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During the past year, media coverage and popular interest in the war zone of southern Sudan and the ravaged western Darfur region have fizzled. After last year's Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, casual observers may have assumed that the situation was improving.
It hasn't.
Women are still threatened with rape from invading Janjaweed militiamen. Men are being castrated and mutilated and hacked to death. No village or camp inside Sudan has proven adequate to protect individuals from brutal attacks.
Even those refugees who have successfully fled Sudan remain under threat in their host country. Many are being returned to their home region, despite ongoing violence and a persistent lack of protection from the Sudanese government in Khartoum.
To make matters worse, conflicts are spilling across borders, and many Chadians are fleeing into Darfur. And people call the Middle East the world's least stable region. How about northern and central Africa?
Right now there is a sizeable contingent of African Union peacekeeping soldiers in Sudan, but their efficacy is questionable.
Peacekeeping operations have inspired skepticism since at least 1995. That was the massacre at Srebrenica, a small Bosnian town between Belgrade and Sarajevo that was declared a ``safe area'' by United Nations peacekeepers. Serbian forces soon overran the area and executed thousands of Muslim men and boys.
After the massacre, the Serbian general, Ratko Mladic, met with the commander of the Dutch peacekeepers and forced a toast ``to a long life.'' It served as a powerful demonstration of both the power of the Serb forces and the unflinching inhumanity embodied by Mladic. Few questioned the Serbs' motives after the massacre and the drink.
Now there's talk of increasing the size of the force in Sudan. The African Union can only fund its endeavor through March, and many are pushing for a United Nations force to replace them.
Of course, Khartoum refuses to admit any fault in this, contradicting piles of evidence linking it to the murderous - no, genocidal - militias terrorizing the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Darfur. Expectedly, Sudan's government is vehemently opposing a U.N. contingent.
And they're not alone. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and President Moamer Kadhafi of Libya both came out in support of a continued African Union contingent. They emphasized the importance of an A.U. force ``without any outside intervention.'' Al-Qaida has even threatened attacks on any UN peacekeeping force.
The A.U. troops have to be replaced eventually, as they're running out of money. The question is whether to send UN peacekeepers and put Western soldiers in harm's way, or withdraw completely and focus on sanctions.
John Bolton, United States envoy to the U.N., is pushing for the sanctions while not outrightly opposing the peacekeepers. He supports key recommendations from a U.N.-appointed panel to target individuals who have a prominent role in funding and arming the militias, as well as carrying out the brutal attacks.
But two permanent members of the Security Council - China and Russia - are opposing the sanctions. China has oil interests in the region, and Russia is virtually categorically opposed to sanctions and has a history of arms sales to Sudan. So sanctions aren't a sure thing, either.
It seems the expanded peacekeeping mission could be the most attainable measure in the near future. President George W. Bush recently proposed $500 million more for Darfur as part of a larger special budget request to Congress. His plan for an additional 7,000 peacekeeping troops, doubling the current force, and a greater role for NATO deserves attention. It demonstrates a welcome focus on a grim situation.
This isn't to imply that such a peacekeeping force would be easy to implement. Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir has gone so far as to threaten those soldiers and nations that might participate in such a force. Last weekend he said, ``We are strongly opposed to any foreign intervention in Sudan, and Darfur will be a graveyard for any foreign troops venturing to enter.''
Much like it's a graveyard for hundreds of thousands of men, women and children today.
Despite America's reluctance to send its soldiers on peacekeeping missions, now is not the time to back down. El-Bashir is raising his glass, toasting his own long life and, implicitly, the short life of those who have suffered under his rule.
If we don't focus on proper responses to the humanitarian disaster in Darfur, we'll be left with another Rwanda, another Srebrenica, another example of the inadequacy and indifference of the international community.
So here's to the end of genocide in Darfur. Please, drink up.
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