While Hollywood was busy congratulating its own at the Oscars on Sunday, one of the town’s biggest stars was heading to the White House armed with fresh information about the humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Actor George Clooney, who spoke to CNN’s “Larry King Live” after Monday’s meeting with President Obama, said of the Darfur victims “we should all know that these people are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.”
Clooney, a U.N. Messenger of Peace, said he told the president of his visit to camps in Chad where 250,000 refugees live, but he downplayed the risks he took to witness the suffering first-hand.
Fighting erupted in 2003 as Darfur’s ethnic African rebels took up arms against Sudan’s government complaining of discrimination and neglect. Nearly 2.5 million people have been displaced by a conflict that has killed about 300,000 people.
The film star said he asked the president to appoint a full-time regional envoy who reports directly to the White House, and to ask China to set aside its business interests in the region and pressure Sudan to prevent atrocities.
The refugees need “what we do best, what we have done best since the start of this country – which is good, robust diplomacy all across the world,” he told Larry King.
Clooney said he delivered 250,000 postcards gathered by the Save Darfur organization to the president and Vice President Joe Biden. The actor said both were receptive.
Next week, the International Criminal Court is scheduled to rule on whether to proceed with an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for crimes in Darfur.
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