International Crisis Group - Sudan: Divide and Destroy in Darfur

International Crisis Group - Sudan: Divide and Destroy in Darfur: "Negotiating the end of a war is tricky enough. But in the case of Darfur, mediators were also faced with the implicit task of ending what the Bush administration calls genocide, and what nobody can deny have been gross crimes against humanity.

Such a tall order, coupled with an abrupt negotiating deadline, produced an agreement that leaves more questions than answers. And unless a United Nations force is deployed immediately to guarantee its implementation, it will also leave over two million homeless Darfurians vulnerable to further exploitation.

One question without a rational answer is why it took so long to broker this deal. When the U.S., UK and African Union finally set a deadline and committed high level support to the process, it took just weeks to finalize a deal. Why didn't this happen a year and a half ago? Up to two hundred thousand lives could have been saved, and the dynamics on the ground would have been more amenable to reconciliation and reconstruction.

Once a deadline was announced and attention galvanized, the mediators tilted their proposals in favor of the government because they recognized the regime's dominant position on Darfur's battlefield. But if that power imbalance is left unchecked, it will allow the government to continue its divide and destroy approach to dealing with its opposition throug"