In recent months, the world’s Press and Media have been filled with stories about Serb atrocities against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, and NATO’s efforts to stop them by bombing the Serbs from 15,000 feet. There is no doubt of course that Slobodan Milosevic is a monster. According to current estimates, he is responsible for the general abuse and slaughter of some 10,000 Albanians -- and the forced expulsion of a million more from their homes in Kosovo. An international war crimes tribunal has rightly branded Milosevic a "war criminal."

The Serbs are, for the most part, Catholics. Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians are mostly Moslems. The seemingly endless wars that have gone on between these peoples are not just "ethnic," they are also religious. They are rooted in history and an abiding sense of betrayal on both sides. The use of the term "ethnic" is often a politically correct way of avoiding the ugly reality that religious antagonism also plays a profound role in these conflicts.

While the world’s eyes have been focused on Kosovo and Belgrade, a much bigger, uglier, longer-lasting, and more brutal war has been raging in the Sudan. This war too involves ethnic cleansing, only in this one the bad guys are Islamic and most of the victims are Christians.

On January 1, 1956, the Sudan gained its independence from Britain and Egypt. For the 43 years of its independent history, 32 of them have been devoted to bloody bouts of civil war. The current chapter in this war began in 1983, when Islamic Khartoum abolished autonomy for predominantly Christian southern Sudan. The government then sought to impose Islamic law – sharia – on the whole country. Those who resisted – mainly Christians – were deprived of food, bombed and ethnically cleansed. To date, the Islamic governments of Khartoum have slaughtered some 1.9 million Sudanese -- most of them civilians and Christians. Additional thousands have been raped, tortured and sold into slavery.

The current arch-thug of this brutal regime is Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, leader of the National Islamic Front (NIF). His government supported Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War of 1991, and has played host to terrorists "Carlos" and Osama bin-Laden. He also provided safe haven for the Islamic fanatics who attempted to assassinate Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak in 1995.

The NIF regime also supports a nasty gang of Ugandan bandits known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). These thugs prey on civilian populations in both Sudan and Uganda.

In 1992, the NIF declared jihad – holy war – against the Nubas of the mountain regions in south central Sudan. Helping agencies have been denied access to the area, leading to the suspicion that genocide is taking place there.

This hellish regime also permits its murahaleen – government trained militia raiders -- to capture at will women and children they come across in their raids, and to use them as they see fit. Most are raped, many are sold into slavery. The right to commit such atrocities is considered booty payment for pillaging and ethnic cleansing in the name of the regime in Khartoum.

In the south, Dinka civilians have been driven by the murahaleen into the swamps, where they are reduced to surviving on water-lily roots.

What has been going on in the Sudan for the past 43 years is far worse than what happened in Kosovo, or earlier in Bosnia. So where is the world’s Press and Media? Where is the world’s outrage? Where are the protectors of Christians when it comes their turn to be "cleansed"? Is it because the victims in this "civil war" are mostly Christian, and mostly black, that the world doesn’t seem to care?

How much did you know about the Sudan before you read this article? If your answer is, "Very little," I rest my case. If what’s left of the civilized world is to rise up in righteous indignation against such barbarism, there must first occur a massive awareness campaign. The Press is going to have to come to see this as a major, ongoing, story. If Slobodan Milosevic deserved to be branded a war criminal and get bombed for what he has done in Kosovo, then Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir, and his gang of thugs, certainly deserve the same label and at least equal treatment.

But then, if we go there, we’re also going to have to go to China and consider its treatment of Tibet…