Clooney speaks out on Darfur at U.N.
The new messenger of peace, whose scheduled speech was canceled amid objections, conducts his own meeting to give firsthand accounts of the troubled region.
UNITED NATIONS -- George Clooney said today that his new role as a U.N. messenger of peace is one of his most difficult yet -- especially because he wasn't allowed to deliver his message.
Clooney, whose high-profile campaign to focus attention on the crisis in Darfur led to his being the ninth luminary in history to be designated a U.N. messenger of peace, was scheduled to address a meeting of nations that have agreed to help equip the peacekeeping force for Sudan's troubled western region. The actor had just returned from a visit last week to Darfur with U.N. peacekeeping officials and said that he saw firsthand that a lack of helicopters and other equipment was hindering the force from protecting civilians or even themselves.
But some countries at the meeting, including Russia, objected to an actor telling them how to handle the crisis -- and he was asked not to speak after all.
So instead, he told reporters what he would have said to the diplomats.
"There are some groups protecting 250-square kilometers of desert with no helicopters and no radios that work," he told a press conference. "So either give them the basic tools for protecting the population (and themselves) or have the decency to just bring them all home. ... And go back into your offices and wait until it's all over. It shouldn't take too long before they'll stop hoping for the U.N. to come," he said.
Clooney took a tour of U.N. headquarters today with his journalist father, Nick, and mother, Nina, and waved to star-struck staffers who gathered near the entrance to take pictures of him with cellphone cameras.
The actor traveled last year to China and Egypt seeking to persuade Sudan's allies to use their leverage with Khartoum to solve the 4 1/2 -year-long crisis. He said he had learned that "there are two ways of getting things done," and with his new U.N. role, he would try "being a little more diplomatic."
Violence in Darfur, now in its fifth year, has taken an estimated 200,000 lives and forced at least 2 million people from their homes.
maggie.farley@latimes.com
