Despite the recent successful peace agreements reached with the southern rebels after 20 years of fighting, the Arab/Muslim-dominated government of Sudan now has the opportunity to turn its full attention to the Darfur crisis in the west that apparently just falls short of the United Nations? official criteria for the definition of ?genocide?. This past October, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan tasked Italian judge Antonio Cassese to investigate the violence in Darfur to determine if the Sudanese government had embarked on a policy and funded activities to destroy any national, ethnical, racial or religious group within its border. Though Cassese?s report is due to be released publicly later this week, as of January 31, 2005, word had leaked that Sudan would not be collared with the ?genocide? label, prompting Annan to comment: ?Regardless of how the commission describes what is going on in Darfur, there is no doubt that serious crimes have been committed.? Publicly sympathetic to instituting sanctions against the regime, Annan concluded, ?Action will have to be taken.?

The Darfur region fell under international scrutiny over the past two weeks when vague reports started circulating in the press on January 19, 2005 that violence violating the regional ceasefire had erupted resulting in numerous civilian casualties. It became clear that the Darfur village of Hamada had nearly been obliterated by a Sudanese Air Force bombing, which resulted in over 100 deaths and prompted the flight of some 8,000 refugees. Sudan Interior Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein eventually admitted to the press that a bombing, in fact, took place, noting, ?Armies all over the world have committed mistakes and it is possible that an isolated bombing took place. If this is so, we will punish the offenders.? As horrific as the government attack was, a US State Department spokesman also condemned not only the continuing attacks on black African Christian and animist villages by the government-backed Arab/Muslim Janjaweed but also the Darfur rebel group Sudanese Liberation Movement and Army for attacks in the region as well.

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