American actors George Clooney and Don Cheadle on Thursday received this year's Men of Peace Award at the 8th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates here in the Italian capital.
The award was given in recognition of ''the efforts of the two actors in favour of peace in the troubled region of Darfur and for having contributed towards saving lives and alleviating the suffering of the civilian victims of the war''.
The two Hollywood stars are among the founding members of the association Not On Our Watch which was created to attract worldwide attention to the tragedy of Darfur.
In accepting the award, Clooney said: ''We are here to give a voice to those who otherwise would not be listened to. And speaking of voices, it's time that those of heads of state be heard. Peace, like war, is a process which must move forward''.
''But we are here also to recognise an example of failure, if we consider the atrocities which continue to take place in Darfur,'' he added
Cheadle, who was nominated for an Oscar for the film Hotel Rwanda, is also the protagonist of Darfur Now, a documentary by Theodore Braun which tells of the efforts of six people to stop the genocide taking place in Sudan, where 400,000 people have already been killed and more than 2.5 million people turned into refugees.
Clooney makes an appearance in the documentary since he, together with his journalist father Nick, is one of the six. The story of his journey to Sudan is the subject of another documentary, A Journey to Darfur, which is now on sale and the proceeds will go towards funding Not On Our Watch.
Past winners of the Men of Peace award have included musicians Peter Gabriel, Bob Geldof and Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, as well as Italian actor/director Roberto Benigni.
The 8th edition of the Nobel summit, which closes on Saturday, is dedicated to the theme 'The Next Generation' and centers on topics which focus on children, including their exposure to AIDS and the phenomenon of child slavery.
The summit officially began after the peace prize award ceremony with an opening address by the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1985.
In his speech, the Dalai Lama said that ''things do not change only through fine words or elegant documents. Our actions are needed to make things change. Actions of compassion''.
He then expressed his ''gratitude and appreciation'' for the efforts by Clooney and Cheadle in favor of Darfu and observed: ''you have demonstrated that taking action is possible. And it is action which leads to a decisive solution to problems''.
''We all live on the same planet, but there is one part where people live in abundance and waste, while in the other people die from hunger or mass killings. And it is all very sad,'' he added.
''I do not believe that human nature is bad. For sure bad people exist and evil exists. But the majority of the six billion people who live on this planet are capable of compassion and kindness''.
The Rome Nobel peace summit initiative began eight years ago, the brainchild of the peace-promoting foundation which former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev set up in 1992.
Gorbachev and Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni are hosting this year's summit.
The summit is attended not only by those who have won the Nobel peace prize but also by prominent people from the world of politics, culture and science who work in the interest of a better world.
Attending this year are laureates Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Mohammed Yunus, Lech Walesa, Betty Williams and Mons. Philipe Ximenes Belo, along with representatives from prize-winning organizations including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); the Red Cross; the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR); the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); Amnesty International; the United Nations; the International Labour Organization (ILO); Doctors without Borders (MSF) and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).
Aside from Clooney and Cheadle, this year's guests of honor include: Nobel medicine laureate Rita Levi Montalcini; Bob Geldolf; Kerry Kennedy, president of R.F. Kennedy Foundation of Europe; Nobuaki Tanaka, UN Under-secretary general and Japanese ambassador in Turkey; Anna Cataldi, Stop TB Ambassador; and Mario Raviglione, director of the World Health Organization.
