Darfur: Clooney Calls on Bush to Act

From the Times Online

George Clooney today embarked on his latest role as The Star who Went to Darfur by modestly saying he felt uncomfortable about giving speeches on the political stage - or telling "people what they should or should not do".

The Oscar winner then proceeded to outshine the two leading senators flanking him at a packed Washington press conference as he told the US Government, the American people and the United Nations exactly what they should do about the genocide in Sudan.

Speaking on his return from making a short documentary film in Sudan and Chad with his father, Nick, a former TV news reporter, he warned that time was running out to help some of the two million refugees displaced in the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

"Everyone has a good reason not to act," he said, "but we cannot turn away and look away and hope this will disappear, because if we do these people will do just that - disappear - and only history will be left to judge us."

He said the film was intended to keep the issue on the "front-burner" as long as possible. "It’s not easy to do...but that all I can do. I’m not a legislator or a politician, I just try to use the credit card you get from being famous in the right way."

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Mr Clooney said that if Nato or the United Nations did not act then "I’m not quite sure what they are there for."

He suggested the US was "dancing around the issue" because it did not want to commit American troops on the ground. "So we’re going to have to build our alliances and find someone who is willing to do it."

Although he has been a vocal Hollywood critic of the Bush Administration in recent years, Mr Clooney cited the support of the two senators from opposite ends of the spectrum, as he said: "It’s not a political issue, it’s not left about left and right, conservative or liberal points of view. It’s only about right or wrong."

He described how tenuous the hold on life was for some of the refugees he had just met. "If you are lucky enough - and I mean lucky enough - to survive the Janjaweed militia and the killings and walk 50 miles to a refugee camp...then circling the camps are Janjaweed.

"Women go out to get wood for cooking that night get raped. Men don’t go because they would be killed. Older women are sent because they have less chance of being raped. It’s really that crass, you don’t understand - until you are standing there - that they have nothing."

CNN has a related article

Clooney was recently in Sudan with his father and showed a brief film of their trip.

He related a story about meeting a "little elf of a young woman" who asked him in Arabic, "When will you come back," and "When will you stop this?"

He said he told the translator to tell her that "we'll be there soon."

Clooney said she laughed, held onto his finger and said, "That's what you always say."