In an Washington Post editorial, Clooney and The Sentry co-founder John Prendergast suggest a new approach to “counter mass atrocities” in the world’s youngest country: “The essence of a new strategy would combine readily available anti-money-laundering measures with targeted sanctions focused on top regime officials and their worldwide facilitators, while encouraging banks to help provide essential services to innocent South Sudanese”.
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The Sentry is a partnership between Clooney’s Not On Our Watch foundation, the Enough Project, which seeks justice against those who commit genocides, and non-profit organization C4ADS, which focuses on data-driven analysis of global conflict. Officials in South Sudan who earn modest salaries have been able to amass fortunes with help from arms dealers, bankers, lawyers and others overseas, it said.
South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, plunged into conflict soon after Kiir fired Machar from his post as vice president in 2013. Fresh fighting broke out in Juba in July, however, prompting Machar to flee the capital.
In August, the UN Security Council approved an additional regional protection force to enter South Sudan, but decided against an arms embargo on the country.
The report says the country’s leaders, including some military generals, have much of their wealth in the form of high-end properties in neighboring countries such as Uganda and Kenya.
It follows the trail of money with links to the families of both Mr Kiir and Mr Machar.
Documents show that several children of the president, including his 12-year-old son, have held stakes in a number of business ventures, the new report says.
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Congo’s government said it was in talks with South Sudanese authorities over what would happen to the fighters. Inflation has reached 660 percent and a recent confidential report by the United Nations claimed that the government was spending money on arms rather than funding social services in the country. The International Monetary Fund predicted in June that the country’s budget deficit for 2016-17 could constitute .1 billion, or 25 percent of national GDP.
