Hollywood star George Clooney pleaded on Thursday for a more vigorous United States effort to end what he called ”the first genocide of the 21st century” in Sudan’s war-devastated Darfur region.
The Oscar-winning actor and director urged broad participation at demonstrations to be held on Sunday in Washington, San Francisco and several other US cities, saying that a louder public outcry would encourage the United States and other governments to do more in the western Sudan region, where about 300 000 people have died in an ongoing civil war.
”The president wants to put a stop to it, the Congress want to put a stop to it. What they need now is the American people and the world’s populations to help them, to tell them that it matters that much to them,” said the actor, who returned earlier this week from a tour of Darfur.
”It is the first genocide of the 21st century,” Clooney said at a press conference in Washington.
The administration of President George Bush has taken a tough line on the Darfur crisis, also branding the violence there ”genocide,” while the US Senate and House have both passed legislation that would slap sanctions on Sudanese officials deemed responsible.
Bush on Thursday ordered sanctions against four individuals linked to the Darfur strife after they were placed on a UN Security Council sanctions blacklist two days earlier.
Still, Clooney said, and some US officials agreed, that much more can be done by Washington. Joining Clooney at the press conference, Senator Barack Obama said US officials ”have not made it a high enough priority to actually deal with the problem”.
Obama predicted Sunday’s rally in Washington, which is expected to draw tens of thousands participants, would be attended by ”an assortment of people — young people from colleges, senior citizens who have taken this up as an issue.
”You will see evangelical Christian communities who are focused on this exclusively … as well as secular humanists who believe in doing the right thing,” he said.
That broad-based interest in the unfolding tragedy, he said, ”gives me hope, but we’ve got a lot of work to do”.
Organisers said the goal of the protests is to push the Bush administration to support a multinational peacekeeping force for Darfur, where militias backed by Sudan’s government have driven 2,5-million from their homes since 2003.
Bush’s sanctions order highlighted the persistence of violence ”particularly against civilians and including sexual violence against women and girls”.
The sanctions target a Sudanese government military general, an allied commander of the Janjaweed militia who are behind much of the violence, and two rebel leaders.
The US actions came amid mounting pressure on Khartoum to allow a UN assessment team into the Darfur area, as the United Nations mulls dispatching a peacekeeping force to replace the 7 000 poorly equipped African Union forces who have failed to restore order there.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Sofia, Bulgaria on Thursday, criticised the African Union peacekeeping mission as ”not robust enough” to staunch the continuing bloodshed.
Speaking on the sidelines of a Nato foreign ministers’ meeting, Rice said the alliance stands ready to boost aid to the AU mission if requested. – Sapa-AFP