Clooney and Wiesel tell UN time running out in Darfur

UNITED NATIONS - US actor George Clooney and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel told the UN Security Council today the world would be blamed for another Rwanda if atrocities were not halted in Sudan's Darfur region.

"In many ways it is unfair but it is nevertheless true that this genocide will be on your watch. How you deal with it will be your legacy," Clooney said. "Your Rwanda, Your Cambodia, your Auschwitz."

To a crush of cameras, US Ambassador John Bolton invited the celebrities to an unusual session of the 15-member council to highlight the catastrophe amid continuing UN frustration about Sudan's refusal to allow UN troops to provide safe havens for civilians in Darfur.

The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003 when non-Arab villagers took up arms because of lack of resources. The government then mobilised Arab militias, which have conducted a campaign of murder, rape and looting.

Fighting, disease and hunger have killed some 200,000 people and driven some 2.5 million into squalid camps. Sudan is now sending troops to the region to fight rebels who did not sign a faltering May peace agreement.

The African Union has some 7,000 troops in Darfur but is running out of manpower, finances and equipment. Its mandate expires on September 30.

"After September 30 you won't need the UN You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones," said Clooney, an Oscar winner.

Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, writer and the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, warned that "passivity helps the oppressor and not the oppressed" and urged the council to remember the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

"I do," Wiesel said. "Six hundred thousand to 800,000 human beings were murdered. We know then as we know now they could have been saved, and they were not."

Wiesel, in the council session and in an earlier interview with Reuters, called for intervention to provide a safe haven for refugees whether or not Sudan agrees.

While Wiesel was cautious about using the word genocide, Clooney, who visited Darfur in April, was not.

"The United States has called it genocide," Clooney said. "For you it's called ethnic cleansing. But make no mistake: it is the first genocide of the 21st century. And if it continues unchecked it will not be the last."

Qatar, the only Arab member of the council, chastised Clooney as well as his colleagues for misdiagnosing the Sudan conflict and blaming the government instead of rebels, who initiated the conflict in February 1993 accusing the government of neglect.

"We must go to an excellent physician and not an outstanding actor so that this physician can prescribe to us the appropriate treatment," said Qatar's ambassador, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser.

He said Clooney and Wiesel, both liberals, had bowed to the conservative Bush administration, which was exploiting Darfur politically.

Ghana's envoy Albert Francis Yankey lashed back, saying the victims deserved protection, not Khartoum, adding that he could not understand why Sudan allowed a UN peacekeeping force in southern Sudan but not in Darfur.

Yankey, like Wiesel, said the African Union had long come to the conclusion that intervention was necessary to stop abusive government actions, whether or not Khartoum consented.

Asked later about actors entering politics, Clooney said it was not unusual for Hollywood to draw attention to issues.

"We used to sell war bonds, we've been doing it a long time," Clooney said. "We're fairly good at getting cameras to show up, so you try to be informed on some of the issues that you take on."

- REUTERS