Several months ago, Ben Affleck traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to bear witness to the tremendous humanitarian catastrophe unfolding. The United Nations has some resources on the ground, but nowhere near enough to take in the millions of refugees displaced by “civil” war.
While there, Affleck shot footage for a very short documentary titled Gimme Shelter that he premiered at the United Nations’ New York headquarters on Wednesday. The event was sponsered by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), for which Angelina Jolie has been a special goodwill ambassador since 2001. After Gimme Shelter was screened, Affleck took questions.
Affleck, 36, says he made the short [documentary] “in order to focus attention on the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at a time when too much of the world is indifferent or looking the other way.”
“We step up when these terrible crises occur,” said Affleck, who has visited the DRC four times in the last year and held discussions with leaders on all sides of the conflict including warlords, peacemakers, activists and government officials.
“I’ve had to be really judicious,” he said. “I got exposed to really smart people. [I’ve had] to give myself a kind of great post-graduate education.”
Affleck noted that organizations like the UNHCR need more funding in light of the financial crisis, and also urged increased diplomacy in the region. “Diplomacy won’t cost us anything,” he said.
He also joked about the UN Refugee Agency’s most visible spokesperson, Angelina Jolie: “UNHCR needs to find a Goodwill Ambassador who can get some sort of press attention,” Affleck said to laughs from the audience.
According to the U.N., more than 5.4 million people have died in the conflict, with millions more displaced from their homes.
[From People]
The Congolese genocide/civil war was picked as one of the top-ten most under-reported stories of the year by Time Magazine. But you could say that about nearly every story coming out of Africa – the Sudanese genocide, the civil unrest in Kenya, the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe, the plague of war crimes, the failed state of Somalia, the environmental disasters, and on and on. All are under-reported, and I applaud Affleck for doing his part to bring more attention to a situation that too often gets crowded out of the headlines. And I really do think he meant his Jolie joke in a nice way.
Ben Affleck is shown on 12/17/08 premiering Gimme Shelter and picking up Violet from school with his wife, Jennifer Garner. Credit: WENN
