Timothy Carney served as the United States Ambassador to Sudan from 1995 through 1997. During a State Department career that spanned three decades, he also served as U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, and Director for Asian Affairs on the National Security Council Staff. He was the senior American on the UN Peace Keeping Mission to Cambodia, and worked as a Special Political Advisor to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Somalia and in South Africa. Since his retirement in 2000, Ambassador Carney has worked as a consultant in the areas of national security strategy, conflict resolution, and crisis management. He spent three months in Iraq in 2003 and has facilitated numerous seminars on National Security Planning in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and South Asia.

Victoria Butler, a freelance writer, has worked for Time Magazine, The Toronto Globe and Mail, Voice of America, NBC News, and APTV. Her stories have appeared in numerous magazines including International Wildlife, Reader’s Digest, and the Far Eastern Economic Review. She wrote the text for two illustrated books on Indonesian artists. She also served as an information officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and headed the office producing educational materials for the United Nations mission in Cambodia.