From Hollywood to Darfur
- September 30th, 2019
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/world/africa/south-sudan-oil-militias.html
An investigative report recently published by The Sentry exposed a South Sudanese oil consortium’s involvement with direct financing of militias accused of war crimes and atrocities. The group, Dar Petroleum Operating Company, is made up of multiple different Chinese and Malaysian owned/operated oil companies. The state’s oil fields have been a source of civil war financing for years, and all of the companies have large stakes in the business at this point. This report shows the major role of international players in contributing to the conflict and unrest in the country, all to attain a profit from the oil industry. Stopping the war and coming to a peace agreement has proved to be difficult, with a majority of the blame being placed upon internal disagreement and lack of compromise. What this report emphasizes however, is the reality of external actors playing a major role. With so many outside interests who have so much to lose, it is no wonder that agreements have been few and far between.
Something that intrigued me about this report was the fact that an American actor is a major player in its global exposure. George Clooney is the co-founder of The Sentry- an investigative and policy team whose goal is to keep those who are benefiting from violence out of the international financial system. This group is focused in Central and East Africa due to the high concentration of war and conflict. Clooney is clearly a huge part of the organization, and stated that his role was to “shine a spotlight on the overlooked involvement of international players that have sustained the war”. While his influence may seem trivial, it begs to question what sort of impact could be made in international affairs and conflict resolution by the involvement of modern day icons. Could it potentially make a bigger splash, getting otherwise apathetic people to become concerned and active? Such a question may not be on important policy agendas, but as a hypothetical question I believe it is worth pondering.
Julia G.