From the New York Times today (seriously):
The actress Mia Farrow has told the president of Sudan that she is willing to take the place of Suleiman Jamous the ailing humanitarian coordinator for the rebel group Sudan Liberation Army who has been virtually imprisoned for more than 13 months, Reuters reported. Mr. Jamous, 62, has been confined to a United Nations hospital in Kordofan, east of Darfur, where he was moved by the United Nations without permission last year. He is in need of a stomach biopsy, which cannot be performed there. The government, based in Khartoum, has said he will be arrested if he leaves, but has declared itself open to discussing his release. In a letter to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, posted yesterday on her blog at www.miafarrow.org, Ms. Farrow, who is also a Unicef goodwill ambassador, wrote: “At the Inter-Sudanese talks in Abuja in 2005, before his seizure, Mr. Jamous played a crucial role in bringing the S.L.A. to the negotiating table and in seeking reconciliation between its divided rival factions.” She said, “I am therefore offering to take Mr. Jamous’s place, to exchange my freedom for his in the knowledge of his importance to the civilians of Darfur and in the conviction that he will apply his energies toward creating the just and lasting peace that the Sudanese people deserve and hope for.” International experts have estimated that 200,000 people have died and that 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in more than four years of fighting in Sudan’s remote west.
