Sudan People's Liberation Army-North rebels (photo: Trevor Snapp - Global Post)

At the same time, however, violence on a much larger scale is hitting Sudan’s “new south”: Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States. Fighting between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N) has forced tens of thousands of people to flee to Ethiopia and South Sudan. Nearly as many have been internally displaced and face dire food shortages.

Displacement is a growing problem in the region, and aid groups face immense challenges providing enough emergency food and care to support the displaced population. Bombing and fighting in the area have prevented local families from cultivating their crops, and a poor harvest in November left food stocks even lower than usual. The most insidious problem, however, is the aid blockade imposed by Khartoum.

The government’s refusal to allow international aid agencies (both UN and private) into its territory is putting tens of thousands of lives at risk. Only the Sudanese Red Crescent, seen as neither impartial nor capable of handling the needs of civilians in government and SPLM-N areas, has been allowed to enter the area.

The U.N. and countries including the United States have tried to shift Khartoum and stave off a humanitarian disaster. In recent weeks, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and the U.N.’s top humanitarian official both visited Sudan and pressed Omar al-Bashir’s government for greater access. But neither visit was successful in opening Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile to desperately needed assistance.

Khartoum is clearly in bunker mode. Feeling that it was not sufficiently “rewarded” for allowing South Sudan to break away, it is now wary of any incentives the West might offer for opening up these war-torn states. It is also keen to avoid a second Darfur, where Khartoum saw humanitarian assistance as merely a friendly façade for Western meddling. More than that, Bashir’s regime sees the aid blockade in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile as another way to force the SPLM-N to surrender for the sake of suffering civilians.

Given the dire need in these two states and the lack of movement by Sudan, some in the U.S. are now calling for forced access to Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile – whereby food and medical supplies might be flown or trucked into the two areas against Khartoum’s will. Certainly, the need is clear; but leaving aside the prospect of Sudanese military retaliation, the practicalities of such a move are thorny indeed. Dropping aid from the air would be incredibly costly, and it’s unclear how the supplies would be distributed once the aid hits the ground. Meanwhile, the land routes from South Sudan into Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan are either impassible or go through Khartoum-held areas. Ethiopia, another possible entry point, would be wary of provoking Khartoum by cooperating with such a plan.

For the time being, Khartoum’s recklessness and intransigence is certain to push more families from Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile into South Sudan and Ethiopia – adding to the over 100,000 Sudanese refugees already there. Those who can’t flee will face even more danger and deprivation; many will surely die.

As humanitarians, we continue to hope that this time Khartoum will prove its critics wrong; that this time it will welcome assistance and not endanger thousands of lives out of pique. But after years of disappointment, it is hard to expect anything better from Sudan. And the fear is that the most the world can do is prepare for the human tragedy that is about to unfold.

“I’ve got 99 problems but Bashir ain’t one” is emblazoned on t-shirts for sale in the capital of the brand-new country of South Sudan, which officially gained its independence from the North on Saturday.

Even before Sudan gained independence from the United Kingdom and Egypt in 1956, civil war had broken out between the North and South, where rebels rose up to protest the region’s marginalization. Decades and 2 million deaths later, the South is now independent. The weekend was jubilant — from midnight on Friday when crowds filled the streets waving South Sudan flags, through the official declaration ceremony attended by dozens of heads of state and high-level delegations, to the Monday holiday.

“The independence we celebrate today transfers the responsibility for our destinies to our hands,” said newly sworn-in President Salva Kiir, addressing the tens of thousands of people who gathered for the independence ceremony on Saturday. “From today on we will have no excuses or scapegoats to blame.” The president thanked the international community for “addressing the gap” in providing basic services to Southern Sudanese and said that his administration would make public interest its “first, second, and final priorities.”

South Sudan may no longer have to deal with Omar al-Bashir as its leader, but there are many potentially explosive issues that the two countries must continue to work together to sort out, as well as internal issues ranging from the development basics — education, health, infrastructure — to the region’s propensity for conflict. The 99 problems is “just the condensed list,” as one journalist quipped.

Since 2009, a high-level panel convened by the African Union has been facilitating discussion between the North and South governments over big-ticket issues like how to share oil revenue, which is mostly found in the South but must be refined and transported for export through the North. Oil experts estimate that about half of the North’s revenue comes from oil, so finding a compromise is necessary for the viability of the North’s economy, thus regional stability as well. The new international border, 1,200 miles in length, must be demarcated and arrangements made for the communities on either side who are used to being able to travel freely in search of water and pasture. Citizenship more broadly must be settled to ensure that people who have long lived in the other part of what’s now two countries don’t become vulnerable – or at least not more so.

Perhaps most obstinate, an agreement must be made to resolve the dispute over Abyei, which was supposed to have its own referendum to determine whether it would be part of the new state or remain with the North. An interim agreement was forged last month to end the northern army’s occupation of the territory inhabited by people who identify as southerners, but the deal — if it’s implemented — would only re-establish the unsustainable conditions that existed before the army’s invasion and bombardment; a final arrangement remains elusive.

On its own, the South must grapple with a number of deep-seated challenges. At least a dozen militias have emerged over the past year in response to national or local grievances. The southern army has proven incapable of thwarting these threats and has itself committed atrocities against civilians ostensibly in pursuit of the militia fighters.

South Sudan falls along the bottom rung of development metrics as well, leaving the new independent government with an immense amount of work to do to prove that it will not go the way of the previous ruling party and keep resources centralized for the benefit of the citizens in the capital. But when 76 percent of the population cannot read and has little to no formal education, both managing expectations and finding people equipped to roll out public services will be a hurdle for years to come.

The long line of visiting dignitaries who spoke at the independence ceremony on Saturday all pledged their commitment to supporting South Sudan as it finds its footing. For many years, the international community has been moved by the South’s struggle against an oppressive regime, then by the prospect of a peace deal to end Africa’s longest war, and finally in preparation for the emergence of a new country. The task ahead is far more open-ended and as a result may be the most challenging era yet.

As July 9 and South Sudan’s independence from northern Sudan draws nearer, violent attacks by the North on the South and its border areas are increasing in frequency and intensity. In Abyei, a disputed border region, upwards of 113,000 people have fled clashes between the northern and southern armies.

Yesterday, President Obama met with Princeton Lyman, his Special Envoy to Sudan, and the readout from the White House was one of cautious condemnation:

The President expressed deep concern over the violence and the lack of humanitarian access, and he underscored the urgent need to get back to cooperative negotiations to enable full and timely implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The President is “following the situation closely” while Ambassador Lyman works to achieve “a cessation of hostilities across the region and to support the emergence of two viable states at peace.”

Indeed, a peaceful conclusion to twenty years of civil war was the goal of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and should be still. That’s why suggestions by Representative Donald Payne (D-NJ) to arm South Sudan made at a subcommittee hearing on Thursday are so worrisome. Specifically, he referred to revisiting a 2008 decision by President Bush to provide air defense systems to South Sudan. That request was never fulfilled because, according to Bush administration officials, the Southern Sudanese army was not trained and equipped to use and maintain the systems.

Arming South Sudan with air defense systems would put them into deeper conflict with the North, not bring the two closer to peace. Further, South Sudan’s army still doesn’t have the requisite training to use and maintain an air defense system. That poses a distinct problem when it comes to distinguishing friendly aircraft from the North’s attack aircraft. In 2007, a UN panel of experts sent a report to the Security Council documenting the North’s use of attack aircraft painted to look like UN aircraft in bombing raids of Darfuri villages. Were the North to use this tactic in the South, it could put UN aircraft at risk.

If UN aircraft are at risk, more than just their aircrews’ lives hang in the balance. When the international community floated the idea of a No-Fly Zone over Darfur in 2007, Sudan expert Julie Flint noted humanitarian agencies were “quietly but unanimously appalled by the prospect” and even if northern Sudan didn’t forcibly ground humanitarian flights in retaliation, “the United Nations most likely would, for fear of sending its planes into a potential combat zone.”

An ill-trained South Sudanese army firing surface-to-air missiles at planes that look like UN aircraft could easily ground UN flights in South Sudan and the border regions. Without access to life-saving humanitarian assistance, the 113,000 people already displaced in Abyei would suffer. Air defense systems might curtail northern Sudan’s onslaught of aerial bombardments, but they would not stop its ground forces or artillery batteries from launching equally deadly attacks against the South. In the end, arming South Sudan could endanger already vulnerable civilians, not protecting them.

Achol and Nyibach in Turalei, Sudan, one of the staging areas for humanitarian relief efforts

Deploying Antonov planes and fighter jets, ground troops, tanks, and government-aligned militias, the Sudanese government’s military offensive late last month in Abyei displaced upwards of 100,000 people. Abyei’s leaders, themselves displaced along with the majority of the area’s Ngok Dinka residents, estimated that 116 civilians were killed, but the death toll is difficult to determine because the government has restricted access.

But casualties like Achol and Nyibach aren’t simply “collateral damage” of a confrontation between the northern and southern armies. According to an internal U.N. memo, the ethnic make-up of the displaced, and accounts by those who fled, indicate a campaign by the Sudanese government to deliberately target civilians, with the aim of depopulating the Abyei area of residents that identify as southerners.

No sooner had the situation in Abyei tenuously stabilized -– with the northern and southern armies facing each other on either side of the river and tens of thousands of displaced southerners receiving aid – when fighting broke out just north of Abyei in Southern Kordofan, the North’s only oil-producing state. The military confrontation reportedly arose from a disarmament campaign gone afoul. But violence has now engulfed most of the state, prompting President Obama to issue an audio statement calling for an immediate ceasefire.

With South Sudan’s independence from the North just weeks away, the northern government led by President Omar al-Bashir, notorious for its targeting of civilians based on ethnicity and use of local militias to flame local tensions, seems set on destabilizing the border area in a last-ditch effort to back the southern government into a wall. Diplomats have been clear that the recent violence won’t derail the South’s secession, but much is still at stake in negotiations between the two sides over arrangements on combustible issues such as oil, citizenship, debt, and boundaries, including the status of Abyei.

Reports mount daily of atrocities carried out against civilians from the Nuba Mountains, northerners who sided with the South during the civil war. In addition to aerial bombardments -– often with rudimentary explosives made of oil drums pushed out the back of Antonovs –- government-aligned militias are reportedly going door-to-door abducting or executing people sympathetic to the South’s ruling party. In one particularly harrowing account, a U.N. security report described smuggling out Sudanese staff in commercial vehicles because the northern army wasn’t allowing them to be evacuated.

Analysts, including those at Enough, have long warned that Abyei and the tensions in Sudan’s border states could reignite war between the North and South. But until recently, it looked as though the rival governments had concluded that a return to war was not in their interest. Now, the ferocity of the violence and the targeting of civilians in Abyei and Southern Kordofan force a re-evaluation of that assumption.

As the purely rhetorical international response to Abyei proved, public shaming of Bashir’s government accomplishes nothing. But contrary to the belief voiced quietly in diplomatic circles that the Obama administration has used up what influence it had in Sudan, there is more the United States could do to demonstrate to Bashir’s government that there are consequences for targeting its own civilians.

A statement by the Enough Project and partners issued today outlines some of the specific actions the U.S. should take to pressure the Sudanese government to step back from a full-out war.

Just a few days ago, support appeared to be waning for imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. But last night, the U.N. Security Council authorized military intervention in Libya, passing a Chapter VII resolution that gives the United Nations permission to use “all necessary measures” to protect civilians.

Earlier this week, I wrote a post for the Enough Project comparing the international response to Libya and to Darfur – a topic that has stirred up strong frustration among some in the Sudan advocacy community.

Drawing comparisons across foreign policy issues has limited use, of course, because there is so much variation from one situation to the next and thus, they illicit different responses. But in recent years, as a growing consensus has formed around the idea that the international community does indeed have a “responsibility to protect,” an important question has remained: Can we actually get our acts together and effectively protect civilians?

The question is by no means answered yet. Despite the quick vocal response of the U.N. Security Council – less than a week – in the wake of Qaddafi’s deployment of fighter jets against regime opponents, the U.N.’s February resolution (including an ICC referral) and the strong condemnation by many governments has had little measurable impact on saving civilians in Libya. But yesterday’s actions are an encouraging sign that if there’s a common and genuine international will to respond, it’s possible to take collective steps to prevent further bloodshed.

In my post earlier this week, I noted that the U.N.’s hesitation to act decisively in response to the growing crisis unfolding in Darfur gave the Sudanese government time to wage their campaign against civilians.

By contrast, the urgency with which the international community reacted and began drawing up plans for how it might get involved in Libya sets an important new precedent for preventing atrocities and protecting civilians – one that should guide future responses, I argued.

The New York Times noted this significance reporting on last night’s vote:

Diplomats said the specter of former conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur, when a divided and sluggish Security Council was seen to have cost lives, had given a sense of moral urgency to Thursday’s debate. Yet some critics also noted that a no-fly zone authorized in the early 1990s in Bosnia had failed to prevent some of the worst massacres there, including the Srebrenica massacre.

A mentor of mine with ample foreign policy experience was also cautious about the suggestion of a trend toward a more proactive international response to civilians at risk. “The Pentagon still hates the idea, and I am still unconvinced that the international community has the will and resources to see any kind of military intervention and post conflict effort successfully through,” he wrote in an email. The fact that Libya erupted after a string of uprisings across the Middle East is also an important piece of context that made this situation unique. The international community had a bit of lead-time while watching events unfold in Egypt, Tunisian, and Bahrain.

In the last 24 hours, the U.N.’s actions appear to have had their desired effect. Faced with promised U.N. strikes against his military, Qaddafi today announced of a ceasefire. We’ll see what happens next.

Until recently, the conventional wisdom has been that a pro-independence referendum for southern Sudan was overwhelmingly likely to end in massive bloodshed. Now it looks like things may work out fairly happily. How’d it happen? Elizabeth Dickinson explains the American diplomacy at work:

In short, all the carrots that U.S. diplomats are offering the Sudanese president seem to be working. Among the prizes for Khartoum are a U.S. promise to remove Sudan from its list of terrorism-supporting states and a possible visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to the Sudan Tribune. Earlier this month, U.S. State Department officials also signaled that they would be ready to begin normalization following Sudan’s acceptance of the vote.

That’s great news for the south; as FP contributor Maggie Fick recently explained, normalization with Washington holds great appeal for Bashir — in fact, it’s a big part of his international agenda. So he’s likely to yield to U.S. pressure if it pays off. Bashir’s speech today gets Southern Sudan over one big hurdle toward declaring independence, which it is expected to formally do this July. The next test for U.S. pressure and Sudanese diplomacy is whether an equally congenial atmosphere will accompany talks over tricky issues such as border delineation and the sharing of Sudan’s oil.

The punchline here, sadly, is that normalization is a carrot that can really only be deployed once and so if we use it on behalf of Southern Sudan, our leverage over Darfur runs very thin.

Still, I think there’s a general lesson here. People sometimes look at something like the DPRK’s nuclear proliferation and conclude that there’s little the US can do to influence the behavior of other states short of threatening war. But while North Korea certainly highlights the limits of diplomacy in terms of coercing a profoundly determined actor, the right conclusion to draw is that most national leaders—even “bad guy” ones—don’t want their country to end up like North Korea.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe” about the likelihood genocide will take place in South Sudan, said George Clooney on the Today show last week. “Obviously, I’m an actor.” Clooney continued, “The Secretary of State said it’s a ‘ticking time bomb.’ The CIA said this is the next genocide if we’re not careful. The president has said as much. Everyone acknowledges that this is what will take place if someone doesn’t moderate, doesn’t mediate.”

Clooney seems to be keen to tell U.S. officials what they say they know but have, until recently, done surprisingly little to address. Clooney’s visit last week to southern Sudan alongside my boss, the Enough Project’s John Prendergast, has helped generate more attention to Sudan this week than, arguably, the U.S. has paid to the war-torn country since the gravest days of the Darfur conflict. “If you had had the opportunity three months ahead of time to prevent Darfur’s genocide, what would you have done?” they wrote in a Washington Post op-ed yesterday.

Next January — less than 90 days from now — the people of southern Sudan will vote in a referendum on whether to stay unified with the North or break away and form Africa’s newest country. It’s a choice that the ruling parties in the North and South agreed to in 2005 when they signed a peace deal that ended two decades of civil war in which 2 million people died. Southerners are expected to overwhelmingly vote for independence, taking with them large swaths of Sudan’s oil-rich territory. With so much at stake, many worry that war is brewing and will be set off by the momentous vote, or by obstacles that prevent it from taking place on time or at all.

Days before Clooney landed in the southern capital of Juba, President Obama made his most public commitment to Sudan since moving into the White House. At a gathering at the U.N. General Assembly, Obama delivered a 15-minute speech about Sudan, in which he promised to work closely with North and South to fully implement the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, hold spoilers accountable, whether they disrupt peace talks in Darfur or mettle with the southern referendum, and help develop the South so that it can provide for its citizens. He also noted the importance for the northern ruling party to follow through on its recent pledges to address security concerns and humanitarian access in Darfur.

Clooney’s advocacy blitz this week, which included meetings with Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Senators Lugar and Kerry, and over a dozen media appearances, is helping build the public support to hold Obama to those promises. Over 25,000 people have already sent letters to the president via SudanActionNow.org calling on him to “do everything you can” to prevent a return to war in Sudan. And the numbers are growing quickly.

During his speech at the United Nations, President Obama touted the increased U.S. diplomatic presence in the South, which has, slowly, been rolled out over the past several months. The U.S. government doubled its diplomatic presence in southern Sudan and now has the largest contingent there of any single country. Most notably, among the ranks is former Ambassador Princeton Lyman, whose long legacy in Africa earned him a role as a lead U.S. negotiator tasked with addressing the laundry list of contentious outstanding issues between the two sides. Deadlock over one particularly contentious area — Abyei, located on the North-South border — illustrates how challenging it will be to find common ground between northern and southern parties even with an infusion of U.S. attention and funds.

Almost a year to the day after the Obama administration unveiled its long-awaited Sudan policy — one that promised to adjust pressures and incentives toward the ruling parties of Sudan according to demonstrated progress or backsliding — it appears President Obama and his top officials are beginning to roll it out. Obama’s remarks at the U.N. were full of the “tough love” messaging that is a hallmark of his administration. He was unequivocal about where the responsibility for a smooth referendum lies:

We are here because the leaders of Sudan face a choice. It’s not the choice of how to move forward to give the people of Sudan the peace they deserve. We already know what needs to be done. The choice is for Sudanese leaders — whether they will have the courage to walk the path. And the decision cannot be delayed any longer.

The president’s personal involvement is encouraging. The hour is late, but there’s still time. The urgency that has seized his administration must be sustained to ensure that the will of the southern Sudanese people is respected and that Africa’s newest country — if that’s what the people choose — can emerge without provoking more war.

Omar al-Bashir (wikimedia)

For many years, Sudan had a vicious civil war between the northern-dominated central government and rebel movements based in the south. More recently the situation has calmed down thanks to peace agreements that, among other things, promise a referendum on independence. But as John Norris writes, there’s likely to be serious trouble ahead in the near future:

In 2011, Sudan is scheduled to hold a referendum that will allow South Sudan to vote on severing its ties with the North and declaring independence. Almost every observer has concluded that if this referendum happens, the South will vote overwhelmingly for independence, sundering in half the largest country in Africa (that’s why the road ahead could not be clearer). But it’s the actions taken now, by the Barack Obama administration, that may well determine if Sudan’s breakup occurs peacefully or is steeped in blood and a return to full-blown civil war.

The early signs are discouraging. There has been a sharp uptick in violent clashes in South Sudan of the same sort that have already killed hundreds this year. So dramatic is the escalation that the United Nations recently noted that the violence there is now worse than that in Darfur. There have been abundant allegations that the Sudanese government, headed by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir (who is still wanted on outstanding war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court), has been rapidly rearming proxy militias in the South to do Khartoum’s bidding. The use of proxy militias has long been a favorite tactic of the ruling party — both in Darfur and South Sudan. Officials from the South accuse Khartoum of distributing “thousands” of AK-47s in recent months. The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Sudan has also noted the presence of more modern and powerful weaponry in recent clashes than has traditionally been the case.

The notorious Lord’s Resistance Army from Uganda has also stepped up its level of activity in southern Sudan. It would make a lot more sense for the international community to try to intercede with the Sudanese government now before any gigantic humanitarian catastrophe emerges rather than doing the normal thing and ignoring a basically back-burner situation until calamity is already under way and extremely difficult to stop.

We all know about the August 2001 memo warning President Bush that terrorists were determined to strike inside the US. Thirty-six days later, they did. Well, today scientists tell us we have a ten-year window — if even that — before catastrophic climate change becomes inevitable and irreversible. We have to use the narrow window we have to forestall a crisis while we still can. We have to connect the dots, and we have to act. I agree with my friend Dick Armitage’s assessment on future national threats to the United States:

If I had to say what might be the biggest long term threat I’d say it might be climate change.

In 2007, eleven former Admirals and high-ranking generals issued a report from the Center for Naval Analysis warning that climate change is a “threat multiplier” with “the potential to create sustained natural and humanitarian disasters on a scale far beyond those we see today.” General Anthony Zinni, former commander of our forces in the Middle East, was characteristically blunt. He warned that without action — and I quote:

[W]e will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll.

Why? Because climate change injects a major new source of chaos, tension, and human insecurity into an already volatile world. It threatens to bring more famine and drought, worse pandemics, more natural disasters, more resource scarcity, and human displacement on a staggering scale. We risk fanning the flames of failed-statism, and offering glaring opportunities to the worst actors in our international system. In an interconnected world, that endangers all of us.

We all know Darfur’s genocide is a brutal choice made by leaders in Khartoum. But the conflict between the so-called “Arabs” and “Africans” has its roots in shifts in climate over the last four decades. Inch by inch, year by year, the desert consumed already scarce farmland, forcing farmers and herders to compete over ever-dwindling resources. Eventually the desert had grown by 60 miles, rainfall diminished by as much as 30%, and tensions arose. This is one example of how climate change contributes to a more dangerous world.

Nowhere is the nexus between today’s threats and climate change more acute than in South Asia–the home of Al Qaeda and the center of our terrorist threat. Scientists are now warning that the Himalayan glaciers, which supply water to almost a billion people from China to Afghanistan, could disappear completely by 2035. At a moment when the American government is scrambling to ratchet down tensions and preparing to invest billions to strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to deliver for its people—it’s infuriating to think that climate change could work so powerfully in the opposite direction.

Privately, we already hear the simmering resentment of diplomats whose countries bear the costs of our emissions. I can tell you from my own experience: it is real, and it is prevalent. It’s not hard to see how this could crystallize into a virulent, dangerous, public anti-Americanism. That’s a threat, too. Remember: the very places least responsible for climate change—and least equipped to deal with its impacts—will be among the very worst affected.

Closer to home, there is scarcely an instrument of American foreign policy that will be untouched by a changing climate. Diego Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean, a vital hub for our military operations across the Middle East, sits on an atoll just a few feet above sea level. Norfolk, VA, home to our Atlantic Fleet, will be submerged by one meter of sea level rise. All of our Navy’s piers are actually cemented to the ocean floor — which means that any rise in sea level will literally require the Navy to rebuild all of them. Are these problems insurmountable? No. But they will be expensive, and they risk compromising our readiness.

Unfortunately, not everyone in our domestic politics appreciates the stakes. So we live in a country where if you dismiss the threat posed by terrorism, you would be laughed out of the political mainstream. But if you dismiss the threat of climate change, you might just find yourself a leadership position inside the Republican Party. Armitage doesn’t think that “politicians have the courage to really take dramatic steps.” That needs to change.

If myself, Al Gore, and thousands of scientists and security experts and leaders around the world are wrong, we still have global development, clean air, vibrant new industries, healthier citizens, and no more addiction to the foreign oil that funds despots and terrorists. But if the deniers and delayers are wrong, we face not only a ravaged environment, but also a much more dangerous world. Folks, is there even a choice here?

The International Criminal Court, or ICC, has issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. This is good news. There was never any doubt that the wholesale attacks in Darfur against civilians carried out by janjaweed militias were directed and engineered from the presidential palace in Khartoum, and the court in many ways has only acknowledged the obvious.

What may be counter-intuitive to a lot of people: the warrants should make peace in Sudan more likely, not less. Why? As we saw with the earlier international indictments against Liberian President Charles Taylor and President Slobodan Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia, steps by the international community in support of accountability begin to change the fundamental political dynamics within a country while pushing the broader international community to actually resolve the situation.

Bashir may not end up in The Hague next week or next month, but the odds are good that he will eventually. Indeed, just look at the last week for international justices: senior rebel leaders who conducted heinous crimes in Sierra Leone were convicted for their acts; the prosecution team rested its case against Charles Taylor; and now the warrant has come down against Bashir. I was on a press call with David Crane earlier this morning (David was the founding Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone), and he rightly observed that over the last ten years, “we have moved incredibly, but fitfully, to face down the beast of impunity.”

“The [Palin] administration killed our bill,” said Alaska state representative Les Gara, D-Anchorage. Gara and state Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, co-sponsored a resolution early this year to force the Alaska Permanent Fund – a $40 billion investment fund, a portion of whose dividends are distributed annually to state residents – to divest millions of dollars in holdings tied to the Sudanese government.

In an e-mail later, Gara clarified that he believed opposition from the Palin administration helped kill his bill, but was not solely responsible for its death.

Bizarre.

This past Sunday afternoon, the government of Sudan bombed the village of Shegag Karo in North Darfur. One of the bombs fell on an elementary school, killing 6 children. Another bomb destroyed the town’s market, killing 6 civilians and wounding many more. On Monday morning, the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum issued a press statement. Did they condemn the attack as a brazen violation of international humanitarian law and a United Nations Security Council ban on offensive military flights over Darfur? No. In fact, the release commemorated the two-year anniversary of the Darfur Peace Agreement, a moribund and counterproductive deal which the Bush administration still counts as a diplomatic success.

That the administration is clinging to the Darfur Peace Agreement is not surprising; despite all of its lofty rhetoric and hand-wringing over the genocide in Darfur, the administration’s policy decisions have made little difference on the ground in Sudan. For the administration, the peace deal is something tangible. For the people of Darfur, the administration’s blind faith in the Darfur Peace Agreement is cruelly ironic. Civilians, like those in Shegag Karo, are subject to aerial bombardments and ground assaults by Sudanese soldiers and government-backed militias. Absent logistical support from the United States and other military powers, the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur is still too small and too feeble to offer any real protection. Worse, the Bush administration’s one real diplomatic achievement in Sudan, the landmark peace agreement that ended Sudan’s North/South civil war, is on the verge of collapse due to the Sudanese government’s refusal to implement key provisions.

Faced with Khartoum’s continued atrocities and intransigence, the U.S. government is responding with horse-trading and flattery. Last week, the Bush administration transferred two Sudanese detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Sudan, and the government of Sudan quickly released U.S. government shipping containers from customs. In another press release, the Embassy expressed “its sincere appreciation for the support and leadership of …NISS Director Salah Abdullah Ghosh in successfully concluding this matter of great mutual concern.” As head of National Security, Salah Ghosh is an important partner for the CIA on counterterrorism. But his “leadership” is also responsible for arming and training militias to attack civilians in Darfur, and, most likely, the decision to bomb Shegag Karo.

A U.S. Embassy spokesperson noted that with so much bad news in Sudan, the U.S. could issue press statements every day condemning the government of Sudan’s latest atrocities, its latest violation of a UN Security Council resolution, or its latest move to push the country back to full-scale civil war. Perhaps, but praising a war criminal’s “leadership” and staying mute while his victims bury their dead is worse than silence. It is shameful for America, insulting to the people of Darfur, and comforting to the murderous regime in Khartoum.

But Sudan remains on the State Department’s list as a state sponsor of terror. And as a result of state-sponsored genocide, hundreds of thousands of people have died in Darfur and 2.5 million more have been forced to flee their homes. On April 18 in a speech at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, President Bush criticized the Sudanese government:

Sudan’s government has moved arms to Darfur, conducted bombing raids on villages, they’ve used military vehicles and aircraft that are painted white — which makes them look like those deployed by humanitarian agencies and peacekeeping forces.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Olympia Snow (R-ME), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) wrote a letter today to National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell questioning the basis for the administration’s claim that Sudan “is a strong partner in the war on terror.” Feingold issued the following statement:

The Administration needs to explain why its recent terrorism report described the government of Sudan, a state sponsor of terrorism which has been behind the genocide in Darfur, as a “strong partner in the War on Terror.” As we seek to stop the genocide, it is critical that Congress have all necessary information related to this administration’s policies and priorities in Sudan.

In November 2001, Bush said partners in the war against terror networks would be put to a simple test: “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.” But today, when asked about the discrepancy in its Sudan policy, White House spokesman Tony Fratto replied: “Look, the situation in Sudan is complicated.”