The declaration by Us Secretary of State Colin Powell last week that "genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Jan jaweed bear responsibility" signals an escalation in US efforts to establish itself as the controlling power in North Africa and throughout the continent.

Powell's designation of events in Darfur as "genocide," echoing Congress, is a prime example of his familiar pose of humanitarian concern, behind which he is seeking to further Washington's drive for global hegemony.

The plight of the people of Darfur plays no role in shaping the response of the Bush administration to the criminal activities of the Sudanese government. Like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the regime in Khartoum is being targeted because of geopolitical and not moral considerations.

Once again, it is about who controls vital oil supplies. Powell is a past master at covering up America's real motives with a mountain of lies and moral effluvia.

He played a central role in propagating the false and now discredited claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had connections with Al Qaeda as justification for a predetermined decision to go to war in order to reinforce US domination of the Middle East. He will go down in history for his infamous speech at the United Nations that provided the justification for the US intervention in Iraq.

His present claim that the Sudanese government are the perpetrators of genocide is also a cynical political ploy. Khartoum is certainly carrying out or sponsoring brutal repression in Darfur.

But like the earlier comparisons between Saddam Hussein and Hitler, or the demonization of Slobodan Milosevic and Serbia, exaggeration and hyperbole play an essential role in popularising the demand that "something must be done" immediately and in dulling critical sensibilities regarding precisely what that something must be.

Thus we are brought once more to the point of an imperialist inspired military intervention carried out in the name of humanitarianism. No attempt should be made to minimize the barbarous actions of the Sudanese government, but no one should allow their horror at such outrages to be manipulated by Washington. An estimated one million people have been displaced in Darfur and 50,000 killed, which constitutes a human catastrophe.

But there is still no justifiable comparison with the events that took place in Rwanda in 1994 that are now repeatedly cited as proof of the need to use the term genocide and justify Western intervention.

The Janjaweed have not mobilized large sections of the population to take part in ethnically inspired massacres as did the Hutu regime in Rwanda. And whilst there is a legacy from British colonialism of Arab-African divisions, the tribal groupings are a complex mixture and the population is spread over a large area where there is virtually no government or state apparatus, never mind a reactionary mass movement.

Powell made his genocide declaration on the conclusions of a US State Department investigation undertaken in refugee camps in neighbouring Chad. But what the report established is hardly new- that government-backed militias calling themselves "Arabs" and spouting anti-African racism have been carrying out attacks on Darfur's population, killing, raping and driving them out of their villages. These operations have been going on for over a year as the Sudan government's method of dealing with the two opposition rebel groups in Darfur.

The Sudanese government has regularly used this technique to deal with its opponents and did so with impunity in the oilfield regions during the last few years. But despite appeals from human rights organizations, the US was quite prepared to turn a blind eye and continue peace negotiations with the Sudan government and the southern rebels.

Indeed the rebel groups in Darfur are said to have stepped up their operations last year because they were encouraged by the advantages gained by the southern rebels - demanding autonomy and a share in the oil wealth - obtained because of US pressure on the Sudan government.

The US has now decided to step up pressure on Sudan primarily as a weapon against its international rivals. Washington's demand at the United Nations is that sanctions be applied to Sudan's oil output - currently 320,000 barrels of oil per day.

This would hit China and Pakistan given that they are two of Sudan's largest oil customers, both of whom are Security Council members and who have so far opposed the proposal.

It must also be stressed that since oil is Sudan's main income, such sanctions would have a devastating effect on a country that is already desperately poor - just as they did in Iraq.

The US is also arm-twisting the other Western powers to fund an African Union (AU) intervention force in the Darfur region. So far only 300 troops have been sent, but a figure of several thousand is being touted. The force will clearly be "African" in appearance only, with the US directing operations on the ground.

Powell has been able to pose as a humanitarian liberator in Sudan, despite the realities of the criminal US occupation of Iraq, largely because of the uncritical and slavish support given in the media.

Almost daily editorials and op-eds are dedicated to moral hand-wringing over the plight of Darfur's population, pious criticism of the United Nations' inability to mount an intervention force, and urging the US to take more action.

Not even passing consideration is being given to the deaths that have resulted and continue to result from actions of the US government in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, beside which the Sudanese government's killing operations pale into significance.

No discussion is taking place on the interest of American oil corporations in Sudan, the principal motivation behind the US's negotiations with the Sudanese government over the last four years. -Courtesy: World Socialist Website.