12, 2016 by a US -based watchdog group accuses South Sudan’s rival leaders of amassing wealth overseas amid a conflict in which tens of thousands have been killed. These networks were exploiting ethnic divisions to fuel a conflict that served the interests only of top leaders, according to the report.
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The Sentry, an investigative unit co-founded by the American actor, said it had obtained images of official’s relatives partying in five-star hotels as well as information about their properties overseas.
After presenting the results of a detailed two-year inquiry to the media, Hollywood stars Clooney and Don Cheadle stopped by at the White House to discuss the crisis with President Barack Obama, a United States official said.
The probe also said that Kiir’s immediate family members held stakes in a wide range of businesses involved in South Sudan’s oil, mining, and financial sectors.
Mr Clooney warned global banks that those who wished to continue doing business with South Sudan would be “named and shamed”.
Both Kiir and Machar the report says, “benefit financially from the continuing war and have effectively ensured that there is no accountability for their human rights violations and financial crimes”.
“This morning we’re prepared to give evidence of massive criminal behavior by the president of South Sudan and by his opposition, the ousted vice president of South Sudan and their generals”, Clooney told reporters in Washington, D.C., this morning.
“The Sentry’s investigation found instances of reliance on these types of institutions and actors on five different continents: Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, and Australia”, it said.
“We are looking at new tools that we could leverage to change the calculations of the politicians behind the crisis in South Sudan at the moment”.
South Sudan plunged into conflict soon after Kiir fired Machar from his post as vice president in 2013. But the president and his family are accused of spending millions of dollars on real estate outside of South Sudan, including a two-story, 460-square meter villa in the gated community of Lavington, an upscale neighborhood in Nairobi.
Despite the agreement of a peace deal past year (15), the country is still prone to outbreaks of violence as leaders have been slow to implement the measures agreed in the peace treaty.
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The findings are based on two years of work by The Sentry, an investigative venture initiative co-founded by Clooney and Prendergast.
