It's not exactly the Cold War.

But U.S.-Russia relations have been getting pretty chilly in the U.N. Security Council lately.

On Tuesday, Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and her Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin, traded verbal blows over a stalled U.S. initiative to endorse a recent peace deal between Sudan and South Sudan.

The big power quarrel played out in a procedural skirmish over how the 15-nation council should be used to promote political reconciliation between the two Sudans, which have been locked in their own highly contentious squabbles over the nature of their relationship in the wake of South Sudan's independence in 2011.

Rice accused Churkin of trying to thwart the council's efforts to adopt a U.S.-drafted statement pressuring both Sudans to implement of set of obligations they have undertaken on everything from security arrangements to oil exports and trade, and condemning clashes between Sudanese and South Sudanese forces, including Khartoum’s aerial bombardment of towns in the south. Churkin fired back that Rice was "not reasonable" and her decision to divulge the contents of confidential negotiations was "rather bizarre."

The dispute reflected the deepening strains between the United States and Russia on a range of issues, including Syria, where the two powers have been stalemated, and Sudan, where Moscow has repeatedly stymied American efforts to press Khartoum. But it also highlighted the testy tenor of relations between Churkin and Rice, which some colleagues have likened to emotional exchanges between high-school kids.

For weeks, Rice had been struggling to secure agreement on a U.N. Security Council presidential statement that would recognize recent progress between the former civil war rivals in negotiations touching on everything from the demarcation of the border to control of Sudanese oil, which is mostly pumped in landlocked South Sudan, but transported, refined, and exported through Sudan.

Rice had crafted the draft in a way that could maximize pressure on Khartoum to withdraw its security forces from the disputed territory of Abyei, to provide access for U.N. humanitarian workers seeking to distribute humanitarian assistance in the conflict zones of South Kordofan and Blue Nile state. But it also deplored the presence of South Sudanese national police in Abyei, and urged both sides to refrain from hostilities.

Moscow had initially blocked the U.S. initiative on the grounds that it was too tough on Khartoum, but not tough enough on South Sudan. But on Friday of last week, Russia had reached agreement in principle with Rice to support the American measure.

The deal, however, was never concluded. Over the weekend, Sudan and South Sudan reached agreement on a deal setting the stage for the establishment of a demilitarized zone between the two countries and an oil pact that will allow for the resumption of oil exports for the first time since January 2012, when South Sudan halted production to protest what they believed were excessive transport fees charged by the Sudanese government.

Rice told reporters that she had intended to update the statement to reflect the latest agreement, but that Churkin abruptly introduced his own press statement welcoming the latest agreement and stripping out any language criticizing Khartoum's shortcomings on other fronts. Rice suggested that Russia, which has more limited interests in the Sudans than the United States, is performing the role of diplomatic spoiler in the council.

"We were close to agreement on that, and we were ready to update it to take account of recent events," Rice told reporters. "Unfortunately, perhaps in the interest of derailing such a PRST [Presidential statement], the Russian federation, which does not typically utilize the pen on South Sudan or Sudan, tabled a draft press statement, which only discussed a very narrow aspect of the substance of the larger ... statement and excluded language on the two areas, excluded mention of the cross border incidents, including aerial bombardment."

Churkin insisted that his intentions were pure, and that he was merely seeking to send a swift message of support to the Sudanese parties.

"Ambassador Rice chose to spill out to the media some confidential conversations we had today and actually did it in a rather bizarre way, from what I hear,' he told reporters. "I think the reaction of the U.S. delegation was not reasonable. And as a result of that we were not able to have any agreed reaction from the council today."

"This was not a constructive way to deal with the work in the Security Council," he added. "Trying to find all sorts of ulterior motives and come up with various outlandish accusations is not the best way to deal with your partners in the Security Council. I know it's not a good way to deal with the Russian delegation."

Some U.N. diplomats believe that Churkin is actually trying to provoke his American counterpart and that his tough line reflects an increasingly combative foreign policy approach being pursued by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Russia is taking on an increasingly nationalistic foreign policy and Churkin's instructions reflect that," said one council diplomat.

But others fault the Americans for refusing to compromise with Russia in order to maintain pressure on Sudan and South Sudan to comply with their commitments. They say Rice's insistence on tough denunciations of Khartoum, while merited, have resulted in the council's inability to weigh in on many key aspects of the crisis since May 2012, when the council last threatened sanctions against the two sides if they failed to live up to their commitments. The United States "has been using a bazooka when they should stick with a pistol," said one U.N. insider. "Everyone knows how bad [Sudanese President Omar] Bashir is, but does it need to be put in every statement?"

A U.S. official countered that the U.S. has been even handed. "The United States is focused on resolving critical issues that risk another war between Sudan and South Sudan and have a huge human cost," said Payton Knopf, a spokesman for Rice, noting that hundreds of thousands of displaced Sudanese civilians are "enduring a humanitarian crisis of immense proportions. We believe the Security Council should hold the parties accountable, as appropriate for fulfilling their obligations. When Khartoum or Juba is cuplable, we think the council needs to apply pressure, as needed."

Russia, meanwhile, has been nursing its own grievances toward the government in Juba since 2011, when the South Sudanese authorities detained a Russian helicopter crew. Moscow unsuccessfully sought U.S. support for a statement criticizing the South's action. Then, to make matters worse, last year, South Sudanese army forces shot down a U.N. helicopter piloted by a 4-man Russian crew, who were all killed in the incident. In that instance, the U.S. supported a council statement deploring the shooting, and demanding that those responsible for the shooting be held accountable.

More recently, Russia accused the United States of blocking a Security Council statement condemning a terror bombing near the Russian embassy in Damascus.

"We believe these are double standards," Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said last month. "And we see in it a very dangerous tendency by our American colleagues to depart from the fundamental principle of unconditional condemnation of any terrorist act, a principle which secures the unity of the international community in the fight against terrorism," he said.

A spokeswoman for Rice, Erin Pelton, countered that assessment, saying that the United States was willing to support the Russian initiative if it included a reference to President Bashar al-Assad's government's "brutal attacks against the Syrian people. If predictably, Russia rejected the U.S. suggested language as "totally unacceptable" and withdrew its draft statement."

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Sudan's bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council sputtered out today as Khartoum informed the African Union that it "is no longer interested in taking up one of the vacancies available...."

The Sudanese withdrawal follows a behind-the scenes campaign by the United States, Western governments, and human rights organizations that culminated with a recent decision by Kenya to contest the Sudanese nomination.

Sudan's decision came on the day that a coalition of human rights groups, organized by U.N. Watch, appointed actress and activist Mia Farrow to lead a campaign to block Sudan's candidacy. But officials said Sudan had already signaled to its African colleagues earlier in the week that it was considering pulling out of the race to avoid the prospect of an embarrassing loss.

Earlier today, Farrow appealed to people to sign a petition urging Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to "Stop Sudan's Election to the UN Human Rights Council." After the announcement, she tweeted: "Petition worked!" Farrow tweeted "TY[Thank You] all who signed."

The African Union had selected Ethiopia, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Sierra Leone, to run unchallenged for five African seats available on the 47-member rights council in November. The nomination of Sudan, which is led by President Omar al-Bashir, who has been charged by the International Criminal Court with orchestrating a campaign of genocide in Darfur, outraged human rights groups.

The United States and other critics of Sudan quietly encouraged Kenya to declare its intention to enter the race, forcing the Africans into a competitive race. Kenya agreed. After Sudan confirmed on Thursday its plan to withdraw its nomination, human rights group praised the decision.

"The worst human rights offenders are slowly recognizing they are not welcome on the Human Rights Council. Sudan joins notorious rights violators Syria, Iran, Belarus, Sri Lanka and Azerbaijan whose hypocritical aspirations to sit on the council have properly led to embarrassing retreat," said Philippe Bolopion, the U.N. representative for Human Rights Watch, which furnished a copy of Sudan's withdrawal letter.

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Every several months, a U.N. Panel of Experts issues a report documenting Sudan's extensive violations of U.N. Security Council sanctions in Darfur, and pleads with the council's big powers to use their influence to persuade Khartoum and anti-government rebel groups to comply.

And every time, their appeals for backup are largely ignored, especially by China and Russia, which supply Khartoum with some of the arms and firepower that fuel Darfur's fighting, and which have routinely refused to fully cooperate with the panel's experts as they seek to trace the origins of prohibited weapons from factories in China and Russia.

Three former panel members, Claudio Gramizzi of Italy, Michael Lewis of Britain, and Jerome Tubiana of France, recently produced an unofficial report arguing that the international commitment to sanctions had eroded so much that even the United Nations itself was flouting the sanctions, facilitating the travel of a rebel field commander, Jibril Abdul Kareem, nicknamed "Tek," who was subject to a Security Council travel ban, to peace talks in Doha, Qatar.

The Tek episode is simply one nugget buried away in a confidential 80-plus page report, first reported by Africa Confidential, that documents systematic violations of a six-year-old U.N. arms embargo, travel ban, and asset freeze, imposed on Khartoum and rebel leaders in an effort to contain the violence in Sudanese province.

But the episode provides a depressing illustration of how an initiative that once enjoyed the enthusiastic backing of the council's major Western powers -- the United States, Britain, and France -- has become such a low priority that few key players in the region take it seriously anymore.

The Security Council first imposed an arms embargo on armed groups in Darfur in 2004, and expanded it the following year to include the government. The council also slapped a travel ban and an asset freeze on the leaders of both pro-government and anti-government armed groups in Darfur, including the government backed militia known as the Janjaweed, which gained international notoriety for its scorched earth raids, conducted on camels and backed by Sudanese air power, against countless Darfurian villages.

The measures were designed to curtail a massive wave of violence -- that ultimately led to the death of at least 300,000 people and the displacement of many times that number -- and to constrain the Sudanese government from carrying out mass murder in Darfur.

The report's three authors resigned late last summer over a dispute with the panel's Indian coordinator, who produced a competing official report. The panel, they wrote, "suffered from a major dissension" within the ranks. The coordinator, they complained, had insisted that each of the panel's five members conduct their work independently without coordinating or sharing information, a policy they believed undermined the panel's effectiveness.  But officials familiar with the dispute said the difference ran much deeper, reflecting a lack of faith in the integrity and competence of the panel's leadership.  Eric Reeves, a Smith College literature professor and Sudan activist, has written his own take on the report, highlighting the dissidents' far more critical account of the human rights situation in Darfur than the authors of the official U.N. report.

The Security Council's enthusiasm for the U.N. panel's work waned years ago, according to experts. In 2009, Enrico Carisch, a former head of the sanctions panel, testified before Congress that the Security Council had failed to act on more than 100 panel recommendations aimed at strengthening the sanctions. He also faulted the United States, France, and Britain for doing little to force a more public debate.

Carisch, currently an independent consultant who trains U.N. panel experts, told Turtle Bay that the dissidents' decision to produce a "shadow" report highlighted some of the institutional weakness of the U.N. sanctions system. At the same time, he said their breadth of the findings highlight the value of their work. "The powerful evidence reported by these experts demonstrates how skillful and sustained sanctions monitoring is important to shine a light into the darkest corners of conflict areas," Carisch said.  

The dissidents' expert report assails Khartoum for systematically violating the arms embargo, thwarting efforts of U.N. experts to enforce sanctions, and conducting ethnic cleansing against the Zaghawa tribe. It documents Sudan's use of use of Chinese small-caliber ammunition, Russian Mi-24 attack helicopters, Ukrainian tanks, and Belarussian Sukhoi-25 fighter jets

But it also provides a devastating account of the U.N. panels' own efforts to monitor and enforce the U.N. sanctions. Indeed, the report challenges much of the underlying evidence used to justify sanctions against "Tek" and two other rebel leaders, Adam Yaqub and Musa Hilal, the latter a notorious Janjaweed leader. The reports, produced by a previous team of U.N. panel experts, were riddled with inaccuracies, including misspelled names and unsupportable claims. For instance, the report notes that there may have been ample evidence that Hilal commanded militia engaged in widespread atrocities in his stronghold in north Darfur. But it also expressed serious doubts that he was responsible for the crime the U.N. panel attributed to him to justify sanctions. 

In April 2006, the U.N. panel accused Hilal of leading a Sept. 28, 2005, militia raid on the West Darfur villages of Acho, Aro Sharrow, and Gozmena, to seek revenge for the death of one of his sons who was purportedly killed by a rebel movement linked to the towns. The dissidents' report, however, said Hilal did not lead West Darfur's militias and that "it is unproved and unlikely that Musa Hilal was responsible and/or present"  at the scene of the raids. The report also said it found no evidence that Hilal's son had been killed.

While the dissidents questioned the justification for Jibril's designation on the sanctions list they also argued that the U.N. still has an obligation to enforce those measures.  But on July 20, 2010, Jibril traveled to Qatar with a travel document -- known as a laissez passer -- issued by the deputy chief of staff of the United Nations-African Union Joint Mediation Support Team(JMST). The visit, which lasted a year, was part of a Qatari-led mediation effort to broker a peace settlement between Khartoum and several Darfuri rebel groups.

The dissident panel members said the U.N. violation of sanctions in this instance was unnecessary. A provision in the six-year-old sanctions resolution -- Resolution 1591 -- includes an exemption allowing travel for sanctioned individuals participating in peace initiatives. However, the exemption can only be approved by the Security Council committee that oversees sanctions.

"The members of the panel are unaware of any request by the JSMT or from UNAMID [The U.N. African Union Mission in Darfur] to the sanctions committee for permission to issue this document or to authorize the travel of Tek by air to Qatar," the report states. "Jibril ‘Tek's' presence in Doha represents a case of violation of the sanctions regime." 

But the larger issue, according to the dissidents, is what the episode says about the U.N.'s ability and commitment to apply its own sanctions fairly and with conviction. "Should access to Darfur, and more generally cooperation from member states, United Nations and African Union bodies working in or on Darfur, as well as the general ability of the panel to provide accurate justifications for individual sanctions and monitor them, not increase in the future, the very existence of both the panel and the sanctions mechanism should be seriously reconsidered."

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Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, warned the U.N. Security Council that Sudan's restive South Kordofan region faces the prospects of famine if Khartoum does not allow international aid workers into the region to provide relief to more than 500,000 needy civilians.

"It is the United States' firm belief that, if the government of Sudan does not allow immediate meaningful humanitarian access to the conflict zones in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile so life saving humanitarian assistance can be provided to civilians in need, we will likely see famine conditions in parts of Sudan," Rice wrote in a letter to the president of the U.N. Security Council.

The U.S. warning comes nearly two weeks after the U.N.'s chief relief coordinator, Valerie Amos, traveled to Sudan to press the government to allow U.N. aid workers into Southern Kordofan to assess the extent of humanitarian suffering there. It comes on the eve of a briefing today by Amos on the crisis to the Security Council.

During her visit, Amos said that Sudanese refugees entering Ethiopia have reported increasing levels of food shortages and "rising levels of malnutrition" in parts of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile. She said that reports of a humanitarian crisis in territory controlled by the anti-government Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (North) were "particularly alarming."

Amos said that she had reached agreement with Khartoum to share information about the plight of civilians in the conflict zones, and that they would continue to discuss ways to reach civilians affected by the crisis.

The Sudanese armed forces launched a counterinsurgency campaign against the SPLM forces in June, triggering an outbreak of fighting that has forced 300,000 people from their homes, according to U.N. figures. The United Nations, which previously maintained a presence in the region, was asked to leave Sudan after South Sudan seceded from Sudan.

Reports of extreme hardship have filtered out from church groups based in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile and from Sudanese refugees who have made it across the border into neighboring Ethiopia or South Sudan.

But Sudan has restricted U.N. aid agencies from gaining access to the region, citing security concerns. "We are in no position to verify the actual needs on the ground or the fulfillment of those needs as we are simply not there," Peter de Clercq, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, said in a recent statement.

Susan Rice wrote that the two Sudanese states will be placed on a Phase 4 Emergency level by March without a major inflow of humanitarian assistance. A Phase 4 Emergency -- a designation that has only been applied to Somalia and Ethiopia -- is one step short of a full-fledged famine.

"It is clear that the Government of Sudan has instituted a deliberate policy to prevent humanitarian agencies from reaching vulnerable civilians impacted by the conflict," Rice wrote. "The conflicts disruption of trade and livelihoods, large scale displacement of people, and severe restrictions on the operations of aid agencies has pushed the people of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile to the brink of a major humanitarian crisis."

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Salva Kiir, president of newly independent South Sudan, has survived 35 years of fighting -- initially as a young guerrilla fighter and later as commander of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement -- against Khartoum's forces.

But a week of U.N. speeches, dinners, toasts, and endless bilateral meetings with governments was apparently a bit too much to handle for the leader of the U.N.'s newest member state.

Kiir, who addressed the General Assembly's annual debate for the first time last week, fell ill on Friday night and didn't show up for a high-level dinner, which included U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. An effort to encourage his staff to convince Kiir to make a brief appearance at the dinner, which was held at the Intercontinental Hotel, was met with assurances he was incapable of doing so.

A source close to Kiir's delegation said afterward that the new South Sudanese leader had been laid low by exhaustion but that he is fine.

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U.N. peacekeepers have come under mounting pressure to protect civilians from imminent threat of violence in its most complex missions.

But what about looting, plundering and burning of civilian property, acts which sometimes serve as a symbols and facilitators of ethnic cleansing. U.N. officials say not necessarily; that responsibility rests principally in the hands of the local authorities.

Last month, Sudanese forces and local Arab militia seized control of the town of Abyei, Sudan, driving tens of thousands civilians out of town. Thousands of nomadic herdsman from the Arab Misseriya tribe followed suit, stealing every moveable possession they could get their hands on and burning what they couldn't take. U.N. human rights officials in Sudan expressed concerns that their action may constitute ethnic cleansing.

The dispute in Abyei has been at the center of a political struggle over rights to resources and the delineation of borders between northern Sudan and southern Sudan, as the south prepares to declare independence on July 9. But it has a volatile ethnic dimension, pitting the areas black Ngok Dinka residents, allied with the south, against pro-government nomadic  Misseriya. The two sides are bitterly divided over everything from voting rights, access to grazing areas and water.

Internal U.N. accounts of what happened last month in Abyei show that Sudan's armed forces stood by as its comrades in arms began the looting. For its part, a United Nations peacekeeping contingent in Abyei, which retreated to its barracks in the first days of the assault, subsequently limited its role to monitoring the mayhem on the streets of Abyei, but not intervening to stop it.

A source provided Turtle Bay with copies of two confidential U.N. reports after I posted a photograph of a U.N. peacekeeping contingent patrolling the streets of Abyei, Sudan, last month while several men carted off household items on the side of the road. At the time, I said it was unclear from the picture whether the men were fleeing violence or looting belongings of local residents in plain site of the Zambian blue helmets. The source said the reports demonstrate that the UN passively allowed the looting to occur. 

According to the internal account, the Sudanese army  attacked Abyei  on the night of May 21, quickly seizing control of the town, though most of the population had already fled south by the time they arrived.  By nightfall, the Sudanese military had deployed 15 tanks in a town that had been abandoned by fleeing residents.   Sudanese aircraft bombarded the Bantom bridge, south of Abyei, in an attempt to bar civilians from returning or to prevent rival troops from south Sudan from mounting a counterattack.

Over the following days, as the Sudanese army looked on, elements of Sudan's Popular   Defense Force(PDF) and the Misseriya systematically plundered the town. 

"There are reports of PDF(popular defense forces) and Misseriya elements looting the shops and burning down the tukuls(and smoke could be seen from the UNMIS compound)," according to a May 22 report from the office of the UN resident coordinator. "These were allegedly fighting along side SAF. The Misseriya/PDF elements could also be seen carrying away the loot, both on foot and using vehicles. SAF did not intervene to stop the looting."

The U.N. has acknowledged that the Zambian peacekeeping contingent had not responded adequately to the attacks on civilians and property.  They have sent a contingent of Indian peacekeepers to Abyei to reinforce the Zambians. The United States, meanwhile, is pressing for the adoption of a U.N. Security Council resolution that would approve the deployment of several thousands Ethiopian troops in Abyei to help restore calm.

The Sudanese government, which signed a peace deal last week allowing Ethiopian blue helmets to replace its troops, opened a new military front in neighboring South Kordofan, where church leaders and human rights organization have accused the government of displacing more than 70,000 Nubans in a military campaign.

But U.N. officials say the Zambian's failure to act was mitigated by the fact that they were confronted with a force with overwhelming military superiority and that their compound had been hit during the attack. Some officials dispute claims saying that the looting and burning in Abyei were hallmarks of ethnic cleansing, saying they were more consistent with a history of reprisals and countereprisals between competing African tribes in the region.

"The [U.N.] Force commander advised that they saw SAF[the Sudanese Armed Forces] build up and attack coming but they were unable to stop it. There had however been assurance by SAF that the UN would not be targeted," according to the May 22 report by the U.N.'s resident coordinator's office. "Although UN was not being targeted by SAF there were 5 shells that landed in the UNMIS compound, one of them burning a WFP[World Food Program] vehicle. Two (2) Egyptians were also injured but are out of danger."

When the U.N. resumed its patrols of Abyei in the days following the initial assault, they encountered a scene of chaos, with 2,000 to 5,000 Misseriya men roaming the streets of Abyei, carting away chairs, bed frames, mattresses and anything else they could find. They also  threatened to seize the Zambians armored personnel vehicles unless the UN agreed to pay three years rent for the base.

"The remainder of the looted items that have not yet been taken away from Abyei town are by the roadside awaiting transportation to the northern areas," according to a May 26 update by the resident coordinators office. "One of the UNMO[UN Military Observers] road patrols that went out this morning(26 May) observed at least 14 big trucks that were loading looted items. Sporadic and aimless shooting also continues but to a relatively lesser scale and...burning of tukuls(dwellings) still continues."

By that point, according to the May 26 report, the UN's mission in Abyei had become decreasingly relevant: "It can now be confirmed that there will not be any need for humanitarian assistance within Abyei town(for now) as there are currently no civilians."

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In a rare declaration of good news, Khartoum and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement reached agreement Monday on a plan to deploy an armored brigade of several thousand Ethiopian peacekeepers to the disputed area of Abyei, Sudan, where they will replace troops from the rival camps and keep the peace.

Last month, Khartoum's army, backed by pro-government militia, seized control of Abyei, driving more than 100,00 residents from the area and looting and destroying their property. The Sudanese assault exposed the weakness of the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission, whose commander ordered Zambian blue helmets to wait out the attack in their bunker, and drew warnings from the White House that any prospects of improved relations with the United States were in jeopardy.

But today's accord, struck with the help of U.N. and African mediation, relieved international pressure on Khartoum, even as its forces continued on the offensive in a series of highly charged flashpoints of Blue Nile State and South Kordofan, where more than 75,000 civilians were forced from their homes. It also made it clear that Sudan's leader, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who stands charged by an international prosecutor of committing genocide in Darfur, would again be central to any resolution of the crisis.

The latest surge in violence poses the greatest challenge to date to a landmark U.S.-brokered 2005 peace deal, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, that ended Africa's deadliest and longest running civil wars and set the path to the south drive for independence.  It threatens to plunge the country into a renewed civil war just weeks before the south scheduled its declaration its independence on July 9.  In a sign of the deeping tensions, the U.N.'s special representative in Sudan, Haile Menkerios, warned the U.N. council that fighting was now spreading to Jau in Unity state southern Sudan. 

This morning, Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, welcomed the pact on Abyei and vowed to introduce a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the deployment of the Ethiopian force.  At the same time, Rice highlighted reports that Khartoum's forces may be committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"Unfortunately, the situation in Abyei is by no means the only crisis facing the people of Sudan," Rice told the council in a public meeting on the crisis. "On June 5, violence broke out in multiple areas of Southern Kordofan, including its capital, Kadugli. The reports my government has been receiving on the ongoing fighting are horrifying...Security services and military forces have reportedly detained and summarily executed local authorities, political rivals, medical personnel, and others."

Rice also scolded The Sudanese People's Liberation Army, which has been accused of triggering the violence in Abyei by opening fire in May on a U.N. convoy escorting Khartoum's troops through Abyei. Rice voiced concern that southern forces have also breached the border of Southern Kordofan, in violation of the CPA.  She said the U.S. is "deeply concerned" by reports that the SPLM "Have threatened the safety of person of Arab origin in Southern Kordofan, including U.N. staff." 

But she claimed that Khartoum bore the greatest responsibility for the latest crisis, citing its decision early this month to break up SPLA units in South Kordofan without having reached a negotiated settlement on their fate. She cited Khartoum's  use of aerial bombardment of civilian targets, its cut off of supplies of food, water, medicine and other basic humanitarian supplies into Kadugli, denying U.N. access to needy locals, and even threatening to shoot U.N. aircraft out of the sky.

"The government of Sudan can prevent this crisis from escalating further by immediately stopping its military efforts to disarm the Sudan People's Liberation Army in Southern Kordofan and by focusing on diplomatic efforts to peacefully resolve the conflict," she said.

Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, the south's representative to the United States and the United Nations, told the council that his government regretted the shooting incident against the U.N. convoy in Abyei, but said Khartoum's response was "wholly disproportionate." He pressed the U.N. to share its "more detailed reporting" on Sudanese rights violations in Abyei. He also warned that the "situation in South Kordofan risks degenerating into ethnic cleansing and possible genocide."

For his part, Sudan's U.N. envoy Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman said the north acted in Abyei and South Kordofan to halt "horrendous violations' by southern forces and that his government was prepared to discuss arrangements for humanitarian aid workers to gain access to the displaced.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki, the chief negotiator for the Abyei deal, said the accord would result in  the "demilitarization of Abyei and create the condition for the return of tens of thousands of civilians to return to their homes. He urged the council to act swiftly to authorize the new force, which would serve under U.N. command, and be funded by the United Nations.

Mbkei said he would now turn his attention in the coming days to negotiating a cessation of hostilities in Southern Kordofan. He also expressed optimism wide-ranging talks over the relationship between Khartoum and the south could be sewn up by the end of the month. Those talks are grappling with range of vexing matters - including accords on the sharing of oil revenues, demarcation of the border between the north and south, and security in a demilitarized zone along the border. 

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Nearly two months ago the U.N.'s chief peacekeeping official, Alain Le Roy, convened a press conference to talk up a string of U.N. successes around the world.

In Haiti, the United Nations helped usher through a relatively peaceful political transition; in Ivory Coast, U.N. attack helicopters backed a French assault that brought down Ivoirian strongman Laurent Gbagbo; and in Sudan, the United Nations oversaw a landmark independence referendum in Southern Sudan that is likely to set the stage for the south's recognition this summer as the U.N.'s newest member. "In the three cases, the peacekeepers made a huge difference," Le Roy said.

Le Roy contrasted the U.N.'s achievements with the darkest days of U.N. peacekeeping in the 1990s when U.N. blue helmets stood by in the face of mass atrocities in places like Srebrenica and Rwanda, and paid tribute to the sacrifices of U.N. personnel who had died in the cause of peace, including 44 U.N. civilian and uniformed peacekeepers who were killed in a 10-day stretch in Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, and Ivory Coast.

But in recent weeks the U.N. has suffered some heavy body blows to its reputation: In Haiti, a medical panel published circumstantial evidence suggesting U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal may have been responsible for introducing cholera into Haiti, killing more than 4,000 people. And in the contested town of Abyei, Sudan, a battalion of 850 U.N. peacekeepers from Zambia hid in their barracks as Sudanese forces looted and burned homes, prompting sharp criticism from local officials and U.N. Security Council diplomats who described their conduct as disgraceful.

Violence flared up last month in Abyei, Sudan's most dangerous flashpoint, in the run-up of Southern Sudan's plan to declare independence next month from the north, splitting Africa's largest country into two nations. Abyei was supposed to join Southern Sudan in holding a referendum on independence, but the move stalled over differences involving oil revenues, water, and voting rights. The dispute pits the farming tribes of the Ngok Dinka, who are aligned with the south, against the Khartoum-backed nomadic herding tribes of the Misseriya, who graze their cattle in Abyei during the dry season. U.N. officials have long feared that a fight over Abyei could trigger a resumption of civil war between north and south, which claimed more than 2 million lives before a 2005 peace accord halted the fighting.

Troops from the southern Sudanese People's Liberation Army opened fire on a contingent of U.N. peacekeepers escorting a Sudanese military convoy. The Sudanese military's reaction appeared premeditated and disproportionate, according to U.N. diplomats. Sudanese aircraft, tanks, and troops riding motorcycles attacked the town, burning homes and looting property. Nearly 80,000 people, mostly members of the Ngok Dinka tribe, fled their homes, and thousands of pro-government Arab Misseriya tribesmen have since flowed into to take up residence. An internal U.N. report, obtained by the Associated Press, said the Sudanese Armed Forces' "occupation" of Abyei might result in ethnic cleansing. "The SAF attack and occupation of Abyei and the resultant displacement of over 30,000 Ngok Dinkas from Abyei could lead to ethnic cleansing, if conditions for the return of the displaced Ngok Dinka residents are not created," according to the report.

Responsibility for the current upsurge in violence in Abyei rests primarily with Khartoum and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement. But the episode provided another depressing example of U.N. timidity that recalled some of the worst moments in U.N. history. A battalion of Zambian blue helmets based in Abyei remained in their barracks for two days as Sudan's army attacked the town, ignoring pleas from the U.N. special representative, Haile Menkerios, to take action. "When the Sudanese army invaded, they retreated to their bunkers," Asha Abbas Akuei, who represents Abyei in the South Sudan Legislative Assembly, told Rebecca Hamilton in an article published on Slate.

The Abyei episode points to a deeper problem that has plagued many of the U.N.'s most complex peacekeeping missions. The United Nations has been forced to rely primarily on infantry troops from developing countries without the more advanced military hardware -- including attack helicopters, advanced logistics, and intelligence -- that is required to succeed, according to peacekeeping experts. "Large-scale heavy infantry frankly don't do much to reinforce the political process unless they have mobility that can deliver military punch," said Bruce Jones, director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

In Ivory Coast, where the U.N. certified the presidential election of opposition leader Alassane Ouattara last November, the U.N. peacekeeping mission failed to compel the loser, Laurent Gbagbo, to step down or to protect civilians targeted by his forces. It was not until France, backed by U.N. peacekeepers and forces loyal to Ouattara, intervened that the course of the conflict changed and Gbagbo was deposed.

"So here we were in Cote d'Ivoire in a total stalemate, going nowhere against a second-tier army," Jones said. "It took a combination of Ouattara's forces and the French to turn the day. It shows a very small contribution of high-order [military] capability can transform a peacekeeping force from being irrelevant to being very productive. It shows that peacekeeping can work, but it took a while to get there."

Abyei, Jones added, provides a painful illustration of the limits of U.N. peacekeeping without the advanced military resources that the French were able to bring to bear in Ivory Coast, but which no major outside power has been willing to commit to Sudan. The few countries that possess those capabilities, including the United States, Britain, France, and other advanced military powers, have been unwilling to supply them, citing other obligations from Afghanistan to Iraq and now Libya. Khartoum, meanwhile, has sought to block Western powers with the military wherewithal to confront his troops from serving in the country.

"It's very far from clear that large-scale infantry can do much in Abyei," Jones said. "So, we're spending a billion dollars a year" to field a peacekeeping mission "without the vital ingredient that can actually make it work. If we can't stop major violations … then what are we doing there?"

A U.N. peacekeeping spokesman, Michel Bonnardeaux, said a review of the Zambians' conduct concluded that "our troops could have and should have had more visibility to deter any violence against civilians and the destruction against property." But "it must be recognized that most civilians left the area before the peak of the crisis and that UNMIS [the U.N. Mission in Sudan] troops and civilians were themselves in imminent danger as the UNMIS compound was hit," he said.

Bonnardeaux said the U.N.'s top military advisor, who traveled to Sudan to interview the Zambians, has instructed the contingent "to be more proactive and visible" in the future.

The U.N. Security Council, however, is exploring the possibility of authorizing the deployment of Ethiopian troops into Abyei to help restore order and prevent a resumption of a civil war. Under the proposal, the northern army would withdraw from the Abyei area to make way for thousands of Ethiopian soldiers, who would help monitor a cease-fire along the border.

On Friday, the U.N. Security Council, meanwhile, issued a statement demanding that Sudan withdraw its forces from Abyei and "ensure an immediate halt to all looting, burning and illegal resettlement." The council also voiced "grave concern following the reports about the unusual, sudden influx of thousands of Misseriya into Abyei town and its environs that could force significant changes in the ethnic composition of the area."

As Sudan's key political leaders vowed today to press ahead with the country's first competitive elections in 24 years, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court reminded the world how politically awkward the April 11-13 vote could prove: Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the first sitting head of state the court has charged with war crimes, may have his rule legitimized through a U.N.-backed election.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the court's Argentine prosecutor, described the spectacle of international election observers traveling to Sudan to monitor the vote, and prodded states to focus on arresting Bashir and send him to The Hague to stand trial. "It's like monitoring a Hitler election," Moreno-Ocampo said, according to Reuters.

The run-up to the landmark national and local elections in Sudan has been marred in recent weeks by reports of a political crackdowns on government opposition figures and logistical problems that raise questions about Sudan's ability to distribute ballots to eligible voters. Last week, the Carter Center, the Atlanta-based NGO headed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, proposed the Sudanese National Election Commission approve a "minor" delay in the vote to ensure that polling stations can be set up in remote communities. The commission rejected the request.

Human Rights Watch issued a statement this week accusing Sudanese authorities of detaining activists, breaking up public gatherings, and preventing opposition parties access to the media. In Darfur, election officials and candidates have been prevented by conflict and banditry from reaching potential voters. In the southern Sudan, Human Rights Watch documented several incidents of arbitrary arrest, intimidation and torture of members of political parties opposed to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), a former rebel group that is now southern Sudan's ruling party."Conditions in Sudan are not yet conducive for a free, fair, and credible election," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa Director for Human Rights Watch. "Unless there's a dramatic improvement in the situation it is unlikely that the Sudanese people will be able to vote freely for leaders of their choice."

Bashir threatened today to expel those foreign election observers calling to delay the elections, a move that reflected the Sudanese leader's growing exasperation with critics of the April vote. Bashir said the government "will cut off their fingers and put them under our shoes."

Sudan's election is part of a carefully choreographed political process that has its roots in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the Islamic government's 22-year civil war with the SPLM. But no one expected that the ruling party's candidate would be the target of an international arrest warrant.

The accord calls for national and local elections in 2010, to be followed by a 2011 referendum in southern Sudan to decide whether the south will secede from Sudan. Bashir's ruling National Congress Party, which sees elections as a means to legitimize its rule, opposes any calls for delay. The SPLM also opposes a delay in voting out of concerns that it would lead to a postponement of the independence referendum it favors.

The preparations for an election involving Bashir have placed the United States, which brokered the Sudanese peace accord, congressional leaders, who support the election, and the United Nations, which is helping to organize the vote, in a tough spot.

"Many Sudanese are hopeful that the upcoming elections will lead to the transformation of Sudan into a more inclusive and democratic country," Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-NJ), told Turtle Bay. "Yet, many others question the legitimacy and credibility of an election when an indicted criminal like Bashir running for president."

The United Nations has mounted a public relations campaign aimed at assuring outsiders that even a flawed election in the African country may be worth having. U.N. officials assembled a group of reporters in New York last week to highlight the historic nature of Sudan's upcoming vote, the country's first in 24 years, and noted that it enjoys broad Sudanese support. "We shouldn't look at this as a negative; we should look at this as a positive," said a senior U.N. official.

Ibrahim Gambari, the special representative of the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, said that while the election may take place in an "imperfect environment" it would alter Sudan's political landscape for the better.

"The security will be pretty good, if our experience in the registration period was anything to go by," he told the Associated Press after attending an international fundraising conference for Darfur in Cairo.