The media has, since the early 1990s, been systematically lying about and misrepresenting Sudan. Now with thus Darfur conflict, the media is demanding a "humanitarian intervention", from the Guardian to left-wing magazine Tribune. Judging from previous such expeditions for example in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, we can naturally expect systematic lies and propaganda, and this is what we've got.

The following article gives an accurate, rather than propagandistic, picture of what has actually been happening in Darfur:

The Darfur Crisis: Looking Beyond the Propaganda:
 http://www.sudanembassy.org/default.asp?page=viewstory&id=285

The article is on the website of Sudan's Washington embassy, so of course should not be trusted blindly, but it sources itself to media reports, and reveals far more information than the typically simplified and propagandistic media reports.

For a good (but long) report on misrepresentation of Sudan from the early 1990s onwards check out this pdf:

Images of Sudan: Case Studies and Propaganda:
 http://www.espac.org/pdf/images_of_sudan.pdf

Their website ( http://www.espac.org/) also has many other - and shorter - exposes of lies about Sudan - for example the claims of state sponsorship of terrorism, chemical weapons, slavery, and so on.

Throughout the 1990s America was prolonging the civil war in Sudan by supporting the brutal SPLA rebels in the South, both overtly and covertly, and through Sudan's neighbours Eritrea, Uganda and Ethiopia, with the hope of undermining and overthrowing the government. The West Darfur rebels currently also have the support of Eritrea.

The US and the "international community" has now given Sudan a 30-day deadline to disarm the Janjaweed militias. Sudan has already in the past been arresting members of such militias, but is still falsely accused of working with them. If Sudan manages to crack down sufficiently to arrest all these Arab militamen and control them (hard when the rebels are fighting and causing chaos), the rebels will then simply find it even easier to take over Darfur, and will most likely still refuse to come to peace talks (a leading Sudanese human rights activist has even said that disarming the Janjaweed militia will simply mean that the rebels slaughter the Arabs). If the Sudanese government then tries to take on the rebels and push them out of their gains they will be accused of launching "ethnic cleansing", just like the Yugoslavs were when they launched a new offensive against the KLA, which had exploited the ceasefire to take over half of Kosovo. The "international community" will then intervene, either by pressure to force the Sudanese government to allow "peace keepers" and so on ala Kosovo, or by a military attack.

Another fact of interest: Western Darfur is the part of Sudan in which the Chienese have the oil concessions.