By Kyle LaFleur and Aj Swartwood- Talk Radio News Service
Oscar winning actor George Clooney met with both President Obama and members of Congress Tuesday to discuss diplomatic solutions to the challenges facing Sudan in the coming months. Clooney was joined by activist John Predergast of the Enough Project in his call for a peaceful solution.
“What we wanted to do, and what John’s and my job to do, was to first go and get as much information as we could on what’s going on since it appears that we have about 90 days before we could be facing a real disaster again,” said Clooney outside of the Senate’s Foreign Relation Committee Office.
Southern Sudan is set to hold a referendum in January of 2011 on whether the Southern and Northern regions will remain one nation or split into two. United Nations delegates as well as other activists like Clooney and Prendergast have made journeys to the African nation in the hopes of finding a peaceful and diplomatic process for the vote.
The actor’s visit to the U.S. Capitol Tuesday caused a media stir and brought attention to what Clooney described as a nonpartisan issue.
“We are not policy makers, we are just megaphones so we are here to try and amplify the fact that in one of the most politicized moments in our history that there are no two sides to this issue,”said Clooney. “Both republicans and democrats, church groups and young people for a long period of time now have all been standing on the exact same side of this issue and we are simply to support anything that can be done diplomatically.”