Saturday, July 22, 2006; A16
THE GENOCIDE in Sudan's western territory of Darfur shows no sign of ending. Diplomatic efforts to convert the underpowered African Union peacekeeping force into a somewhat more serious United Nations one have stalled. The Bush administration's point man on the crisis, Robert B. Zoellick, has left the State Department for Wall Street, and a fragile agreement he negotiated has failed to improve anything for Darfur's vulnerable people. It's good that, even as the world's attention has shifted to Lebanon, President Bush met Thursday with Salva Kiir Mayardit, the leader of the southern Sudanese rebel group that fought the northern government for 21 years until a peace deal last year. But nothing about Mr. Kiir's message is encouraging.
Since signing that peace deal 18 months ago, Sudan's ruling clique of northerners has brought Mr. Kiir and a handful of other southerners into government. But that's just about all it's done. The southerners have important titles but little real power, and the hope that their political inclusion would soften the regime's draconian repression of opponents in Darfur and elsewhere has proved empty. The peace deal required the reform of the government's security apparatus. But Human Rights Watch reports that multiple shadowy agencies continue to torture and commit other abuses.
A key part of the peace deal concerned the sharing of revenue from Sudan's oil fields. A border commission created to demarcate the oil-rich Abyei region ruled that many of its oil fields belonged to the south -- so the northerners broke with the terms of the deal and disregarded the commission's findings. The south is supposed to get half of Sudan's oil revenue. But Mr. Kiir has complained that southerners have not been shown production or revenue figures, so they can't determine whether they've received their fair share or not.
It's hard to believe that conditions in Sudan, the scene of this century's first genocide, could get any worse. But if the north-south peace deal unravels, a new wave of massacres could begin, with the government falling back on its habitual tactic of arming local militias and unleashing them on civilians. Mr. Bush, who has pledged repeatedly to do everything possible to end Sudan's suffering, must not let this disaster happen. He must ensure that a senior member of his foreign policy team takes on the Sudan portfolio. And he must insist that Sudan's government live up to its commitments under last year's north-south peace deal and that it drop its objections to the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur.