Yahoo Lifestyle George Clooney's Powerful Op-Ed On Torment In Darfur
George Clooney.
While some may say Amal Clooney was lucky to snap up Hollywood actor George Clooney, we actually think the opposite is true.
The human rights lawyer has clearly been having an affect on George, because he's just penned a powerful op-ed on the torture happening in Darfur.
Along with co-authors John Prendergast and Akshaya Kumar, Clooney details the horrific mass rapes and murders that are happening in the South African nation, condemning the world for turning its back on the brutality.
"The world has largely forgotten about Darfur," they write. "Unfortunately, the government of Sudan has not. Because Sudan's government routinely blocks journalists from going into the Darfur region and severely restricts access for humanitarian workers, any window into life there is limited. The government has hammered the joint peacekeeping mission of the United Nations and African Union into silence about human rights concerns by shutting down the United Nations human rights office in the capital, Khartoum hampering investigators of alleged human rights abuses and pressuring the peacekeeping force to withdraw.
"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. As a result, mass atrocities continue to occur in Darfur with no external witness."
Clooney and his co-authors write that 221 women were raped by the Sudanese army over a 36-hour period last October, but nothing has been done about it, because the army is in control in the region.
"The sexual violence has no military objective; rather, it is a tactic of social control, ethnic domination and demographic change," says the op-ed.
Unfortunately due to a lack of change in the country, Clooney and his co-authors warn that internatonal outrage has shifted away from Darfur.
"We must not forget the survivors, and we must impose deterrent costs on the orchestrators and their enablers."
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