Although the UN has committed to providing some additional resources to the AU, these cannot transform or even substantially change the character of the present crumbling force.

We must be very clear about the implications of a refusal, under present circumstances, to move urgently to non-consensual deployment of the forces that can actually protect civilians and humanitarians, particularly as reports continue to stream in about the extent of Khartoum's present military offensive in North and West Darfur, the regime's indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilian villages, and the continuing contraction of humanitarian operations. As UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland warned the Security Council over three weeks ago (coincidentally, the very day that Khartoum launched its long-anticipated military offensive): "I cannot give a starker warning than to say that we are at a point where even hope may escape us and the lives of hundreds of thousands could be needlessly lost." To ensure that the scale of human destruction was not missed, Egeland reiterated: "Our entire humanitarian operation in Darfur -- the only lifeline for more than three million people --is presently at risk....If the humanitarian operation were to collapse, we could see hundreds of thousands of deaths."

Egeland's time-frame was "weeks, not months." Two weeks later, he described humanitarian assistance in Darfur as "in free-fall." Humanitarian withdrawals continue, as do ever-more radical contingency plans for total evacuation from large parts of Darfur. Over 1 million people have only the most tenuous access to humanitarian assistance. In North Darfur, almost 400,000 people have been without food aid for over three months because of insecurity.

Previous and current civilian destruction in Darfur has been overwhelmingly caused by Khartoum and its Janjaweed militia allies, although the Abuja peace agreement exacerbated in-fighting among the rebel groups, and this too has been immensely destructive. But Khartoum's comprehensive, ethnically-targeted destruction of non-Arab or African populations, as well as their food reserves, water sources, and agricultural resources, is the source of the vast majority of human displacement, as well as the acute needs for food, medicine, shelter, and clean water. The systematic, intentional destruction of the past three and a half years by this ruthlessly survivalist regime constitutes genocide.

The people of Darfur are nominally protected by the emerging international norm of a "responsibility to protect" civilians who are victims of genocide, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity in a country whose government either will not protect them or is itself engaged in these international crimes. The UN unanimously declared as much in the "outcome document" of the UN World Summit of September 2005 -- and did so in a fashion to supersede claims of national sovereignty such as Khartoum defiantly makes. Under the current, unsurpassably urgent circumstances, the international community either finds the commitment and resources to protect the people of Darfur, or we must accept that this document, as well as the very notion of a "responsibility to protect," was stillborn.

Eric Reeves is Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. He has spent the past seven years working full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst, publishing extensively both in the US and internationally. He has testified several times before the Congress, has lectured widely in academic settings, and has served as a consultant to a number of human rights and humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan. Working independently, he has written on all aspects of Sudan's recent history. He has recently received a generous grant from the Humanity First Initiative of the Omidyar Network to support his research and travel. The flexibility of Smith College has allowed him to take a number of semesters as leave without pay. He is presently at work on a book surveying the international response to ongoing war and human destruction in Sudan ("Sudan -- Suffering a Long Way Off").