George Clooney Named As United Nations Messenger of Peace

Actor, filmmaker and human-rights advocate George Clooney has been designated by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. His mission is to raise awareness of the world body’s peacekeeping efforts.

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced that actor George Clooney is among the nine internationally renowned individuals who have been designated United Nations Messengers of Peace. The UN press release says that the current Messengers of Peace and their areas of focus are Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan (Millennium Development Goals and hunger); conductor Daniel Barenboim (peace and tolerance); author Paulo Coelho (intercultural dialogue); actor Michael Douglas (disarmament and peace and security); primatologist Jane Goodall (the environment); violinist Midori Goto (Millennium Development Goals and youth); cellist Yo-Yo Ma (youth); and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel (human rights and the Holocaust). “You have seen first-hand the pain experienced by the victims of war and made it your personal mission to help end violence and human suffering,” Mr. Ban said, lauding Mr. Clooney’s “dedication to raising awareness and mobilizing action on Darfur.” Clooney has been active in his endeavors to bring an end to the emergency in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and another 2.2 million forced to flee their homes since fighting began in 2003 between Government forces and rebel groups. “I am deeply honoured to receive this appointment,” Mr. Clooney said. “I look forward to working with the United Nations in order to build public support for its critically important work in some of the most difficult, dangerous and dire places in the world.” Clooney was an executive producer and narrator of a documentary last year entitled “Sand and Sorrow,” which follows activists as they stop in refugee camps along Sudan’s border with Chad and interviews experts on the crisis. Along with several other actors Clooney formed In April 2007, “Not on Our Watch,” which is a non-profit organization in which influential people in the arts highlight mass atrocities worldwide.