Roger Winter, an honorary adviser to the South Sudan government and one of the Council's original members, sits at his regular window side table at the Otello Restaurant in Washington, June 27, 2012. South Sudan is primarily the creation of its own people. It was southern Sudanese leaders who fought for autonomy, and more than two million southern Sudanese who paid for that freedom with their lives. U.S. President George W. Bush, who set out to end Africa's Longest-running civil war, also played a big role, as did modern-day abolitionists, religious groups, human rights organizations and members of the U.S. Congress. But the most persistent outside force in the creation of the world's newest state was the Council, a tightly knit group never numbering more than seven people, which in the era before email, began gathering regularly at Otello, a restaurant near Washington's DuPont Circle. Picture taken June 27, 2012. To match Special Report SOUTH-SUDAN/MIDWIVES REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS)