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In the wake of the U.S. administration's conflicting accounts of the situation on the ground in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, activists say that the Sudanese government is using different extermination tactics but still carrying out genocide.

Two days after U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice described the actions of Sudan's leadership as genocide, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, President Barack Obama's special envoy to Sudan, said at a June 17 briefing in Washington, D.C. that the country is no longer engaging in a "coordinated" campaign of mass murder in Darfur and that, "What we see is the remnants of genocide. The level of violence that we're seeing right now is primarily between rebel groups, the Sudanese government and ... some violence between Chad and Sudan."

The remarks set off a public discussion on how the U.S. should characterize the current situation in Darfur. A day after Gration's comments, State Department Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley said in a briefing that "the situation in Darfur remains dire" and that "We continue to characterize the circumstances in Darfur as genocide," but did not elaborate when reporters asked whether his usage of the term genocide referred to the past or present circumstances in Darfur.

On a conference call with activists and reporters, officials from the Enough Project stressed that the Sudanese government has replaced the village burnings and helicopter attacks of 2003 to 2005 with systematic rapes, the arming of ethnic militias, and President Omar al-Bashir's expulsion of humanitarian aid groups in March. Those actions still constitute genocide, they said.

"Ethnic militias and rape are tools of war, turning off assistance to demoralize communities is genocidal intent," Enough Co-Founder John Prendergast said. "It is not the same as 2003 to 2005, but it requires an equally vigorous response."

The Sudanese government's new tactics are geared at producing the same outcomes of death and displacement in Darfur, John Norris, Enough's executive director, said. What hasn't changed about the crisis is that the people of Darfur still don't have normal lives and don't generate income, and the situation remains "a manufactured crisis by [the Sudanese capital of] Khartoum," he said.

Ruth Messinger, who has been leading Darfur relief and awareness efforts as president of the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), told The Jewish State that while Gration's comments indicate that fewer deaths have been taking place in Darfur, that is simply a mathematical consequence of the fact that so many Darfuris have already been murdered by the government-backed Janjaweed militiamen. According to the AJWS Web site, more than 450,000 people have lost their lives due to genocide in Darfur, in addition to 2 million people who have been displaced.

"Once you've razed 2,000 villages to the ground and allowed in some peacekeepers, there are probably fewer villages to burn to the ground," Messinger said in a telephone interview. "We just feel like the problems are continuing. The Janjaweed are using different tactics, but they are still pretty much there."

Starting on the evening of June 15, Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, organized a three-day water-only fast to bring attention to the Darfur crisis, and 80 rabbis participated. Micaela Hellman-Tincher, the RAC's legislative assistant with a special focus on Darfur and Sudan, echoed the sentiment that fewer deaths don't indicate any new intentions on the part of the Sudanese government.

"It's clear over the past few years that the number of deaths has gone down, but there are new ways that the government is hurting their livelihood, by stopping humanitarian aid," Hellman-Tincher said. "It's a different way of getting to the people of Darfur."

Activists also expressed concern that the U.S. government's mixed messages on the Darfur crisis could be damaging to their relief efforts, but that those efforts are not altered by Gration's assessment of the situation on the ground. Messinger said that as the situation in Darfur is debated on an international stage, al-Bashir would take advantage of the U.S. government's inability to speak in one voice.

"What is most important to us is that there not be an opening for Bashir to say 'look, they can't even agree about what is going on,'" Messinger said. "If the administration and advocates had made the mistake of getting into a large battle, that never looks credible to people who are supportive of our work."

The administration needs to avoid getting distracted from serious efforts to restore humanitarian aid in Darfur, Messinger said, as aid groups are particularly vital with the onset of rainy season continuing to pose the threat that waterbone illness will spread in camps. At one camp in Kerenek, West Darfur, only one doctor was available to treat more than 35,000 patients as of May, United Nations Special Rapporteur Sima Samar noted in a June report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

As far as AJWS is concerned, Messinger said that, "Our work will continue. That doesn't vary because someone gives one speech or another speech."

"People get confused and distracted by how little this appears in their newspapers," Messinger said. "We are always teaching about Darfur and we didn't want teaching to be distracted by the argument of what you call it."

Norris called the U.S. government's disagreements "very poor stage management" that "will make it harder for the administration to galvanize an effective international response." Prendergast said that Gration's comments, "potentially take the wind out of the sails of activist efforts," but that Enough will "keep the pressure on until there is a change."

Norris said that even if observers were to take Gration's comments at face value, the worst possible interpretation from an activist's perspective is that genocide did take place no matter what is happening on the ground now. Therefore, Gration's remarks "should not be spun as the U.S. getting out of the business of [relief efforts in] Sudan," Norris said, and initiatives such as corporate divestment from Darfur should still hold true regardless of how the administration is labeling the current situation on the ground.

The Obama administration also needs to maintain pressure on the Sudanese government, Prendergast said, instead of its current tendency to offer Sudan incentives such as removing them from the U.S. government's terrorist list. Offering incentives is counter-productive because Sudan promises nothing in return, Prendergast said.

Hellman-Tincher said that especially in times like these when the public's understanding of the Darfur crisis seems muddled, the RAC tries "to keep everyone as educated as possible on the current situation."

"The rabbis who fasted were hopefully able to raise awareness and re-ignite interest within their communities beyond what they can read on CNN," Hellman-Tincher said.