The United Nations Security Council at long last has agreed to send a peacekeeping force to Darfur. The decision to send "blue helmets" is a critical step in the attempt to bring peace to the troubled region. But peacekeepers are only a means to an end. Real peace depends on a political settlement and this endeavor continues to be a dialogue of the deaf.

Fighting broke out in southern Sudan in February 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum in their quest for more autonomy. The government responded with a counterinsurgency campaign that has been considered genocidal by some observers. The intensity of the conflict has been magnified by the ethnic and religious cleavages in the east African nation; it pits blacks against Arabs, Christians against Muslims. Estimates of the number of people killed range from 200,000 to nearly half a million and more than 2 million others have been forced into camps or across the border.

The Sudan government has been condemned internationally for its use of militia, the Janjaweed, that have been especially brutal. Despite resounding international condemnation, the Khartoum government has been adamant in its denial of any wrongdoing. It dismisses the death toll as inflated — its figures indicate that just 9,000 people have died — and rejects charges that it bears any responsibility for the atrocities — that can be proven — by the Janjaweed.