renounce violence.
Scott.
QUESTION: Colombia?
MS. NULAND: Colombia.
QUESTION: Move today to take possession of the last of the FARC hostages by the Colombian Government so reaction to that and any hope for what would happen next?
MS. NULAND: Yeah. I saw some reporting that this last sort of move was happening today. I think if you don’t mind, Scott, we will respond to that one tomorrow when this operation is completed.
Okay. Please.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) back to my subject, so if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that this building does not possess enough valid information that backs these claims of Israeli access in Azerbaijan airfield and that is why you’re not going to follow up on this report, you’re not calling your allies --
MS. NULAND: I’m going to send you to the Azerbaijanis for whatever they may be talking to the Israelis about. I don't have any information to indicate that the reports that are out there have any basis in fact.
QUESTION: Are you aware of more --
MS. NULAND: What?
QUESTION: Are you aware of more than one report?
MS. NULAND: That one reporting is --
QUESTION: So it’s not plural? I mean, as far as you know?
MS. NULAND: I mean, I’ve only – I’ve seen the one. I don’t know if there are more out there.
Please.
QUESTION: Thank you, Victoria. Do you have anything on the result of U.S. and the North Korea delegation meeting in German -- Aspen meeting?
MS. NULAND: I think this was a track-two meeting. There was no government meeting, if that’s what you’re asking. There may have been some Track II encounter between North Koreans and Americans, but there was no government meeting.
I’m getting the high sign from Jonathan. As you know, the President’s going to go out with the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico shortly, so we want to get off the air before that. Let’s take two more.
QUESTION: On Russia, last week, this whole thing with Ambassador McFaul kind of rose up. Mark said on Friday that you guys were going to go in to the Russians and express concerns about his safety or at least raise the situation with them. I’m wondering if you did, if you – if that has happened, and if it has, what their response was.
MS. NULAND: Well, just to be a little bit clearer, we have for some time now been raising concerns about harassment, not only of Ambassador McFaul, but of Embassy personnel. We have been making clear at all levels, frankly, that we expect our Ambassador, we expect our Embassy to be able to conduct their work free from harassment, free from intimidation. The Russians have consistently, on the government side, pledged to investigate individual incidents. And we are working with them on those issues.
QUESTION: Right, but there was – after he – what was said last week was that – or on Friday was that the specific problem of his schedule becoming public had raised new concerns, and I’m wondering if those – if you’re aware if those have been – if those were raised.
MS. NULAND: Those have been raised.
QUESTION: They have.
QUESTION: Turkey, Iran?
MS. NULAND: Let’s just do – can I just take Andy and just --
QUESTION: Just a quick one on Myanmar. We’ve seen the – we saw the White House statement on --
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: I’m wondering if you have anything further on the elections, and specifically, do you feel that the results of these elections – how will the conduct and result of these elections play into the U.S. consideration of sanctions?
MS. NULAND: Well, as we have said from the beginning, we are going to match action with action, so we are in the process of completely evaluating the results of the elections. I think that you saw the Secretary make clear, as we were congratulating the Burmese people and as we were congratulating the winners, that nonetheless we need to continue to make progress in the electoral systems and make sure that any irregularities here are investigated. But I don’t have anything to announce here in terms of our next steps, in terms of action for action, but we’ll be looking at that.
And the last one here, and then we got to go.
QUESTION: Are you hoping – Secretary spoke to this – the Turkish decision to cut exporting – imports on oil from Iran by a fifth. My question is: Is this enough for Turkey to get away from – escape from U.S. sanctions? Are you expecting any more from Turkey?
MS. NULAND: Well, the Secretary did say how encouraged we are. We had a chance to talk to the Turkish Government about this. We now need to continue the discussions bilaterally, and we will be doing that in terms of what impact this might have, so we have to have some further conversations at the technical level.
Okay? Thank you all very much.
(The briefing was concluded at 1:23 p.m.)

WISCONSIN ELECTION WILL BE MONITORED BY THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Monday, April 2, 2012
Justice Department to Monitor Election in Wisconsin
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced today that the Civil Rights Division will monitor the election on April 3, 2012, in Milwaukee.  The monitoring will ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other federal voting rights statutes.  The Voting Rights Act prohibits discrimination in the election process on the basis of race, color or membership in a minority language group.  In addition, the act requires certain covered jurisdictions to provide language assistance during the election process.  The city of Milwaukee is required to provide assistance in Spanish.

Justice Department personnel will monitor polling place activities in Milwaukee.  Civil Rights Division attorneys will coordinate federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials.

Each year, the Justice Department deploys hundreds of federal observers from the Office of Personnel Management, as well as departmental staff, to monitor elections across the country.  To file complaints about discriminatory voting practices, including acts of harassment or intimidation, voters may call the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division at 1-800-253-3931.