Sudan's demand that the African Union's peacekeeping force in the Darfur refugee camps should not remain beyond its current mandate at the end of this month plunges the three million people residing there into a fresh humanitarian emergency.
Experienced and knowledgeable figures dealing with the crisis are appalled at the prospect that the Sudanese government itself should take over responsibility for their welfare. It has rejected last week's United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a new UN force of 17,300 troops and 3,300 police to be put in place of the AU one. Sudan rejects this on the basis that it is "part of a comprehensive conspiracy for confiscating the country's sovereignty", leading to another Iraq-type quagmire, with a new round of jihadi attacks against Western targets and which is, it says, intended to fulfil the United States's goal of changing the country's political regime.
Thus the stage is set for another round of fighting in a conflict which has already killed at least 300,000 and displaced 10 times that number within Sudan and into neighbouring Chad. It intensified in 2003 when Sudanese troops and militias attacked rebel forces in the south of the country. This continued a longer confrontation between Arab and Islamic peoples in the north of Sudan against the African and predominantly Christian peoples in the south for all but 11 years since the country became independent of British rule in 1956.
A political agreement reached last May failed to hold after it was rejected by one of the rebel groups. It has suited the Sudanese government to exploit this failure by rejecting the latest UN resolution, which was conditional on its support. It counts on the Chinese and Russians to prevent any sanctions and sees little international will to enforce a mandate that would give more effective protection to the refugees, much less secure their return home.
UN secretary general Kofi Annan said yesterday the Sudanese government would now be held responsible for the fate of these displaced people. In the light of all these facts their future is grim. A steady build-up of Sudanese troops in the disputed areas and renewed activity by the Janjaweed guerrillas they support against villagers and refugees heralds another round of tragic conflict.
It now falls to international political, non-governmental and media pressure to highlight the deadly threat to Darfur's people and ensure it does not materialise in coming months. If such pressure is not applied the pattern of shameful neglect and periodic attention which has characterised the international approach to the Darfur issue is set to be repeated.