Demagogue

Jan Pronk, says he thinks the UN Security Council will adopt a resolution soon authorizing a 10,000 strong peacekeeping mission to help implement the North/South peace agreement.

Human Rights Watch says that, while the peace agreement is welcome, it has a major problem

There is, however, an important flaw in the deal. Under the terms of the Naivasha agreement, senior members of the Sudanese government responsible for heinous policies and abuses in southern Sudan get off scot-free.

HRW also says that, if the UN determines that genocide is taking place, those responsible ought to be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court - but warns that the Bush administration, given their hatred of the ICC, might try to veto such action.

Sen. Russ Feingold is touring Africa, including refugee camps in Chad housing thousands of refugees from Darfur.

Passion of the Present informs us that PBS's "FRONTLINE/World" will be airing a story on Darfur tonight

In "The Quick and the Terrible," FRONTLINE/World reporter Amy Costello travels to Sudan, where war in the western region of Darfur has claimed more than 70,000 lives and produced more than two million refugees. Costello travels with troops from the African Union (AU)—the only peacekeeping force operating in Sudan. She also tours Darfur’s sprawling refugee camps, meets with the Janjaweed, Arab nomad militias who have been accused of raping and killing innocent civilians and burning their villages, and later meets members of the Sudanese Liberation Army, who are battling Sudan’s government. Back in the capital of Khartoum, Costello interviews Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail about the charge of genocide.

As the crisis escalates, Costello tours a refugee camp recently bulldozed by the Sudanese government, who say they want the refugees to return to their villages. Walking the ruined landscape of the Al Jeer camp, Costello says, “It is hard to imagine any words, even one as powerful as genocide, fixing such a broken place."

The Wall Street Journal offers this editorial

Rather than serving "as an inspiration and model" for negotiating peace in Darfur, as Mr. Powell advocated, Sunday's deal might actually have the opposite effect. Some observers fear it might be nothing but a diplomatic smokescreen, designed to confuse Sudan 's critics and to make it harder for the U.S. to call for tough U.N. action against the regime.

Senators John Corzine and Sam Brownback offer this op-ed in the Washington Post

While we are rightly focused on one of the worst natural disasters ever, the tsunami tragedy, we cannot afford to divert our attention from one of the worst man-made tragedies of our lifetimes: the genocide in Darfur. It has been five months since Congress declared that genocide was occurring in that region of western Sudan. Since then, however, the situation has deteriorated. The fighting between the government in Khartoum and the rebels in Darfur has escalated. Peace talks have collapsed, and even relief organizations such as Save the Children have pulled out of the region. There is now a real risk of its falling into chaos. Hundreds of thousands of displaced persons are cut off from humanitarian assistance. There has been no progress in controlling the militias carrying out raids on civilian populations; violence against these people, including the rape of women and girls, continues with impunity.