Jimmy Carter Confronts Sudan Officials

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, second from right, is accompanied by an unidentified senior Sudanese General into the residence of the governor of North Darfur, El Fasher, Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 2, 2007. A group of elder statesmen, including former U.S. President Carter and Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu, urged all sides in Darfur's bloodshed to reach a peace deal as they began touring the region Tuesday. (AP Photo/Alfred de Montesquiou) (Alfred De Montesquiou - AP)

The group made Darfur its first mission, trying to use their influence at a crucial time in the conflict. A peacekeeping force of 26,000 United Nations and African Union troops is to begin deploying later this month while new peace talks between the government and rebels are set for the end of the month in Libya.

Tensions in Darfur are running high after rebels overran an African Union peacekeeping base in northern Darfur over the weekend, killing 10 in the deadliest attack on the beleaguered force since it arrived in the region three years ago.

Tutu led a separate group to a refugee camp in South Darfur, where he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio the joint African Union-U.N. force was needed immediately.

"It's awful that AMIS (African Mission in Sudan) should be allowed to be here when it is so inadequately equipped _ I mean they couldn't evacuate their injured from the camp after the attack because they don't have military helicopters," he said, referring to the weekend attack on the African Union base.

Carter accused the international community of neglect for taking too long to mobilize over Darfur.

"Because of Iraq, this crisis had been simmering at a lower level," he told the AP.

However, he said he disagreed with Bush and others who called the killings in Darfur a genocide.

"Rwanda was definitely a genocide; what Hitler did to the Jews was; but I don't think it's the case in Darfur," Carter said. "I think Darfur is a crime against humanity, but done on a micro scale. A dozen janjaweed attacking here and there," he said, noting many refugees have survived the violence.

"I don't think the commitment was to exterminate a whole group of people, but to chase them from their water holes and lands, killing them in the process at random," he said. "I think you can call it ethnic cleansing."

He also vowed to hold world powers to their pledge of ending this "crime against humanity."