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When the Bush administration dials 911, John Danforth often picks up the call. Team Bush is rushing Danforth back into service as the administration's new point man at the United Nations.

Danforth was until recently in semiretirement back at his St. Louis, Missouri, home. He successfully served as a special envoy to Sudan to push southern rebels and the government of Sudan into historic peace accords. Those peace talks ended years of internal warfare that claimed an estimated 2 million lives.

Within days taking the oath of office as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Danforth stepped back into the foreign-policy breach and pressed both the government of Sudan and the U.N. Security Council to stop the crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

Human-rights activists are branding as "genocide" and "ethnic-cleansing" the killing and displacement of black Muslim villagers in Darfur. The government armed northern Arab militias (known as Janjaweed) to suppress rebels in Darfur, an arid region the size of California. "The Sudanese government created a monster and they're having trouble putting it back in the cage," a UNICEF official told Newsweek magazine recently. As many as 10,000 villagers have been killed.

Danforth, during an exclusive interview with Christianity Today, said, "To our great credit, the United States has taken the lead in showing concern for the people of Darfur." Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan recently visited camps along the Chad-Sudan border. Arab militias have driven out more than 1 million people. Although much fighting has stopped, many villagers are fearful of returning and are starving in border camps. Sudan officials have limited the access of aid groups, compounding the death toll. The camps are not killing fields, but death zones, where infants, elderly, and injured perish quickly without adequate shelter, food, water, or medical care. The death toll may reach 300,000 before the crisis is resolved.

Danforth, a former U.S. senator who was on the short list of Bush's vice presidential prospects in 2000, told CT that the Darfur problem has the potential to unravel the peace accords that are being implemented in southern Sudan this year.

He said, "The hope for Sudan was that there could be a peace agreement. Sudan, as an integrated country, would then take its place in the world community as a respected participant to make itself into a country which is moving forward and has a future.

"It's not possible for the world and the United States to have [a] welcoming approach to the government of Sudan if it's complicit in the oppression of these poor people [in Darfur]."

Danforth and the Bush administration have drafted a Security Council resolution to require Sudan to disarm the militias, allow villagers to return to their homes, and give full access to aid groups, monitors, and peace-keeping forces from the African Union. Danforth told CT, "It's not the resolution that's in question. It's the action that we expect from the government of Sudan. That's the issue.

"The issue is what the government is going to do: Is it going to keep its promises or not going to keep its promises? The terms of the resolution are in my mind simply a tool to hold the government of Sudan to its promises." It is not clear when the Security Council will vote.

Danforth said his relationship to President Bush is close. "When I did the Sudan work for President Bush, it was an enormous advantage to be able to speak for the President. He was personally very interested in Sudan. When I was part of that process, I could represent to both sides: This is the voice of the President. These are the views of the President. That is a very positive thing to be able to do and I think that I bring that to this job.

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48