For three years Lloyd Axworthy, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, has been advocating an approach to international politics based on something he calls "human security."

"One of the most fundamental challenges we face is the realization of a humane world," he wrote in a co-authored op-ed appearing in the Oct. 21, 1998, the International Herald Tribune. "This must be more than a vision. It is a moral imperative. The facts in the world around us speak for themselves."

And nowhere do they speak louder than in Sudan. The civil war there, still going strong after 16 years, has claimed 1.9 million lives, more than were claimed in the slaughters of Kosovo, Bosnia, Chechnya and Rwanda combined. Its government, the National Islamic Front, is a military dictatorship that is considered by many experts to be the worst human rights violator in the entire world. Both directly, and through support of local militias, it has waged a campaign of genocide, forced religious conversion and enslavement against tribesmen living in the southern and central parts of the country. (It is one of only two countries that still permits chattel slavery.)

But the southern areas of Sudan that supply slave traders with their stock are also rich with oil. And Talisman Energy Inc., a Canadian firm, is helping the Sudanese government extract it.

In some instances, the involvement of foreign investors in Third World nations leads to political reform. Not so in Sudan. According to several reports -- including one released recently by the UN Commission on Human Rights -- the government has been systematically purging tribesmen who live in the vicinity of Sudan's oil-producing areas. And since pumping began, much of the revenue has been recycled back into the killing fields.

Mr. Axworthy's position on the well-documented pogroms and the role of Canadian-pumped oil in financing and motivating them? He hasn't taken a firm one yet, having decided instead to wait for the results of Canada's own fact-finding inquiry. Perhaps when we get the results -- and there is no reason to doubt they will be at variance with what we already know -- Mr. Axworthy can proceed with the lofty project of promoting "human security" in Sudan.

Of course, that will be easier said than done. Mr. Axworthy has only one bona fide weapon at his disposal: economic sanctions. And, as a recent Post editorial pointed out, this weapon is not particularly powerful. Sanctions are generally ineffective when imposed by small players such as Canada without broad multilateral support -- even if, as in this case, the most powerful player, the United States, is already on board.

But why not go out and get that multilateral support? Why would Mr. Axworthy, a great fan of the Ottawa Convention on Anti-Personnel Landmines and the Rome Treaty creating an International Criminal Court, not relish the opportunity to promote -- even to spearhead -- a broad, international campaign against Sudan?

One hopes it has nothing to do with the corporate affiliations of Paul Desmarais Sr. As disclosed in today's National Post, Mr. Desmarais holds an indirect stake in TotalFina S.A., a French oil company that, like Talisman, has interests in Sudan. Mr. Desmarais also sits on TotalFina's board of directors and has strong personal and professional ties to the Liberal party. This puts Mr. Axworthy in a delicate position.

There are not one but two ironies at play here: First, that Canada, the self-proclaimed champion of soft power and human security in so many other contexts, should find itself playing, to date, the apologist's role with regard to a murderous regime like Sudan's; and second, that Mr. Desmarais, a businessman with whom the Liberal party elite, including Paul Martin and John Rae, has had such a long and close relationship (see CHRETIEN-DESMARAIS, Page A9) would himself be affiliated with one of the few Western corporations that do business with that regime.

We have hope, however, that Mr. Axworthy will do the right thing -- and soon. The people of Sudan, after all, are still waiting for the realization of that "humane world" he keeps talking about.

SUDAN ACCUSED:

- The United States, in 1992, accused Sudan of harbouring and supporting terrorism. It unilaterally imposed economic sanctions against Sudan in 1997 and attacked a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum with missiles in 1998, alleging the plant was producing chemical weapons.

- In October of this year, a United Nations report accused Sudan of using bombers, helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery to clear an area around the country's oilfields. The report says thousands of villagers have been displaced from oil-producing areas.

- According to the U.S. State Department, since the 1989 military coup the Sudanese government has displaced more than four million people in a country with an estimated 27.5 million people.