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January 26, 2007
George Clooney and Friends Unite for Operation Darfur
George Clooney and Brad Pitt are just a few of the stars who are uniting to stop the crisis in Darfur. Clooney and his father took “Extra” on a journey to the border of Chad and Darfur.
“My father and I thought we'd come over and take a look for ourselves,” Clooney said.
The horrors that the Clooney men found are ones that stars like Brad, Angelina Jolie, Maria Bello and “Hotel Rwanda” star Don Cheadle are all too familiar with.
“There is a systematic attempt to eradicate an entire population of people,” Cheadle explained.
Those people are black Africans who are hunted by Arab militias armed by the Sudanese government.
“After the Holocaust, the word was never again,” Bello said. “And here it is; we're in the midst of another genocide, and we're letting it happen.”
“We found a village called Jacque, with over 1,000 displaced families,” Clooney said. “These people had jobs and property before the Arab militia burned their villages, raped their women and killed their children."
With a population on the brink of extinction, a growing list of celebrities are trying to shine their light on Darfur, including Pitt and Jolie, who were involved in producing “God Grew Tired of Us,” the story of the Lost Boys of Sudan.
“This is one story among millions... millions... of people that are running for their lives,” Pitt told “Extra” at the film’s premiere.
“It's a reminder that there are 20 million refugees around the world and the situation in Darfur is getting worse everyday,” Jolie added.
Bello recently made the issue into a fashion statement at the Critics Choice Awards, wearing a jewel-encrusted dress with “Peace in Darfur” embellished across her back.
“I thought what the heck, it’s my little voice, but there it is,” she said of her decision. “If it could get one person, one person to go to the Internet and educate themselves and write one letter to a congressman, then I think it's done its job.”
“What we cannot do is turn our heads and look away, and hope that this will somehow disappear,” Clooney preached. “Because if we do, they will; they will disappear and an entire generation of people will be gone.”
For more information on how you can help the crisis in Darfur, visit one of these sites:
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Getting the ‘Brass’ at the awards show to donate money to the Darfur cause instead of spending on lavish gifts is the first good and positive, and doable thing I’ve heard. SO - how about it George, Brad, Angelina, and all the rest??? What concrete things can you do to hustle the ‘Brass’ to redirect their money to something needed instead of something wasted?? And how much time will it take you to do just that? While we wait for your answer, more innocent people are being wiped off the face of the earth!