Hollywood actor George Clooney on Thursday called out the international community to take necessary steps as a report has blamed global corporations, tycoons and governments for rampant corruption in South Sudan, reported CNN.
Clooney’s statement comes after his Africa-focused investigative project The Sentry released its latest findings on webs of corruption in the country. He is a longtime campaigner for human rights in the region and is best known for his advocacy in Sudan’s western region of Darfur.
South Sudan plunged into conflict in 2013 after it split from Sudan two years before. The brutal six-year ordeal claimed almost 400,000 lives and displaced millions. It came to an end last September when South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit signed a peace agreement with rebel leaders.
Clooney called out the European Union and the United States to take strict action against those involved and their networks.
“I believe they should do much more,” he told during a news conference in London. “I don’t know if they can stop it but they can sure make it a lot harder.”
The report, titled “The Taking of South Sudan,” accuses multinational corporations and individuals of being “war profiteers” complicit with South Sudanese politicians and military officials in taking advantage of the country’s weak rule of law and corruption to enlarge their profits.
It stated that almost every instance of confirmed or alleged corruption or financial crime in South Sudan has involved links to an international corporation, a multinational bank, a foreign government or high-end real estate abroad.
The report cited that South Sudan’s largest multinational petroleum consortium, Dar Petroleum Operating Company, led by a Chinese state-owned oil company, provided direct support to deadly militias.
Clooney pointed out that the profiteers include Chinese and Malaysian oil giants, British tycoons, and American businessmen as without support these atrocities could never have happened at such a large scale.
