The Sudanese government and southern rebels signed a peace agreement today to end the 21-year civil war in the south. "The accord between the mainly Muslim and Arab north (the base for the government) and the mainly Christian and animist south is intended to pave the way for a comprehensive ceasefire and a six-year transition period leading to a referendum on independence for the south." (Guardian, May/27).
But as Human Rights Watch appeals, this must not deflect criticism of the government's ongoing campaign of “ethnic cleansing” in the western region of Darfur, and one of the worst humanitarian problems we are faced with presently. A recent editorial explains the situation:

The violence in Sudan began a year ago, when two rebel groups in Darfur -- the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) -- attacked government military installations. The rebels were protesting raids by local militias, or the Janiaweed ("men on horseback"), who were suspected of acting on behalf of the government. The Sudanese government responded with a "scorched earth" campaign, and stepped up support for the Janiaweed.
It is estimated that more than 1 million Sudanese have been forced from their homes in the Darfur region. More than 120,000 are said to have crossed the border into neighboring Chad; the rest are internal refugees. They come from the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, members of the region's ethnic majority. They are Black Muslim peasants. The Janiaweed are Arab nomads. That difference is reported to be the reason for the Khartoum government's support of the militias. (...)
Earlier this month, Acting U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Bertrand Ramcharan made the case for action in a closed-door briefing. Speaking to the press afterward, Mr. Ramcharan charged the Sudanese government with adopting a scorched earth policy and condoning, if not committing, "repeated war crimes and crimes against humanity." Apparently, senior Sudanese officials admitted in private that they "recruited, uniformed, armed, supported and sponsored the militias."
The Security Council's failure to act is sad. But that failure, coming less than a decade after inaction permitted genocide to occur in Rwanda, makes the world body an accomplice to the crimes being committed. The U.N. cannot claim ignorance of what is happening. It has the information it needs. It also knows all too well what the price of inaction will be: slaughter.
Politics lies at the root of the U.N.'s inaction. African and Arab states have backed the Sudan government's claim that this is an internal matter. The same nations backed Khartoum's successful effort to win a third consecutive term on the U.N. Human Rights Commission. What credibility can that organization have when its members slaughter their own citizens? (Japan Times May/27)

The report from Human Rights Watch explains further:

As recently as [May, 24], Arab militias attacked five villages 15 kilometers south of Nyala in Darfur, killing 46 civilians and wounding at least nine others, according to local sources. The militias, known as Janjaweed, were accompanied by government soldiers in three Land Cruisers armed with antiaircraft artillery. Human Rights Watch has extensively documented how the Janjaweed have been armed, trained, and uniformed by the Sudanese government.
The framework peace agreement to be signed today in Naivasha, Kenya, was negotiated between the Sudanese government and the southern-based rebels, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). It brings the parties significantly closer to ending the civil war between the Khartoum government and the southern-based rebels that since 1983 has cost 2 million lives, most of them southerners. Negotiations on security arrangements and implementation remain.
The peace negotiations were conducted for nearly two years under the auspices of the InterGovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and with the mediation of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway. Although the agreement includes provisions on the structure of the Sudanese government and oil revenue sharing during an interim six-and-a-half-years’ period, no other rebel groups or political parties were included in the negotiations.
Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution requiring the Sudanese government to disarm, disband, and withdraw the Janjaweed from the areas they have occupied, and to bring them to justice for gross human rights abuses perpetrated against civilians. On May 25, the Security Council issued a strong presidential statement on Darfur expressing “deep concern” at reports of widespread attacks on civilians, rapes, forced displacement, and other violence, especially that “with an ethnic dimension.” It demanded that those responsible be held accountable. It failed, however, to identify any party responsible for the attacks, although it did condemn “these acts which jeopardize a peaceful solution to the crisis.” (Humand Rights Watch, May/26)

Al Gore, the former VP and flat presidential candidate, has once again used MoveOn
as a platform to make very strong statements against Bush Jr., a practice that he has found easier when out of professional politics. On this occasion, he uses the torture in Abu Ghraib to make broader criticism of his foreign policy.

George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world. (...) There is good and evil in every person. And what makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our natural distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have lead us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations more than the people any other nation. (...)
Listen then to the balance of internal impulses described by specialist Charles Graner when confronted by one of his colleagues, Specialist Joseph M. Darby, who later became a courageous whistleblower. When Darby asked him to explain his actions documented in the photos, Graner replied: "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the Corrections Officer says, 'I love to make a groan man piss on himself."
What happened at the prison, it is now clear, was not the result of random acts by "a few bad apples," it was the natural consequence of the Bush Administration policy that has dismantled those wise constraints and has made war on America's checks and balances.
The abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib flowed directly from the abuse of the truth that characterized the Administration's march to war and the abuse of the trust that had been placed in President Bush by the American people in the aftermath of September 11th.