Video Stars Clooney In Sudan
March 17, 2012, 12:46am
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – In the second
YouTube video in a week to highlight an African conflict, George
Clooney makes an illegal and dangerous trip to the southern reaches of
Sudan, where the actor witnesses what an American activist said was
likely a Chinese-made missile sail overhead.
Clooney's four-minute video highlights attacks on civilians in
Sudan's Nuba Mountains, a region that U.S. officials say could soon suffer
a severe hunger crisis. The video, available Thursday, comes about a
week after a YouTube sensation about Joseph Kony, the leader of the
brutal Central Africa militia the Lord's Resistance Army
.
In the Clooney video, which he wrote and directed, a man from the
Nuba community is seen pushing Clooney to take cover after a rocket
sails overhead. Mothers carrying children and young children lugging
water jugs can be seen moving toward the rock caves.
Ryan Boyette, an American who lives in the Nuba Mountains, said
Sudan's military has been launching large, Chinese-made rockets against
civilian; not military forces with the rebel group known as the SPLM-N.
Boyette said most of the rocket victims are caught off guard because
they don't know the rocket is approaching.
Helen Hughes, an arms expert at Amnesty International, said the
rockets can travel about 40 miles (60 kilometers) and deliver a ``quite
large'' blast radius. The rockets are supplied by China. Hughes said the
country can't close its eyes to the evidence that its weapons are being
used against civilians.
``These rockets are long-range, ground-launched unguided rockets, and
they're being used in Kauda, which is a civilian area,'' said Hughes.
``There are no military there. They're being used indiscriminately and
that's a violation of international humanitarian law.''
Clooney met with President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, saying he came away from the talks encouraged.
``The good news for us is we feel like there's a commitment at a high
level'' to address the Sudanese situation, Clooney told reporters after
his meeting with the president. He added that he sensed ``great
interest in working with China.''
The actor was questioned about why he would hold out hope for
cooperation from China on Sudan. Clooney said energy-hungry China, which
receives about 6 percent of its oil from Sudan, has an economic
incentive to work to bring peace to the region.
Oil-rich South Sudan and Sudan, the keeper of the pipelines, have
been at odds over oil and profits. Exports have stopped, putting
pressure on oil prices worldwide.
``Suddenly, this affects their economy,'' Clooney said of China. ``This is a moment we can appeal to China.''
During his advocacy work in Sudan, Clooney helped found the Satellite
Sentinel Project, which uses satellite imagery to monitor activities of
war. The project on Thursday released a March 8 satellite image the
group said showed an Antonov bomber flying away from two sites where
plumes of smoke are rising. The group said no military infrastructure or
personnel can be seen near the plumes.
The SPLM-N was or is aligned with the military in South Sudan, a new
country that broke away from Sudan last year after decades of civil war.
The Nuba Mountains were partitioned with the north although the black
population there is ethnically and in some cases religiously different
than the mostly Arab north.
South Sudan says it has severed ties with the SPLM-N. Sudan accuses it of continuing to aid SPLM-N fighters.
The Clooney video, produced with the advocacy group Enough Project,
shows graphic footage of a boy who lost both hands in an attack. It also
shows Clooney speaking to a child who recently had a bullet removed
from his body.
Clooney asks one man during a conversation: ``This is simply trying
to clear people out ethnically because of the color of their skin?'' The
Nuba man responds that Sudan wants to move black Nubans out and put
Arabs in.
Boyette said that he has been frequently told by Nubans that they are
scared of the Antonov airplane bombings so haven't been in the fields
to plant.
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