It is hard to imagine the human toll of four years of relentless violence in Darfur, Sudan.

Yet Americans from all walks of life recognize a shared humanity with the people of Darfur, and a vibrant, citizen-led movement to end the 21st century's first genocide continues to grow and mature.

The movement is growing because activists can see a correlation between their efforts and U.S. policy toward Sudan. Most of the measures that elected officials have taken have come as a direct result of mounting pressure from U.S. citizens. The louder activists get, the greater the political cost for failing to act.

Right now, Americans who care about Sudan must respond to recent setbacks - a major government offensive in Darfur and a faltering peace agreement in southern Sudan - by demanding that the United States immediately ramp up diplomatic efforts to prevent a devastating new phase of Sudan's deadly wars.

More than 2.2 million people have died as a result of the violence that has raged across the country since 1983.

When Sudan's ruling National Congress Party (formerly the National Islamic Front) seized power in a 1989 coup, the Khartoum-based government accelerated its scorched earth campaign against rebels and civilians in southern Sudan.

Pressure from U.S. citizens, particularly evangelical Christians, finally persuaded the Bush administration to work with the rest of the world to forge a peace agreement.

A landmark peace deal was signed in 2005, but celebrations were muted.

Two years earlier, the government of Sudan had responded to a rebel insurgency in the western region of Darfur by arming, training and unleashing ethnically based militias to kill, rape, displace and loot civilians with impunity.

The Bush administration sent a team to investigate and called the violence against Darfur's non-Arab population "genocide" but, astoundingly, this historic declaration did not trigger a single additional U.S. action to respond to the crisis.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told members of Congress: "We are doing all that we can."

In that moment, the seeds were sown for the largest grassroots movement on an African issue since the end of apartheid in South Africa.

And grassroots efforts have yielded results.

With leadership from U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Congress has maintained consistent pressure on the White House to take action.

President Bush appointed a special envoy for Sudan and announced additional U.S. sanctions, and his administration played a decisive role at the United Nations in authorizing a large U.N.-led peacekeeping force for Darfur.

But the U.S. can and should do much, much more.

Contrary to some recent press reports, the humanitarian situation in Darfur is getting worse, not better. Darfur's rebel groups are splintering and clashing with one another, Khartoum's militia proxies are battling over the spoils of war, violence is spreading to neighboring countries, and the Sudanese government has launched a major
military offensive.

At the same time, frustrated southern Sudanese are demanding urgent action to prevent their own peace agreement from unraveling.

Khartoum refuses to implement key provisions of the deal, and with the international community now focused on Darfur, the ruling party faces negligible pressure to adhere to its other commitments.

So what must the Bush administration do now?

First, the U.S. must ramp up diplomatic efforts to secure a peace agreement for Darfur.

Negotiations begin in Libya later this month, and they are going to be a slog; only full-time senior level U.S. participation -working in coordination with senior envoys from France, the United Kingdom and China - will generate enough pressure on the parties to reach deal.

Second, the U.S. must also work with its international partners to pressure Khartoum to implement the peace deal for southern Sudan. Continued conflict in Darfur and a return to war in the south is a perfect storm that would engulf Sudan in unthinkable agony.

Third, the U.S. must back up its tough rhetoric and help secure contributions of military hardware to the peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The force is still waiting for helicopters and ground transport necessary to patrol an area more than three times the size of Wisconsin.

Finally, the U.S. must work diplomatically to line up a set of multilateral targeted sanctions against regime officials who are responsible for atrocities in Darfur, obstruct deployment of the peacekeeping force, and refuse implementation of the peace agreement in the south.

Building leverage through accountability is the best way to change the calculations of the government in Khartoum, and citizen action is the best way to press the U.S. government to increase the pressure.

Every letter, e-mail and phone call to our elected officials forces them to choose: expend every effort to bring peace to Sudan, or explain to their constituents why the U.S. is standing on the sidelines while Sudan slides deeper into the abyss.

John Prendergast, who is speaking Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Golda Meir Library, 2311 E. Hartford Ave., co-chairs ENOUGH: The Project to End Genocide and Mass Atrocities. Colin Thomas-Jensen is policy adviser to ENOUGH.

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