by Russell H. Smith

Created on: April 10, 2008   Last Updated: January 12, 2009

As the world's arteries harden toward Africa you will often hear references to "Afro-pessimism", failed state, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Provocative language evoked by provocative deeds - conjuring up the dark side of humanity - and all too often characterizing the "Dark Continent". If the Congo as Joseph Conrad wrote in 1902 is the Heart of Darkness, then Sudan - Africa's largest nation- is the Heart of Despair.

Presiding over a state-sponsored campaign of systematic ethnic cleansing the Islamist regime of General Omar Hassan al-Bashir, favored a tactic employing scorched-earth policies. False-famine, manufactured by scuttling humanitarian aid, mass human displacement, promulgating slavery and the forced conscription of legions of child soldiers - to the familiar narrative of Arab against African - the all too familiar genocidal toll.

Wresting control of Sudan in a 1989 coup the al-Bashir regime; "has presided over the worst deterioration of human rights and civil liberties in the history war-torn Sudan" (Palmer 217) writes Ambassador Mark Palmer in "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil". As Darfur burst into flames 5-years ago enslaving 6 million inhabitants in a state of perpetual anarchy: Khartoum's Arab government and its proxy Islamic militias, where more than a match for the international communities response of 7,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers. As an out-gunned, ill-equipped, poorly mandated and inexperienced AU faced-off against talisman-clad Janjaweed marauders, allied with the Sudanese military - fighting rebel groups of the non-Arab settled African tribes.

Darfurians stood little chance. Some 200,000 have perished through violence, hunger and disease, and 2.5 million remain displaced since conflict erupted in 2003.

Saddled with the twin "curses" of oil and aid, the dictatorship of President al-Bashir ignores calls for any fair and equitable distribution of the countries wealth; blatantly stealing the former, while burning the latter. So as Khartoum the capital booms; "[W]ith low inflation, GDP growth of 8% in 2005 and 13% projected by the IMF this year, Sudan is one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa." (Economist 42) The copper and uranium abundant Darfur - oil rich south - and the strategic seaport in East Sudan, languish in abject poverty and despair.

Any long term prognosis also looks grim - not only for Sudan but also for its war-torn neighbors. The respected Foreign Policy Journal, publishing its "Failed State Index 2007", identifies

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