United States Department of State (Washington, DC)
Jim Fisher-Thompson
28 April 2006
Washington, DC — Academy Award-winning actor, director and screenwriter George Clooney brought his "star power" to bear on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur as he briefed journalists on the trip he and his father, Nick, made to the stricken region April 15-23.
Clooney, who won the "Oscar" for best actor March 5 for his role in the film Syriana, told an April 27 National Press Club audience: "Five days ago, my father and I were on the border of Chad" visiting refugee camps. "What we are witnessing is the first genocide of the 21st century."
As many as 2 million Darfurians have been displaced, many clustered in makeshift refugee camps located in both Sudan and Chad. They fled a relentless three-year campaign of murder and displacement by marauding militia bands called the Jingaweit, supported by the Sudanese government in Khartoum.
President Bush, meeting with Darfur advocates April 28 at the White House, cited rallies planned across the United States on April 30 "to send a message to the Sudanese government that the genocide must stop." (See RELATED ARTICLE)
The United Nations recently imposed sanctions against four Sudanese implicated in the crisis. (See related article.)
"There are no easy answers" to the Darfur violence, which has killed up to 200,000 people, Clooney said. "But what we cannot do is turn our heads away and hope that this will somehow disappear. Because if we do, they [the Darfurians] will [disappear] and an entire generation will be gone, and then only history will be left to judge us."
Clooney said he especially was struck by "a little tiny waif of a girl" he met in one of the refugee camps who expressed doubt that his visit would have any effect on her and others' plight.
That wrenching experience, said the actor, drove home the point that stopping the genocide in Darfur is "not a political issue. There's no right or left [on the political spectrum]. There is no conservative or liberal" approach -- only one of humanitarianism.
"If the president [Bush] wants to put a stop to it, if Congress wants to put a stop to it, if the [United Nations] wants to put a stop to it, what they need now is the American people and the world's population to help them and tell them that it matters that much -- that it's important," he said.
APRIL 30 RALLIES TO URGE INTERNATIONAL ACTION ON DARFUR
Clooney will be addressing a rally on the National Mall in Washington on April 30, where thousands are expected to demonstrate for a stop to the Darfur genocide. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer, members of the U.S. Congress, athletes and entertainers and Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel are scheduled to address that rally.
The rally will be duplicated in a number of cities nationwide, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, Clooney told journalists.
Senator Sam Brownback, a longtime advocate for African causes, thanked Clooney for making the fact-finding trip to Darfur. "He invested his star power â-oe to give people [Darfurians] a voice who don't have one. And without this, they die," the senator said.
Brownback was instrumental in obtaining Senate passage of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act in the Senate in November 2005, which, among other things, calls for the suspension of Sudan's membership in the U.N. General Assembly, "permissible under Article 5 of the U.N. Charter," if it fails to rein in the Jingaweit. The House of Representatives approved similar, but not identical, legislation on April 5. A conference committee now must reconcile differences between the two versions before further action.
In October 2005, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged both the Khartoum government and rebels fighting in Darfur to "immediately stop all violence in Darfur, abide by the cease-fire they signed in N'Djamena, Chad, and adhere to United Nations Security Council resolutions and the terms of the humanitarian and security protocols they signed in Abuja, Nigeria." (See related article.)
The United States hopes the talks between the Khartoum government and several rebel movements fighting in Darfur will be resolved soon in Abuja, making one less problem for the new Government of National Unity, which came into being when the U.S.-sponsored Comprehensive Peace Agreement, ending the decades-long war between the North and South in Sudan, went into effect in July 2005.
Since the crisis in Darfur heated up in early 2003, the U.S. government has provided $1.9 billion in overall humanitarian and development assistance to Sudan and $638 million for humanitarian assistance to Darfur. In 2005, another $150 million went to the African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is beefing up its mission in Sudan, and a new mission director, Katherine Almquist, recently was appointed to head offices in Khartoum and Juba, in the South. (See related article.)
For additional information on U.S. policies, see Darfur Humanitarian Emergency.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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