The situation in Darfur is grim.

Former U.S. Senator Rudy Boschwitz laments that just 7,000 African Union troops are confronting the monumental task of averting genocide in a region of Sudan “about the size of Iraq… or Texas.” Meeting with the Minnesota Interfaith Darfur Coalition last week, the current UN Human Rights ambassador said, “We despair at what can be done.”

Politicians across the political spectrum–from Sen. Sam Brownback to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and even George W. Bush–have called the systematic killing, rapes, and destruction in Darfur “genocide,” a crime under international law that United Nations members have sworn to prevent.

So why, almost four years into the current conflict and 400,000 deaths later, are attacks backed by Sudan’s government continuing in Darfur? And what can be done to stop them?

A deeper understanding of Darfur’s precarious position shows a complicated confluence of interests and histories–and underscores how elusive hope for stability in the near future is. But as members of the interfaith committee meeting weekly at Minneapolis’ Temple Israel or activists at global organizations like the Genocide Intervention Network are finding, there are firm steps that can be taken in 2007. Whether they, if enacted, will make a difference is another matter.

Part 2 of a multipart series on Minnesota’s response to the Darfur crisis. Read Part I.

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Darfur, a region on the westernmost edge of the north African country of Sudan, is wedged between conflicting factions–racial, religious, economic. The government, based in the north central city of Khartoum, is controlled by Arabs, who comprise around 40 percent of the population. Southern Sudan, home to most of the country’s oil fields, is 60 percent African. Ever since Sudan gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1956, the south has sought greater autonomy and control of its resources and has mounted nearly continuous rebellions against the wealthy Khartoum government of the north.

A civil war, ended through pressure by the U.S. and U.N. in 2005, raged for 25 years over allocation of these oil resources, not to mention the tensions arising from nomadic north Sudanese whose camel-grazing needs bumped up against the established farms of the southern part of the country. Further, northern Sudanese are largely Muslim, while southern residents are predominantly Christians and animists.

To complicate matters further, says Dr. Ellen Kennedy, a sociologist and founder of the University of St. Thomas’ chapter of the Genocide Intervention Network, an anticipated secession by the south in 2011 puts the Khartoum government on edge. “The north is trying to get as much money out of those oil wells when the getting-out of those oil wells is good,