Darfur Through Rose-Colored Glasses?

El FASHER, Sudan, June 7, 2007 — -- The government of Sudan wants the world to believe the humanitarian crisis in Darfur has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, it says, it's not really a crisis at all.

As part of a renewed public relations effort to respond to international condemnation of the violence in Darfur, the Sudanese government took a group of African intelligence officials on a day trip to the region. A few operatives from Britain's MI6 intelligence service came as well. I was invited on the trip along with a small band of foreign correspondents.

Sudan's vice president, Ali Osman Taha, explained that the troop "will assist you in making your own sound judgments, your own evaluations, based on realistic information, away from misleading, malicious media reports."

This was a most unusual tour of Darfur.

At 6 a.m. we loaded onto an old Boeing 737 in Khartoum for the two-hour flight to North Darfur. The air conditioning on the plane wasn't working — which is not a good thing when it is more than 100 degrees outside and every seat on the plane is taken. I sat next to an intelligence official from Zimbabwe, a country that knows a thing or two about human rights abuses.

"How's life in Zimbabwe," I asked her.

"It's tough," she said. "But what do you expect? Revolution is difficult."

Difficult indeed. Human rights organizations have labeled Zimbabwe as one of the most repressive governments in the world. Most recently its government has been condemned for bulldozing the homes of thousands of people in the slums of its capital city in a campaign Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe calls "Operation Clear the Filth." The destruction is on such a large scale, you can actually see it in satellite photographs. The United Nations estimates more than 500,000 people have been made homeless.

My seatmate didn't see what all the fuss is about.