Written by: Brian Donnelly
Forbes’s Most Powerful Celebrity swings a mighty sword in article for Time
When she’s not filming movies or raising her six kids, Angelina Jolie apparently takes on corrupt despots in third-world countries. The 34-year-old celebrity activist wrote an article for Time calling for the removal of the Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who she says is at the center of the conflict in Darfur that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more.
Through this article, the most powerful celebrity in the world, according to Forbes’s annual Power 100 list, hoped to put her “power” to good use by authoring a wake up call to the public that the struggle in Darfur isn’t over. The spark that lit Jolie’s fuse came from al-Bashir kicking out 16 international aid groups from his country. This was a response to the International Criminal Court issuing a March 4 warrant for the arrest of the Sudanese head of state on seven counts of war crimes and five counts of crimes against humanity. This is the first time a warrant has been placed for a current head of state and has been met with opposition from the Arab League and the African Union who fear it will further destabilize the region.
During the past six years, over 250,000 people from Darfur have relocated to refugee camps in Chad. Darfur’s internal refugee camps, which host an estimated 2 million, have even worse living conditions than those in Chad that Jolie describes as “destitute.” Jolie traveled to Chad in 2004 to visit Darfur refugees who told her it is the government that is organizing the violence that has ravaged this Sub-Sahara region of Africa. The co-chair of the Joli-Pitt Foundation and refugee advocate said in her article that they want to go home to a peaceful Darfur and to go to school. But they also want justice done.
While al-Bashir was the subject of Jolie’s scorn, the results of the four-year International Criminal Court’s Darfur investigation were the driving force behind her article. The members of the United Nations Security Council were presented the results of the investigation they requested in 2005 on Friday.
Jolie’s final plea is for the U.N. Security Council to make the right decision between, “embracing impunity or ending it.”
حركة العدل و المساواة السودانية
موقع متخصص بنقل آخر الأخبار و البيانات و القرارات لحركة العدل و المساواة السودانية