After nearly three years of violence in the Darfur region of Sudan that the US calls genocide, the administration of US President George W. Bush, aid officers and other experts acknowledge that the international efforts to stanch the bloodshed cannot succeed.
Even with nearly 7,000 African Union peacekeeping troops stationed in Darfur, and more on the way, the only hope the US holds for an end to the violence, senior officials said, is sputtering peace talks that have produced no tangible results in 16 months and are dissolving into a bitter power struggle among competing rebel factions.
At the same time, more than 100 members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, are accusing the administration of appeasing the Sudanese government, despite its complicity in the deaths of at least 200,000 people in Darfur.
A sudden spasm of violence in the last month -- including the first killings of peacekeeping troops -- has taken hundreds of additional lives and sent at least 10,000 more Sudanese fleeing to refugee camps, further swelling the unmanageable multitude of displaced people. Last week, Antonio Gutteres, the UN high commissioner for refugees, called it "a very serious degeneration of the situation."
In Darfur, desperate refugees are now kidnapping Sudanese aid workers and holding them hostage in their teeming camps to gain attention for their grievances.
International aid workers trying to feed more than 2 million refugees say the roads in Darfur are so crowded with bandits and killers that they have to deliver food by air. But the Sudanese government has suddenly cut off supplies of jet fuel.
Anti-government rebels in Darfur are carrying out attacks in vehicles painted as if they carry aid workers. Government forces are attacking and strafing civilians from aircraft again, after promising the UN this year that they would ground their air force in Darfur.
"You can never really secure this area until you create a peace accord," Robert Zoellick, the deputy secretary of state, said.
He called all other steps merely "holding actions" intended to "minimize the violence." Zoellick planned to leave for Sudan on Sunday, his fourth trip this year, to make another effort to end the fighting.
In an interview on Friday, he elaborated, saying, "the most that can be expected of the African Union forces is a rough peace."
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