Roger Moore in Macedonia
By Chris Bird for The Guardian, Saturday May 15, 1999

After infiltrating a Macedonian refugee camp with an assignment of children's toys yesterday, James Bond, posing as UNICEF goodwill ambassador Roger Moore, forsook his usual Martini cocktail for a cup of tea at the hotel bar. Asked if his mission was not just a photo opportunity to boost a career in gentle decline, Mr Moore arched one of his famous eyebrows.

"People can be as cynical as they like," he said. "It's a photo opportunity, but there is a real need for people recognised by the media."

"Fund-raising is only successful when the punter buys tickets for people he wants to see or hear, even if you bore the hell out of them."

Standing at the bar of the only five-star hotel in Macedonia's capital, Skopje, Mr Moore intoned sadly in his impeccable agent drawl: "All the kids thought I was Sean Connery."

Almost two months into the war and facing signs of compassion fatigue, aid agencies like UNICEF know there's no business like show business to keep donations coming in.

UNICEF's current goodwill ambassador follows in the footsteps of Danny Kaye and Audrey Hepburn.

Actor Roger Moore visits Stenkovec camps
CNN, Thursday, May 13, 1999

Relief workers at Macedonia's Stenkovec refugee camps were joined Thursday by actor Roger Moore, now a U.N. Children's Fund goodwill ambassador trying to raise money for refugee relief.

The former star of the James Bond movies was mobbed by crowds as he visited the Stenkovec II camp and its UNICEF-run school, which try to accommodate more than 1,000 Kosovar children.

"What we see, we can go out and talk about," he said. "We can ask people to dig a little deeper into their pockets."

Moore was the latest celebrity to visit the camps on a goodwill mission: Other visits have brought such personalities as Vanessa Redgrave, Bianca Jagger and Richard Gere.

Roger Moore about his visit in Macedonia:

"Macedonia is trying to cope with a quarter of a million refugees from Kosovo. People driven out of their homes, stripped of their identity and forced into a neighboring country by Milosovitch."

"I have just returned from Macedonia. I was in Skopje... which is in the vicinity, about 15 miles from the border of Kosovo. That's the crossing point of blace, where the refugees come in from Kosovo. I was there for UNICEF, visiting the camps. Also seeing the educational system that UNICEF is running, in fact in all the camps, UNICEF is running the schools, supplying equipment, etc. I visited the Macedonian health units, what they call Ambulante, which are local health care establishments, and also their poly clinic, where people are sent if they are referred from the smaller stations. I visited with host families who have takeni n up to 100,000 refugees at the moment, and many, many of these small homes, one and two rooms, with very poor sanitation. And you may have as many as 20 or 30 people living in these small homes. In fact, I went to one where a man who had a family of ten had taken in 43 refugees."

Read more about the situation in Macedonia and UNICEF's actions.

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