WASHINGTON—In 2005, people who for generations had been enslaved, sold, tortured, murdered, and raped won peace and the opportunity to vote for their own independence. On Jan. 9, 2011, the people of Sudan will vote for their independence, and according to actor George Clooney, “They are willing to die for it.”
Clooney made the comment during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, on Tuesday when referring to the people of Sudan who will vote on an independence referendum in January 2011.
Following meetings with government officials, including the president and members of Congress, human rights activist and author John Prendergast sat down with Clooney and Tami Hultman, cofounder and chief content officer of AllAfrica Global Media at the CFR for a discussion on the upcoming vote.
According to the U.N. Sudan Information Gateway, the January referendum is the climax of the 2005 Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the country’s 22-year war between the north and the south. An estimated 2 million people died in the conflict that was spurred partly by religion, and partly by race and natural resources. Hundreds of thousands died in Darfur.
The CPA granted southern Sudan six years of autonomy, followed by a secession referendum. If the referendum does not pass, both sides of the conflict would merge their armed forces into a 39,000-strong force after six years, according to the CPA.
However, many leaders in the international community view the secession as inevitable. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the situation as a “ticking time bomb of enormous consequence” in a talk at the CFR earlier this month.
Clooney and Prendergast have launched a campaign, Sudan Action Now, to ask people to send messages to the Obama administration to do more in peacekeeping week. They say there is a need to dispatch a senior diplomat to revitalize the Darfur peace effort, protect civilians in vulnerable border regions post-referendum, and publicize the benefits of peace to the leaders of Sudan.
“What this is going to require is diplomacy—robust, intricate, and complicated diplomacy,” said Clooney.
President Obama has expressed his commitment to maintaining peace in Sudan.
“At this moment, the fate of millions of people hangs in the balance. What happens in Sudan in the days ahead may decide whether a people who have endured too much war move forward toward peace or slip backward into bloodshed,” said President Obama at the United Nation Ministerial Meeting on Sudan on Sept. 24.
Clooney and Prendergrast’s message is for a public momentum to push the official dialogue.
“Our position is that we will do everything to help assist, including creating public will and support ... to say that the people of the world are watching and [are] aware that if we do nothing, there is a very good chance that hundreds of thousands of people will die,” said Clooney.
Prendergast said that the United States needs to work with other countries that have a vested interest in maintaining stability in Sudan.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants for the arrest of Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir in March 2009 and July 2010. The ICC has charged al-Bashir with three counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity, and two counts of war crimes.
The Sudanese Tribune reported on Oct. 4 that al-Bashir has pledged to protect southerners living in northern Sudan if the referendum results in secession. This comes shortly after public remarks by Kamal Obeid, his Information minister, who threatened to expel southerners living in the north, and deny them citizenship rights, jobs, and hospital treatment in the event of secession.
IRIN, the U.N. humanitarian news service, reports that in August, Southern Sudan’s Humanitarian minister, James Kok Ruea, urged aid agencies to plan for a massive displacement of Southerners after the referendum. “People will be coming, and we will not be prepared,” he is quoted as saying.
