Signs of hope in Darfur: after years of conflict in which 300,000 civilians died and 3 million became refugees, a fragile calm has settled over one of Africa's most horrific wars.

• Author: Gettleman, Jeffrey
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

The images on TV and online were harrowing: burning villages, skeletal human remains abandoned in the desert, and throngs of displaced and starving people, most of them women and children, crowded into squalid refugee camps.

Darfur--a vast, arid region of western Sudan--grabbed the world's attention in a way that news of African conflicts rarely does. Celebrities like George Clooney became involved in raising awareness and money for relief efforts, and teens and college students raised thousands of dollars through groups like Dollars for Darfur, founded in 2006 by two high school students.

The war in Darfur began in 2003, when rebels demanded greater political and economic rights for black Darfurians from the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum, the capital.

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The government responded by turning loose the janjaweed--Arab militiamen who stormed into villages on horses and camels, torching houses, stealing cattle, and raping and killing villagers. Some 300,000 civilians died in the state-sponsored violence, and nearly 3 million are currently living in refugee camps.

Now, United Nations officials say that for the first time since 2003, tens of thousands of farmers who had been living in refugee camps have returned to their villages to plant crops--a journey many would have considered suicide until recently.

PERCEPTION VS. REALITY

A hybrid African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force--the most expensive in the world at $1.6 billion per year--is finally in place and has helped to stabilize Darfur. Rebel groups, fragmented and lacking a clear political agenda, have been quiet; U.N. officials say there is little evidence the government is sponsoring ethnic violence in the region, though the situation remains unpredictable.

"People need to update their perception of Darfur," says Daniel Augstburger, the director of the African Union-U.N. humanitarian liaison office in Darfur. "It's not like there are still janjaweed riding around, burning down villages."

However, there is still violence in Darfur: Five Rwandan peacekeepers were recently killed, and aid workers are routinely carjacked. Heavily armed bandits seem to be everywhere, and the flow of people out of the camps is just a trickle: Millions are still afraid to go home.

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In October, President Obama appointed J. Scott Gration, a retired Air Force general, as special envoy to Sudan, and the Sudanese government seems encouraged by the Obama...