While much of America's attention is now focused on the impact of John Edwards' selection as John Kerry's running mate, the United Nations and top White House officials are carefully reviewing the definition of the word genocide.

While much of America was trading partisan barbs over whether former president Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton is more deserving of praise or vilification, a million Africans are facing death in Sudan.

The facts of the latest African crisis are known: More than a million black Sudanese have been driven from their homes by Arabic-African warriors An estimated 30,000 blacks have been murdered and many thousands of women have been raped by the Janjaweed warriors. Human rights groups say that the Sudanese government is withholding international aid to the refugees and mass starvation could kill a million people in the refugee camps whose conditions are made worse by brutal desert heat.

But so far, the United Nations, the United States and the rest of the world are only talking about the problem and debating the meaning of the word genocide. The reason for the debate, is that once a genocide is officially declared, the U.N. and world take action.

The reluctance to take action now is sadly similar to the non-action in the mass murders in Rwanda ten years ago when some 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were hacked to death in less than six months. Then, as now, the U.N. the White House (under President Bill Clinton) stood by and did nothing.

A book published on the Rwandan slaughter revealed a memo from a Clinton official in the Defense Department warning others in the administration to "be careful. . . genocide finding could commit us to actually 'do something.' "

The same sad caution over official use of the word genocide is happening today. Halting the continued murder and human rights abuses in Sudan seems to be a perfect job for the United Nations and its role in the world. Yet at the U.N. headquarters, there is plenty of talk, but no action to intervene.

While President Clinton apologized for U.S. inaction a few years after the Rwandan murder sprees, the Bush administration could be prevented from ignoring the crisis due to pressure to do something in Sudan being applied by evangelical Christian groups that form a significant portion of its political base.

For over a decade, Christian groups allege, Sudan was scene of government-supported murder of 2 million African Christians. A spokesman for one human rights group said of the current crisis, "Kofi Annan (the U.N. Secretary General) has sat out two genocides in Africa. This is the third he may sit out. We're not going to let him do that."

While U.N. officials and American diplomats carefully weigh their words, the manmade and government supported suffering in Sudan continues. The same delaying tactics were used to wait out the months of brutal killings in Rwanda, sparing the U.N. and leading countries of the world from having to do something.

If the United Nations cannot or will not intervene with troops to try to stop the atrocities in Sudan today and failed to take action in Rwanda in 1994, it is fair to question the organization's purpose and effectiveness.

Cynics note that some in the U.N. were all to eager to take an active role in siphoning off millions of dollars through the corruption of the "oil for food" program designed to help Iraqis under Saddam Hussein's regime, but the same international community cannot be bothered to come to the aid of millions of desperate Africans.

The United Nations does not have an easy job; not every human crisis in the world can be avoided or brutality prevented. But recent action -or inaction - by the United Nations casts doubt on its ability and willingness to tackle what would seem to be its most basic purpose.

Columnist James Lileks wrote recently, "The United Nations is about to get its latest last chance, in the Sudan."

The world appeared united in indifference and coordinated in looking the other way as half-a-million Rhwandans were murdered a decade ago. If the current crisis in Sudan continues while the U.N. and leading nations of the world debate semantics, the United Nations will have proven itself the "ineffective debating society" President Bush warned in might become in September 2002 when he was seeking U.N. support to militarily force Iraq to comply with U.N. sanctions.

The crisis in Sudan might not register with many Americans obsessed with partisan political bickering, but it could well be the U.N.'s last, best hope to prove its relevance and worth.

The world is watching.

- J.L.W.III