George Clooney joins Sudan satellite monitoring project
George Clooney and his human rights group "Not On Our Watch" teamed up with Google and the United Nations on a satellite spy project to monitor Sudan's crucial election in January. The sophisticated program will map and collect images of the conflict-torn African country during an election and will spot signs of violence. Images will be posted online, the project collaborators said. Satellite imagery can also monitor threats to civilians, raids on villages, and refugee movements especially in the notorious Darfur region. In a statement the organizers explained their goal to help make Sudan's electoral exercise violence-free. "We want to cast a spotlight -- literally -- on the hotspots along the border to record any actions that might escalate the chances of conflict," the statement said. "We hope that if many eyes are on the potential spoilers, we can all help detect, deter and interdict actions that could lead to a return to deadly violence."
George Clooney said in a statement that he hopes genocide and other war crimes will be averted if they try to put the situation in Sudan under the scrutiny of the world. "War criminals thrive in the dark. It's a lot harder to commit mass atrocities in the glare of the media spotlight," the Hollywood actor said. Fears of mass violence are rising ahead of the election next month which may split the country into two with the creation of a separate state in southern Sudan. The Satellite Sentinel Project is a collaboration between Google, the U.N.'s Operational Satellite Applications Programme, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and the human rights organization co-founded by George Clooney.