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George Clooney Says Troubled Nation ‘No Longer’ Afraid Of U.S.

Katie Jerkovich Entertainment Reporter
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George Clooney said leaders in South Sudan “no longer take seriously the threats made by the United States.”

The 55-year-old actor penned an op-ed in The Washington Post, along with John Prendergast, ahead of presenting a report by their organization The Sentry on Monday in Washington D.C. The report links South Sudan’s president along with international banks, oil companies and arms dealers and calls for international help in the crisis. (RELATED: What George Clooney Just Said About A Donald Trump Presidency Will Have Voters Fuming)

Actor George Clooney testifies during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing regarding Sudan at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington March 14, 2012. REUTERS/Benjamin Myers

(photo: REUTERS/Benjamin Myers)

“All of this obstruction and obfuscation buys time for the leaders to continue to use extreme violence to loot the state treasury and the country’s natural resources,” Clooney and Prendergast wrote. “And we have the evidence. For the past two years, the Sentry, our new investigative initiative focusing on East and Central Africa, has compiled information from thousands of court filings, legal documents and financial records.”

“Our new comprehensive report, titled ‘War Crimes Shouldn’t Pay: Stopping the Looting and Destruction of South Sudan,’ shows that South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, the main opposition leader and several top army generals have been involved in a range of murky transactions, insider deals and questionable activities that suggest outright fraud,” they added. “A number of these officials have command authority over military operations that resulted in mass atrocities in South Sudan. South Sudan’s leaders are content with draining the country’s resources in order to purchase deadly weapons from arms dealers and fund armed groups used to attack the civilian population bases of their rivals.”

“What’s missing is international leverage,” they continued. “South Sudan’s leaders no longer take seriously the threats made by the United States and others to impose consequences.  They have learned that rape as a war weapon, child-soldier recruitment and mass killings aren’t enough to trigger more impactful international pressures.”