Actress Farrow pleads for Darfur

By Betsy Pisik (Contact) | Wednesday, June 18, 2008

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NEW YORK - Actress and activist Mia Farrow Tuesday reprimanded the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council for their inaction on Darfur, telling diplomats in a closed meeting that they have failed desperate people as well as U.N. principles.

Miss Farrow - like actor George Clooney, who addressed a similar meeting in September - stressed the overwhelming need to get well-equipped peacekeepers on the ground and protection for humanitarian relief convoys unable to reach millions of refugees who have tumbled over Sudan's borders.

"You have already failed the 300,000 or more who have died needlessly in Darfur," Miss Farrow said.

"You are failing millions of civilians who are struggling to survive in wretched camps across Darfur, eastern Chad and now the Central African Republic. And you are failing this body - the ideals and principles it represents."

Miss Farrow's address was delivered in private, but her people allowed paper copies of her remarks to be circulated among reporters.

The actress has devoted much of the last two years to publicizing the plight of Darfurians and trying to prod governments and the U.N. into action.

She is affiliated with Dream for Darfur, a group that has used pre-Olympic pressure on China - a council member with influence in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum - to more actively support peace and disarmament efforts.

Richard Williamson, Washington's special envoy for Darfur, also attended the meeting.

Afterward, he acknowledged that it is "disheartening" that in the six months since the U.N. joined the African Union's force in Darfur, only 585 new U.N. peacekeepers have been added to the nearly 7,000 African soldiers already in place.

If the U.N. does not hurry up, he warned, the "slow-motion genocide" will continue.

Mr. Williamson said the United States has spent more than $1 million to train and equip African soldiers and had built 30 base camps for them in and around Darfur.

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