"A Genocide Foretold" by Nicholas Kristof

A chilling editorial from Nick Kristof of the New York Times.

JUBA, Sudan - The Sudanese government started the first genocide of the 21st century in Darfur, and now it seems to be preparing to start the second here among the thatch-roof huts of southern Sudan.

South Sudan is rich in oil, but its people are among the poorest in the world, far poorer than those in Darfur. Only 1 percent of girls here finish elementary school, meaning that a young woman is more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than to become literate. Leprosy and Ebola linger here. South Sudan is the size of Texas, yet it has only 10 miles of paved road and almost no electricity; just about the only running water here is the Nile River.

The poverty is mostly the result of the civil war between North and South Sudan that raged across the southern part of the country for two decades and cost 2 million lives. For many impoverished villagers, their only exposure to modern technology has been to endure bombings by the Sudanese Air Force. The war finally ended, thanks in part to strong American pressure, in 2005 with a landmark peace agreement — but that peace is now fraying.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is backing away from the peace agreement, and prodding Arab militias to revive the war with the South Sudan military forces. Small-scale armed clashes have broken out since late last year, and it looks increasingly likely that Darfur will become simply the prologue to a far bloodier conflict that engulfs all Sudan.

Even my presence here is a sign of the rising tensions and mistrust. The Sudanese government refuses me visas, but the authorities in the south let me enter from Kenya without a visa because they want the word to get out that war is again looming.

The authorities in disputed areas such as the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State also welcomed me, rather than arresting me, even though those areas technically are on the northern side of the dividing line. Local officials in both areas warned that President Bashir and his radical Arab political party are preparing to revive the war against non-Arab groups in the south and center of the country.

"If things go on as they are now, war will break out," said Sila Musa Kangi, the commissioner of Kormuk in Blue Nile. "And it can break out at any time."

Although people speak of renewed "war," the violence is more likely to resemble what happens in a stockyard. If it is like the last time, government-sponsored Arab militias will slaughter civilians so as to terrorize local populations and drive them far away from oil wells.

Read the entire piece here.