Wiesel, Clooney urge measures to save Darfur people

Sep 14, 2006, 21:54 GMT

New York - Holocaust survivor and writer Elie Wiesel and Hollywood star George Clooney appealed Thursday for urgent action to save the population in Sudan's Darfur region from being massacred after African Union peacekeepers leave the region.

The duo appeared before the UN Security Council at the invitation of US Ambassador John Bolton, who demanded that UN peacekeepers be sent to Darfur before the African force of 7,000 troops leaves on September 30.

UN officials and some Western governments fear that the civilian population would be massacred by the parties in conflict without the protection of peacekeepers. The council has voted to send thousands of troops to replace the Africans, but Khartoum opposes the UN deployment.

'The situation cannot be dismissed as too complex,' Bolton said. 'The resolution (to deploy troops) must be implemented.'

Council members who attended the meeting offered diverse proposals. French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said the international community should pressure Khartoum to accept UN peacekeepers.

De la Sabliere said the conflict in Darfur is destabilizing the African region.

'This tragedy is getting worse,' de la Sabliere said.

Another Security Council member, Tanzanian Ambassador Augustine Mahiga, said one immediate option is to strengthen the African force so it can remain beyond September 30, until international force arrives. The African Union decided to pull out because it lacked logistical support and money to maintain the troops.

Clooney, who earlier this year visited Darfur refugees, invoked the past massacre of nearly 1 million people in Rwanda in 1994 and the killing of more than 7,000 Bosnians by Serbian forces at Srebrenica in 1995.

'The genocide in Sudan will be the first in the 21st century,' he told the Security Council. 'This genocide will be on your watch, your Rwanda, your Srebrenica.'

In the Rwanda massacre, UN troops stood by without a mandate to interfere.

Wiesel denounced the lack of action to stop the daily killings and rapes in Darfur.

The presence of Wiesel and Clooney was intended to raise awareness of the humanitarian problems in Darfur, where fighting between two African groups rages despite a ceasefire signed on May 5 in Abuja, Nigeria.

'We turned to you because you, the distinguished members of the Security Council, hold their destiny in your hands,' Wiesel said.

'You are supposed to speak on behalf of the highest ideals of mankind. You can stop it, there are so many ways, and you know them all.'

The ethnic conflict in Darfur, a vast western Sudanese region, has killed more than 300,000 people since 2003. More than 2 million people have become refugees and depend on international aid.

Wiesel, a Nobel Peace laureate and director of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, has recently set up a Darfur Commission of Nobel Laureates to examine the tragedy in Darfur.

Oscar-winning actor-director Clooney visited refugees in April in Darfur, using his celebrity clout to raise awareness about the plight of civilians caught in the ethnic conflict.