OneWorld.net (U.S.)

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 28 (OneWorld) - There can be no durable peace in the Sudanese region of Darfur unless major world powers take swift and effective measures to protect civilians and punish those responsible for committing crimes against humanity, say foreign policy experts in a new study released Tuesday.

© Africa ActionTitled "The Answer to Darfur: How to Resolve the World's Hottest War," the 28-page critical report holds Washington, Moscow, and Beijing mainly responsible for the international community's failure to address the issue of continuing violence and bloodshed in Darfur.

"Though it has garnered the concern and condemnation of governments worldwide and triggered unprecedented grassroots activism in the United States, the crisis in Darfur continues to intensify," says John Prendergast, the report's author and founder of the independent think tank ENOUGH, an organization that works closely with the International Crisis Group and the Washington, DC-based Center for American Progress.

In his analysis, Prendergast notes that over the past four years the Sudanese government has refused to listen to world opinion, partly because the Bush administration lacked a comprehensive strategy and partly because the broader international community adopted a policy towards Khartoum that required nothing more than "gentle persuasion."

Noting that both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government have repeatedly called the violence in Darfur "genocide," Prendergast sees the gulf between rhetoric and action on the part of the Bush administration as "profound." But, he says, there are indications that the White House is now willing to adopt a relatively tougher stance.

In Prendergast's view, one of the reasons the international community has so far failed to address the Darfur crisis is that some of the major world powers had diverse and conflicting economic and political interests in the region. While Washington's strategy was largely driven by its counter-terrorism concerns, both Moscow and Beijing adopted an approach that reflects their commercial relations with Khartoum.

The study suggests that a combination of "aggressive diplomacy" and targeted punitive measures, such as strict sanctions, is a must for successful international efforts to establish peace in the region. It also supports the view that coercive force should not be ruled out to achieve compliance from Sudan.

"The international community cannot credibly claim to have done enough," says Prendergast, "unless and until all measures have been employed to promote an effective and durable peace agreement, ensure the protection of civilians, and punish the perpetrators."

In Darfur, more than 200,000 people--and by some estimates over 400,000--have been killed and at least 2 million others forced from their homes since 2003 when the armed conflict began between rebel groups representing the interests of ethnic African tribes and the Khartoum-backed Janjaweed militias. A peace deal was signed last year by some of the warring parties, but it failed to deliver many positive results.

© Amnesty InternationalObservers say the Darfur conflict is now starting to spill over into the neighboring countries of Chad and the Central African Republic. On Tuesday, John Holmes, a top UN humanitarian official who met with senior government officials in Sudan, said he was concerned over how long a massive humanitarian response could be continued, as more and more newly displaced persons continued to flow into camps.

Noting that aid workers and civilians continue to be the victims of unpredictable and violent attacks, Holmes raised the issue of insecurity with government officials who acknowledged that "there are problems that need to be fixed and [they have] promised to take the concerns of the humanitarian community seriously."

"I feel there is a genuine commitment to work with the UN agencies and NGOs to address the concerns related to humanitarian access and space," Holmes told reporters in Khartoum.

The activist group Amnesty International is rallying more than 1,500 student groups and individuals this week to lobby Sudan's economic and political allies, including the United States and China, to press Khartoum to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur.

On the political front Tuesday, UN special envoy Jan Eliasson and African Union (AU) representative Salim Ahmed Salim held a series of meetings in Khartoum aimed at revitalizing the Darfur peace process.

The UN is deploying a "light support package" to buttress the AU peacekeeping force in Darfur, but plans for expanding the support under a three-phase approach have stalled over what one senior UN official termed "fundamental strategic differences" between the world body and Sudan.

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