American envoy John C. Danforth is riding the equivalent of two wild horses at once as he works through the United Nations to try to rein in dual conflicts in Sudan. The first horse is Darfur, an area in the western region where government-backed Arab militiamen engage in what the Bush administration says is genocide against African rebels.

Danforth suffered a serious diplomatic setback last week when the U.N. General Assembly thwarted a resolution that would have denounced the killings and other rights abuses in Darfur. The inaction amounted to moral and political cowardice, particularly among African countries. Once again, they followed their pattern of refusing to criticize human rights abuses by another African nation.

The conflict in Darfur has been spinning out of control for 20 months as government-backed fighters, known as the Janjaweed, engage in wave after wave of terror against Africans, burning villages, killing and maiming men, raping women and causing at least 1.4 million people to flee farms and villages. The death toll is said to exceed 70,000, and tens of thousands more are dying of malnutrition and disease.

The other horse is the 21-year Sudanese civil war between the north's Arab Muslims and black African Christians and animists in the south. During the past two weeks, Danforth persuaded all 15 members of the Security Council to agree to a resolution tackling the north-south war. Getting unanimous support came at a high price. Focusing on the big picture meant backing away from an earlier U.N. threat of sanctions against Sudan over Darfur.

Danforth argues that getting the Security Council to work for peace in the larger conflict would pave the way for ending the smaller but no less tragic developments unfolding in Darfur. We hope he's right. A glimmer of hope is seen in the fact that factions in the north-south struggle have agreed once again to do what they promised earlier: honor a cease-fire and a power-sharing accord.

Trouble is, the parties have been given until the end of this year to set the accord in motion. By then, who knows how many more lives the conflict in Darfur will claim? It's essential that pressure be put on the Sudanese government to hold the Arab terrorists in Darfur in check and make sure they don't prevent food and medicine from reaching the needy and the sick.

The developments in Sudan also raise questions about the administration's willingness to follow through on its charge of genocide in Darfur. If it is genocide, then the United States has an obligation under the Geneva Conventions to insist that the perpetrators are brought to justice. No serious effort has been made to prosecute the Janjaweed.

The last time slaughter on a massive scale visited Africa was 10 years ago, when machete-wielding Hutus killed 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. After the fact, there were plenty of apologies from the West and at the United Nations for having done nothing. Rwanda is worth remembering as Darfur heads down a similar destructive path.

- St. Louis Post-Dispatch