Academy Award-nominated actor Don Cheadle spoke at Moore Hall on
Tuesday night about his recent trip to Darfur, Sudan, and exhorted
student activists to push the U.S. government to take action
against the humanitarian crisis building in that region.
Cheadle said he never thought of himself as an
“actorvist” until Congressman Ed Royce, R-Orange
County, approached him after a screening of his movie “Hotel
Rwanda,” which is about the Rwandan Genocide. Cheadle’s
involvement quickly snowballed, and Cheadle soon found himself a
leading activist for action in the Darfur region.
“It’s just going to take as much noise as you can
make in as many ways as you can make it,” Cheadle said at the
event, which was put on by the Darfur Action Committee and UNICEF
at UCLA.
Cheadle was joined by John Prendergast, special adviser to the
president of the International Crisis Group, and several other
members of the movie industry, including actor Ryan Gosling, who
recently returned from a trip to Chad.
The event began with a screening of a piece Cheadle made for
ABC’s news program Nightline when he traveled to the refugee
camps in Chad with Prendergast and five members of Congress in
early February. Prendergast then described the current situation in
Darfur, where the United Nations estimates about 70,000 people have
been killed in a humanitarian crisis by the Sudanese
government-backed janjaweed militia, though Prendergast said
humanitarian organizations have put the number dead as high as
300,000. He compared it to the 1994 Rwandan genocide that was the
topic of Hotel Rwanda.
Prendergast said unlike the Rwandan genocide, the Darfur crisis
““ which the United States has recognized as a genocide
although the United Nations has not ““ is slow-moving, and
there are still nearly 2 million people who could be saved if the
international community can be convinced to take action.
Cheadle, who Prendergast had originally announced would miss the
event because of reconstructive knee surgery, showed up about an
hour into the program, and told students that they can make a
difference.
“I have to believe that the collective voice can make a
change,” Cheadle said. “Don’t underestimate the
power of your voice, of mass e-mails, of talking to ten people who
you don’t think give a shit.”
The question-and-answer session that followed became a group
forum as students and activists exhorted one another to write
letters to their congressmen and inundate the Sudanese embassy with
e-mails.
Prendergast, who worked for the Clinton administration from
1996-2001, said lots of letters can catalyze change.
“That kind of blip of the radar screen can have a direct
effect on public policy makers,” he said.
Sarah Novick, a fourth-year sociology student and member of the
Darfur Action Committee, said the event reinvigorated the
group’s efforts, and got new people interested in the
cause.
Hang Do, a first-year undeclared student, said she left the
event energized.
“I want to be like him,” she said of
Prendergast.
“It motivated me like a lot to go out and help
people.”