Sudan's diversity means that the carnage defies easy characterization. But the effects in terms of shattered lives are all too plain. Indeed, many see the appalling toll and say that genocide is not a threat, it is a reality. Whether genocide is actual or threatened, the moral imperative to respond is overwhelming. We cannot remain bystanders as this remorseless fire consumes the people of Sudan.
Recent events indicate that the government is poised once again to use mass starvation as a tactic.
Threats this summer by Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir to cut off U.N.-sponsored relief flights to the south were followed by government bombing attacks on civilians, humanitarian workers and relief planes on the ground. The resulting disruption of U.N. and other aid operations put thousands of civilians at risk of starvation. A 1998 famine in the southern province of Bahr el-Ghazal that was attributable to human rights abuses and flight bans killed tens of thousands of Dinka and others. And as bad as the situation already is, it promises to get worse. In late 1999, the Sudanese government began earning hundreds of millions of dollars from new oil production, made possible in part by Western oil companies such as Talisman Energy.