A decade ago, the crisis in Darfur was at the forefront of everyone's minds, thanks in part to celebs like Ryan Gosling and George Clooney, who took an interest in the cause and campaigned to raise awareness and money for aid. National interest has since waned, but as Clooney explained in a New York Times op-ed on Wednesday, Feb. 25, the atrocities have not.
The Monuments Men actor, who married human rights attorney Amal Alamuddin in September, teamed up with activist-author John Prendergast and Sudan policy analyst Akshaya Kumar — both from the Enough Project, which aims to end genocide and crimes against humanity — for a new editorial on "Sudan's Rape of Darfur."
In it, they detail the ongoing problems in the African region, as well as the obstacles that have thus far prevented the international community from eradicating them.
"Just last week, the regime reportedly convinced the peacekeeping mission to pull out of areas it says are stable, hoping no one takes a closer look,” Clooney, 53, and his co-authors note. "As a result, mass atrocities continue to occur in Darfur with no external witness."
That said, there's evidence of "systematic burning and barrel bombing of at least half a dozen villages in Darfur's eastern Jebel Marra area last year," as well as incidents of mass rape.
"After collecting more than 130 eyewitness and survivor testimonies over the phone, [Human Rights Watch] researchers concluded that at least 221 women had been raped by soldiers of the Sudanese Army over a 36-hour period last October," the trio write.
"Over time, international outrage has shifted away from Darfur. When change doesn't come fast enough, attention spans are short — especially for places that appear to have no strategic importance," they observe. "In the last two years, however, Darfur became important to the Sudanese government when major gold reserves were discovered in North Darfur, the region that includes Tabit."
Division within the United Nations Security Council has prevented action against those perpetrating the crimes in Darfur and its surrounding regions, but Clooney and his co-authors have other suggestions, including increased sanctions and "alerts for Sudanese gold."
"The 'torture rapes' in Tabit are a reminder to the world that the same conditions that led the United States' declaration of genocide in Darfur are still firmly in place, with devastating human consequences," they conclude. "We must not forget the survivors, and we must impose deterrent costs on the orchestrators and their enablers."
Read the full editorial on the New York Times' website.
