A Hollywood Spotlight on South Sudan's Horrors

The little-known new nation of South Sudan is attracting the attention of two respected Hollywood actors, which isn’t as incongruous as it might sound to some.

After all, George Clooney and Don Cheadle are known for their social activism, and they are once again spotlighting a sobering cause.

South Sudan is, perhaps, the closest the thing to hell on Earth these days. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported last week that the number of people who have fled the African nation passed the 1 million mark. Another 1.6 million South Sudanese – some 20 percent of the nation’s population – are displaced as a result of the vicious civil war between the Dinka and Nuer ethic groups in the world’s newest country. Almost 200,000 refugees have fled South Sudan since July. Really, they are ghost refugees, exhausted and depleted from days of walking the bush without food or water, scarred by what they have fled. Children who’ve lost one or both parents.

And they are the fortunate ones, if “fortunate” is the right word. They are, at least, alive. What they have experienced is another matter. The fresh fighting that broke out in July in the capitol of Juba trigged a new round of atrocities and war crimes – looting, the rape of women and girls (including a number of international aid workers), torture, conscription of child soldiers, and murder. 

That’s the mostly neglected horror of South Sudan.

But here’s where Clooney and Cheadle come in: They have called attention to what’s happening in that beleaguered nation. As they have done before, the acclaimed actors are using their celebrity to tell American and international leaders – officials and journalists – that attention must paid, that something must be done.

Earlier this month, the two stars appeared before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to unveil an investigative report (“War Crimes Shouldn’t Pay”) that digs into the corruption, exploitation and blood-letting that’s at the cankered heart of the South Sudan civil war. This take-no-prisoners report examines the part both sides (President Salva Kiir Mayardit of the Dinka and former Vice President Riek Machar of the Nuer) play in the on-going inferno.

Clooney and Cheadle’s activism on this issue (the former spotlighted atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan a decade ago; the latter, who starred in “Hotel Rwanda,” is a founding board member of Not on Our Watch, a global human-rights group) is a caution for anyone inclined to take a jaundiced view when celebrities sally forth on the political issue du jour. This is a serious report, a serious challenge to officials and journalists, about a land and people that are too easily forgotten. Especially winning was Clooney’s humble challenge to the journalists at the press club:  "Investigate us. But don't take our word for it. Investigate it yourself. Look at the information with an open mind."

Clooney and Cheadle’s attention to South Sudan should also lift the spirits of those, known and unknown, who have worked to improve the situation there in one way or another. One is Rep. Chris Smith. The New Jersey Republican is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa. At the end of summer, he traveled to Juba and confronted officials there about the mistreatment of their own people and U.S. aid workers. It’s certainly not the kind of junket that Capitol Hill lawmakers are too often criticized for taking. He then held a subcommittee hearing to do what he could to call attention to the preventable suffering in South Sudan. Bless him for this.

Then, there are the men and women whose names the world will never know. These are the men and women, Sudanese, Europeans, Americans and others, who are risking their lives to get food to the starving South Sudanese or shepherd the least among us out of this man-made hell. The Catholic Church is especially active here. Bless all these men and women and their charges, too.

More help may be on the way, thanks to George Clooney and Don Cheadle.

Hooray for Hollywood!