George Clooney and MTV have teamed up to raise awareness of the upcoming southern Sudan vote to send a clear message that the world is watching.
The crucial vote, which begins Sunday, is set to redefine Sudan, as the Southern region could gain independence and reshape Africa's biggest nation.
All eyes will be on the election starting tomorrow and people from around the world are being encouraged to help prevent any outbreak of another civil war.
Through the Satellite Sentinel Project, a rapid response team will be put in place to monitor any human rights violations that take place on the ground using satellite photos, crowd sourced map data provided by Google and field reports.
In addition to the Sentinel project; Clooney and MTV will be combing their efforts with Not On Our Watch, the UN's UNITAR Operational Satellite Applications programe, Trellon,LLC and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
A year on from the Haiti disaster, Clooney is at it again, using all the tools at his disposal to raise much needed global attention on the fragility of peace in Sudan, and that the world must care about Africa.
George Clooney: Endgame in Sudan
George Clooney, John Prendergast statement on Sudan
A new state is being born in Southern Sudan against a backdrop of decades of war between the South and North of Sudan. A peace deal in 2005 ended the latest round of open conflict, but the possibility of a return to war remains high as Southern Sudan prepares for independence. One of the biggest risks in this dangerous moment is that an incident on the highly armed border could lead to wider conflict. The government in Khartoum has armed militias in contested bordering regions, the government air force has bombed border areas, and both sides have massed military units and equipment along the hottest border spots. ¨These areas have witnessed some of the most deadly conflict in the world since World War II. The former director of national intelligence says that Southern Sudan is the place in the world most likely to experience genocide.
We can t allow another deadly war, and we surely cannot stand by in the face of a genocide threat.We were late to Rwanda. We were late to the Congo. We were late to Darfur. There is no time to wait. With your support, we will swiftly call the world to witness and respond. We aim to provide an ever more effective early-warning system: better, faster visual evidence and on-the-ground reporting of human rights concerns to facilitate better, faster responses. This is why we have launched the Satellite Sentinel Project. There has never been a sustained effort to systematically monitor potential hot spots and threats to human security, in near real-time, with the aim of heading off humanitarian disaster and war crimes before they occur. - SatSentinel.org
