More independent witnesses, reporters, activists and NGOs must go into the areas where the civilians are. Right now, even the prisoners, held by the government are ready to fight against the UN.UN peacekeepers must settle on the border with Chad, with the support of the government there. But it must be a mission that is planned with an awareness of what I have experienced as the only foreigner in this part of Darfur – along with two American reporters.The UN has got to counteract the propaganda that Khartoum is using against international intervention. At the moment, the Sudanese government has total control over all information in the country. Only the rich have access to independent media, through the internet, and they are, broadly speaking, either supporters of the present government or people preparing to leave the country.I have been to Sudan nine times, and each time I have seen the same pattern.

The government is using its own Jihadist brand of Islam to keep the people in submission. They are using the threat of an outside enemy – the international community, primarily the US – that wants to come in and take their natural resources, steal their oil.The Chief of Security in Sudan told me himself that he fears the US will come. The people of the Jebel Marra, the Fur, indigenous Africans who follow a Sufi school of Islam are the most endangered.At the moment, they have convinced the people in Darfur that a UN force coming in across the border from Chad would be an invasion force. They have managed to make people believe that even the NGOs are evil, that they are spies preparing the ground for a UN invasion of the country.The women, children, the elderly, the sick and the vulnerable are exposed There is nothing to stop them being destroyed. It is barely more than a fortnight since I was released from a prison in Darfur. My experiences, both in the prison and during seven months as a human rights envoy in Sudan, are a warning to all of us that the people of Darfur can easily be indoctrinated and turned against the international community. The fighting, the dying, the villages destroyed.The UN must come, but only as far as the border with Chad.

They need to start a radio station broadcasting across the border to give people access to information on what is really going on. These people are being readied to go and fight against the UN I won’t forget what I saw for seven months. The leaders in Khartoum, who oppose international intervention, are exploiting this anti-Americanism to stay in power and continue the destruction of Darfur, to continue to push the African population out of the region.
I saw in prison how people changed from having sympathy and empathy for me to being suspicious and hostile and believing that I was a spy. The media in Sudan are telling them that the United Nations is controlled by the US.