On Wednesday, we reported on George Clooney’s visit to Chad and Sudan, a “fact-finding” mission to visit Darfur and the refugee caps on the Chad-Sudan border. While there, Clooney visited some Irish peacekeepers stationed close to the refugee camps, which was nice. But as it turns out, there’s much, much more to the story.

Clooney is traveling with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a two-time Pulitizer Prize winner and a foreign policy expert, someone who has traveled to Sudan and Chad many times. Ann Curry is also traveling through the area, and has done special reports for the NBC Evening News and The Today Show – on Friday morning she’s showing an exclusive interview with Clooney in Chad.

The scandal broke via Kristof’s column in the NYT. On Thursday, Kristof reported that Clooney’s UN-provided security detail was non-existent. Clooney is a UN Messenger of Peace, and when he travels as an official UN goodwill ambassador to a war-torn, violent region, the UN should provide him with security. But there was the catch – Clooney was, according to the UN, traveling unofficially, not as part of any UN-backed mission, therefore was not entitled to a security detail.

But there’s more to the story – Kristof claims that Clooney’s security was pulled out of a fear that Clooney would make negative remarks about genocide and Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who might be facing a possible ICC indictment for war crimes. E! has a full report:

George Clooney’s freedom of speech may have cost him his safety.

The United Nations announced that it was looking into allegations that the world body pulled the actor’s security detail while he was—and still is—traveling through a lawless region of Chad. The move was alleged to be a preemptive measure to prevent Clooney from voicing critical, and potentialy inflammatory, opinions of the region’s leadership.

While Clooney is a U.N. “messenger of peace,” he has been traveling unofficially in the African nation with New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof and, on and off, with NBC News’ Ann Curry.

Kristof noted the security abandonment in his published yesterday, though U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas was quick to address the claim, saying that the U.N. did not provide security for anyone in the region and instead relied on local organizations for assistance.

She also noted that Clooney did not go to Chad as part of any U.N. initiative, instead traveling to the dangerous, humanitarian-weary area of his own accord, though she added that they are “still trying to ascertain the facts.”

It seems the ones spelled out by Kristof weren’t clear-cut enough.

The reporter claimed that the U.N. issued what amounted to a (potentially life-threatening) gag order in an attempt to keep the peace. With the International Criminal Court working up to a formal indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the man deemed most responsible for the Darfur crisis, the region is at a flashpoint.

“Apparently concerned that Mr. Clooney might say something strongly critical of Mr. Bashir—perhaps come down on genocide?—the United Nations called me on Wednesday to say that effective immediately it was pulling Mr. Clooney’s security escort as he traveled these roads along the border,” Kristof wrote.

“Now that did seem petty and mean-spirited…the U.N. requires a military escort for its own vehicles here,” he continued, before leveling a particularly harsh criticism against the organization.

“If the U.N. is too craven to protect its own goodwill ambassadors—because they might criticize genocide—it’s not surprising that it and the international community fail to protect hundreds of thousands of voiceless Darfuris.”

From E! Online

I agree with Kristof – Clooney criticizing al-Bashir is a kind of a non-issue. I mean, who’s going to disagree with statements like “Genocide is bad” and “War criminals should be prosecuted.” I don’t really know if the UN would pull one its goodwill ambassador’s security details as a way to limit their speech, but I think that under any circumstances, leaving Clooney unprotected is a big mistake. Especially considering he was traveling with a NYT journalist who would report everything in detail.

According to Reuters, “…the ICC is expected to announce imminently whether it is going to indict Bashir for war crimes in Darfur, western Sudan, where up to 300,000 people have died in a six-year conflict between the Khartoum government and rebel groups… [there is] anxiety in Chad that Bashir could retaliate for an indictment by using a proxy force to invade Chad. Sudanese and Chadian officials have exchanged accusations of backing rebel groups in each other’s countries.”

George Clooney is shown on 1/26/09 in Washington, DC “at the Newseum and the American University School of Communication with Bill Small, chairman of news and documentary Emmys at the National Television Academy in a discussion and screening of the 2005 film ‘Good Night, and Good Luck.’ Journalist-in-residence Nick Clooney, George Clooney’s father, moderated the conversation.” Credit: WENN