Darfur

Conventional wisdom says that the youth vote is fickle, that in a world of limited budgets, campaign managers are smart to direct resources elsewhere. But new trends in youth political engagement challenge this long-standing belief. And for presidential candidates seeking to exploit these new developments, the message of 2008 may well be, "It's the genocide, stupid." For the past three years, a stunning number of young people have been active at all levels of the democratic process for the sake of civilians in Darfur, Sudan.

UNITED NATIONS -- Sudan accepted a combined United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force yesterday of up to 23,000 troops and police to stabilize the war-torn Darfur region. But U.N. diplomats, cautious after months of waffling by the Sudanese government, were not ready to celebrate. The agreement came days before a Security Council mission to Khartoum to press for an end to the conflict in Darfur. At the end of a two-day summit of Sudanese, U.N. and African Union officials in Ethiopia, Sudan also agreed on the need for an immediate cease-fire and talks with rebel groups to end four years of fighting.

WASHINGTON -- The greeting given to visitors at the presidential palace in Khartoum, Sudan, is an exercise in intimidation. You pass guards in white uniforms with AK-47s, walk under a pair of enormous elephant tusks, then file past a machine gun emplacement. Guests are reminded that they have entered the rebuilt palace where Gen. Charles Gordon - the British father of humanitarian interventionism - was killed in a 19th-century Islamist uprising. The message of warning to a new generation of Western idealists is given and taken.

Fresh from his fight over Iraq war spending, President Bush has been busy this week at the more constructive task of burnishing his humanitarian credentials. He's stepping up pressure on Sudan to halt the genocide in Darfur; proposing to double funding for global AIDS programs to $30 billion over five years, and installing at the World Bank a skilled negotiator knowledgeable in these and many related issues. And yet Mr. Bush's positive initiatives remain crippled by the global ill will engendered by America's pre-emptive attack on Iraq.

WASHINGTON -- With the Bush administration ordering new sanctions against the government of Sudan yesterday, experts said any hope of alleviating suffering in the war-torn Darfur region will depend on the questionable ability of the United States to gain broader international support. President Bush, declaring that the United States "will not avert our eyes" from a crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced at least 2 million others, imposed a ban on Americans doing business with 31 mostly government-controlled Sudanese businesses, two leaders of the Sudanese government and a rebel chief.

UNITED NATIONS -- The International Criminal Court issued its first arrest warrants yesterday for a Sudanese government minister and a former militia leader accused of war crimes in Sudan's western Darfur region. Sudanese officials, however, said they would not hand over the accused pair, who were charged with dozens of counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said yesterday that if U.N. efforts to bring peace to Darfur do not soon bear fruit, the United States would expand and tighten economic sanctions intended to end what he described as the genocide taking place there. In his most extensive remarks on the issue, Bush threatened new restrictions on Sudan and those doing business there. He also raised the possibility of seeking international steps to block Sudan's government from flying military aircraft in the region.

Darfur has taken on the shorthand status accorded Biafra and Bangladesh in a previous generation. The very word has come to represent horrible things happening to poor and defenseless people, held up to shame the rich and powerful world for its lack of action in stopping this injustice. For many who decry these atrocities, that is all they know, all they need to know. There is no doubt that Darfur fits that rather simplistic role. But there is also no doubt that no solution to its many problems will be possible without understanding its complexity.

UNITED NATIONS -- A high-level U.N. mission to Darfur said yesterday that the Sudanese government had orchestrated human rights crimes against its own people and urged that leaders of Sudan's government and militias be charged with war crimes. But Khartoum is blocking United Nations attempts to stem the violence, organizing opposition to the mission's report and stepping back from its agreement to accept a joint U.N.-African peacekeeping force in the region. Sudan's government "has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes, and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes," according to a report commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The Sudanese government is quietly escalating oil exploration inside the Darfur region, a step that has led to protests from rebel leaders in a volatile area where more than 200,000 people have been killed during three years of fighting. Political and humanitarian experts say oil in Darfur could deliver much-needed development and investment to the region, but attempts to hunt for oil could intensify fighting by raising the stakes in an already war-torn area. The government has recently awarded three new oil concessions in the region.