(July 11, 2012) – In the mid-1980s, a small band of policy wonks began convening for lunch in the back corner of a dimly lit Italian bistro in the U.S. capital.
After ordering beers, they would get down to business: how to win independence for southern Sudan, a war-torn place most American politicians had never heard of.
They called themselves the Council and gave each other clannish nicknames: the Emperor, the Deputy Emperor, the Spear Carrier. The unlikely fellowship included an Ethiopian refugee to America, an English-lit professor and a former Carter administration official who once sported a ponytail.
The Council is little known in Washington or in Africa itself. But its quiet cajoling over nearly three decades helped South Sudan win its independence one year ago this week.
Info-graphic on the many U.S.-based players involved in South Sudan’s birth
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