As Sudan moves closer to making significant political choices in the near future (national elections in April 2010 and a referendum on southern independence in 2011), international efforts to establish firm peace agreements in Darfur and southern Sudan have accelerated.

Dedicated to addressing matters of peace, justice, and reconciliation in Darfur, the African Union Panel on Darfur, chaired by President Thabo Mbeki, plans to release its recommendations to Sudan and the African Union at the end of September. Meanwhile, Scott Gration, President Obama's Special Envoy to Sudan, is returning to the region this week to continue facilitating bilateral negotiations between the SPLM and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) that focus on achieving a full implementation of the CPA. These discussions will concentrate on resolving two contentious issues in the CPA: the use of the census results and an agreement on technical provisions regarding the 2011 referendum. In August, Gration witnessed the initial signing of the bilateral agreement.

Gration will also travel to Darfur to visit IDP camps in an effort to assess the humanitarian situation since the NGO expulsions and to meet with Darfur women leaders to discuss programs aimed at addressing gender-based violence.

In an unprecedented visit by an American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton visited Goma in eastern Congo this week, in order to call attention to the region's ongoing conflict, which is marked by extreme brutality and widespread sexual violence. Secretary Clinton's visit comes admit increased concern for the region, as hope vanishes that the combined Rwandan-Congolese operation launched last January against rebel groups would finally bring an end to the violence.

Instead, the joint military operation provoked revenge attacks and drove more than 500,000 people from their homes. The number of internally displaced persons in the Congo now stands at two million, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). A spike in rape cases since January is being blamed on the overstretched and unpaid Congolese army, with the number of rapes doubled or tripled in the areas government soldiers are deployed.

Just days before Secretary Clinton's arrival, Congo's President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame held a rare meeting on the border. Former rivals, the two leaders agreed to plan joint economic initiatives and to revive the Joint Permanent Commission for cooperation between the two countries that has not been in operation for 21 years.

View a new gallery of photographs recently taken by Museum staff traveling in the Congo and read in World is Witness about the young survivors of rebel attacks.

On July 30, the Museum updated its Google Earth initiative Crisis in Darfur with the latest U.S. Department of State data that sheds new light on the extent of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. It confirms that most villages were destroyed between 2003 and 2005, during the height of the brutal Sudanese government-backed campaign targeting civilians in Darfur.

Below is a breakdown of the number of villages attacked in Darfur by year or -- when it was not possible to determine the precise year -- by date range:

Villages Attacked by Year or Date Range

Unknown year: 382

2003:	580
2003-2004:	254
2004:	844
2004-2005	104
2005:	252
2005-2006:	174
2006:	540
2006-2007:	18
2007:	117
2007-2008:	8
2008:	76
2008-2009:	1
2009:	6

Total Villages: 3356
Total Villages with Corresponding Year: 2974

Total Damaged Villages: 516
Total Destroyed Villages: 2840

To view evidence of these destroyed villages in Darfur, visit Mapping Initiatives: Crisis in Darfur.

In July 2004, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum declared a “genocide emergency” in Darfur, Sudan. This week, after extensive research and an assessment of conditions on the ground, the Museum is changing its categorization of conditions in Sudan to a “genocide warning” for the entire country.

As part of its mandate, the Committee on Conscience at the Holocaust Museum is charged with alerting the national conscience and stimulating action to prevent or halt acts of genocide and related crimes against humanity. For some time now, we have evaluated situations based on three graduated categories of urgency:

Emergency: Acts of genocide or related crimes against humanity are occurring or immediately threatened.

Warning: Organized violence is underway that threatens to become genocide or related crimes against humanity.

Watch: The circumstances indicate a serious potential for the eruption of mass violence that would be within the Committee’s mandate.

Drawing distinctions between these alert levels is important, albeit difficult, because doing so helps shape the proper policy for saving lives. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide is defined as the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, religious or racial group through killing or other acts. It is a difficult crime to prove because of the high standard involved with documenting intent. It is also a very specific crime -- and should not be used as a catch-all term for all mass killing or atrocities.

Choosing how to categorize a particular situation, moreover, is not an exact science. At any given time, regrettably, there are often several wars or conflicts in the world where extreme violence against civilians is being perpetrated. Experts will often disagree where on the continuum to genocide a certain situation ought to be placed. Here at the Holocaust Museum, we pay extremely close attention to the facts on the ground in order to arrive at our own judgments.

Mindful of the power of the word genocide, we have always tried to be judicious. As the scale of the violence in Darfur became increasingly apparent in 2003 and 2004, circumstances demanded that we place the situation at our highest level of alert. The Sudanese government and allied militias conducted a series of offensives that drove civilians in the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit ethnic groups off their lands. More than two million people were displaced from their homes, and the government obstructed the delivery of humanitarian assistance from international groups. Mortality rates skyrocketed: the World Health Organization estimated that up to 200,000 people died during this period.

While reasonable people disagreed with our assessment -- the United Nations, for instance, never labeled the events in Darfur a “genocide” -- we strongly believe that our “emergency” designation was accurate.

But now conditions in Sudan have changed. Although violence persists in Darfur, it is of a different character, with rebel groups and criminal elements responsible for violence along with the Sudanese government. The Sudanese government has halted major offensives against civilian groups. Humanitarian assistance is being provided. Mortality rates have been significantly reduced: The United Nations estimates that about 1,500 people died as a result of violence in each 2007 and 2008. New satellite assessments by the U.S. government, highlighted in “Crisis in Darfur”, the Museum’s initiative with Google Earth, clearly show the level of destruction of Darfurian villages has decreased from the height of the Sudanese government’s systematic military campaign between 2003 and 2005.

The situation across Sudan remains perilous. In Darfur, millions remain at risk in displaced persons camps because it is too dangerous to return home, and those chiefly responsible for the crimes in Darfur remain in power in Khartoum. Furthermore, we are deeply concerned about the situation in South Sudan, where hundreds of civilians have been killed in fighting over the past several months. Over the course of the next year, the country faces significant political challenges -- with national elections and a referendum on southern independence. Our concerns focus on the challenges for Sudan as a whole and the imminent risks to large segments of the civilian population. By our own criteria, we believe it is most accurate to place Darfur and the rest of Sudan in our “genocide warning” category.

We also believe that the Sudanese government must be held accountable for its past and current behavior. The International Criminal Court has sought an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir and other Sudanese officials for their roles in orchestrating violence in Darfur. When this warrant was issued in March, the government responded by evicting 13 humanitarian organizations working in displaced persons camps -- another possible violation of international law. This is unacceptable: the Sudanese government must fulfill its responsibility to protect its own citizens.

We recognize that there is a significant public debate about how to describe what is happening in Darfur. We will continue to closely monitor conditions in Sudan, and we are ready to raise our alert level if necessary. Our hope is that an accurate description of the evolving situation will help elicit the appropriate policy and public response -- and lives will be saved.

--- Mike Abramowitz, Director of the Committee on Conscience

On July 30, the Museum updated its Google Earth initiative Crisis in Darfur with the latest U.S. Department of State data that sheds new light on the extent of the genocide in Darfur.

The new data shows that more than 3,300 villages have been damaged or destroyed, primarily between 2003-2005, in the Darfur region of Sudan. This is more than twice the number that was identified in previous U.S. government assessments and strengthens the evidence of a vast, targeted campaign of destruction against civilians.

This is the most detailed picture to date of the scope and nature of the destruction that occurred during the genocide in Darfur and after. That thousands of villages were destroyed has been known for some time; this data documents the true enormity of the destruction. The data also includes hundreds of "before and after" satellite images of villages throughout Darfur, as well as additional details about when the villages were destroyed. This data also confirms that most villages were destroyed between 2003 and 2005, during the height of the brutal Sudanese government-backed campaign targeting civilians in Darfur.

Stay tuned for additional features in Crisis in Darfur, including a narrated flyover tour and a map of destroyed villages by year.

To access the Crisis in Darfur layers in Google Earth, visit Mapping Initiatives: Crisis in Darfur.

Learn more about the current situation in Sudan; view the press release announcing the update; and read about it in The Washington Post.

Not long ago, a Chechen man named Nazir was visited by armed men in camouflage uniforms who gathered boards to start a bonfire alongside his home. Realizing what was about to happen, Nazir pleaded, "Why do I have to pay for the crimes of my relatives over whom I have no influence? But if this has been decided, I can't do anything about it. However, please listen to me. My roof touches my neighbor's roof. If you start burning my house, the fire will spread over to my neighbor's house." Considering the problem, the armed men patiently called a contractor to come separate the roofs before they set fire to Nazir's house. There was no doubt that they acted with deliberation and impunity.

Nazir's experience was not unique. A new Human Rights Watch report documents punitive house-burning, where families of insurgents have been intimidated and their homes burned down by local Chechen law enforcement personnel in targeted arson attacks across Chechnya.

In August 2008, the mayor of Grozny, Muslim Khuchiev, announced on television:

"In the future, if your relatives commit an act of evil, this evil will be brought upon you, your other family members and even your descendants... The evil perpetrated by your relatives from the woods will come back to your own houses and in the very near future every one [of you] will feel it on your own back."

Written in cooperation with the Russian human rights NGO Memorial, the report details these cases and confirms that they are perpetrated mainly by "law enforcement and security personnel under the de facto control of the republic's president, Ramzan Kadyrov."

The July 2009 report, "What Your Children Do Will Touch Upon You", is available at HRW's website here.