Eric Reeves (born 1950) is an American academic who is professor emeritus of English language and literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Reeves has carried out research into the politics and human rights situation in Sudan. [1]
Before being employed at Smith College, Reeves received degrees in English Literature from Williams College and the University of Pennsylvania.[ citation needed ]
Reeves started studying politics and human rights in Sudan in 1999. [1] He testified several times before the United States Congress, has lectured widely in academic settings, and has served as a consultant to a number of human rights and humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan. Working independently, he has written on several aspects of Sudan's recent history, in particular the Darfur genocide, and the role of the Sudanese and Chinese governments in perpetuating it. He was described as "a fierce critic" of former American President Barack Obama's policy of reconciliation with Sudan. [1]
Reeves received a grant from Humanity United (Redwood City, CA) to support his research and travel. A collection of his essays on ongoing war and human destruction in Darfur appeared as A Long Day's Dying (Key Publishing, 2007). He later published an eBook about five crucial years in the history of Sudan: Compromising with Evil: An archival history of greater Sudan, 2007 - 2012 (www.CompromisingWithEvil.org).
He presently oversees a project in Zamzam IDP camp in North Darfur, with a primary emphasis on assisting girls and women traumatized by genocidal sexual violence. The project also distributes food and medicine to the neediest; it has also begun an effort to rehabilitate that water wells that have fallen into disrepair, making life for the more than 400,000 people in Zamzam extremely difficult. [2]
His work has appeared in The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Wall Street Journal , as well as numerous academic journals. This work has led to Reeves receiving a number of honorary degrees, and many other forms of national and international recognition.[ citation needed ]
Darfur is a region of western Sudan. Dār is an Arabic word meaning "home [of]" – the region was named Dardaju while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë c. 350 AD, and it was renamed Dartunjur when the Tunjur ruled the area. Darfur was an independent sultanate for several hundred years until 1874, when it fell to the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr. The region was later invaded and incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. As an administrative region, Darfur is divided into five federal states: Central Darfur, East Darfur, North Darfur, South Darfur and West Darfur. Because of the War in Darfur between Sudanese government forces and the indigenous population, the region has been in a state of humanitarian emergency and genocide since 2003. The factors include religious and ethnic rivalry, and the rivalry between farmers and herders.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1564, adopted on 18 September 2004, after recalling resolutions 1502 (2003), 1547 (2004) and 1556 (2004), the Council threatened the imposition of sanctions against Sudan if it failed to comply with its obligations on Darfur, and an international inquiry was established to investigate violations of human rights in the region.
Juan E. Méndez is an Argentine lawyer, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and a human rights activist known for his work on behalf of political prisoners.
The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, was a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting against the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
The Save Darfur Coalition was an advocacy group that attempted "to raise public awareness and mobilize a massive response to the atrocities in Sudan's western region of Darfur." Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it was a coalition of more than 190 religious, political, and human rights organizations organized to campaign for a response to the atrocities of the War in Darfur, which culminated in a humanitarian crisis. By 2013, reports indicated that the conflict had claimed approximately 300,000 lives and had displaced over 2.5 million people.
This is the bibliography and reference section for the Darfur conflict series. External links to reports, news articles and other sources of information may also be found below.
While there is a consensus in the international community that ethnic groups have been targeted in Darfur and that crimes against humanity have therefore occurred, there has been debate in some quarters about whether genocide has taken place there. In May 2006, the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur organized by United Nations "concluded that the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide ... [though] international offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be more serious and heinous than genocide." Eric Reeves, a researcher and frequent commentator on Darfur, has questioned the methodology of the commission's report.
Mukesh Kapila M.D. CBE is an author, medical doctor, professor, and claims to be a senior humanitarian.
Alexander William Lowndes de Waal, a British researcher on African elite politics, is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Previously, he was a fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University, as well as program director at the Social Science Research Council on AIDS in New York City.
Ahmed Mohammed Haroun is one of five Sudanese men wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Despite international pressure on the government of Sudan to surrender him to the ICC, Haroun served as Sudan's Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs until May 2009, when he was appointed to the governorship of South Kordofan. In September 2007, he was appointed to lead an investigation into human rights violations in Darfur. In July 2013 he resigned as Governor of South Kordofan, and was reappointed by Omar al-Bashir as Governor of North Kordofan. On 1 March 2019, President Omar al-Bashir handed over the running of the country's leading political party, the National Congress, to him. He was arrested in April 2019 by local authorities in Sudan following a coup which overthrew al-Bashir.
Musa Hilal is a Sudanese Arab tribal chief and militia leader and adviser to the Sudanese Minister of Internal Affairs. His Um Jalul clan exercised tribal leadership of the Arab Mahamid tribe in Darfur. The Mahamid are part of a larger confederation of camel-herding (Abbala) tribes of the Northern Rizeigat. Musa is the leader of the Janjaweed militia, which was responsible for a massive military campaign against civilians in Darfur in 2003, as part of a counterinsurgency effort against Darfur rebel groups. On 21 January 2008, the Federal Government of Sudan announced the nomination of Musa Hilal as the chief advisor of the Ministry of Federal Affairs in Sudan. This position allows Mr. Musa to coordinate with regional leaders surrounding Darfur, as well as with Arab tribal groups, on the relations of the military regime.
Brian Steidle is a former Marine Corps captain, military and security operations expert, and author who had worked on publicizing the Darfur conflict in Sudan. Steidle wrote a book, The Devil Came on Horseback, about his experience, which was turned into a documentary film that premiered at Sundance in 2007.
John Prendergast is an American human rights and anti-corruption activist as well as an author. He is the co-founder of The Sentry, an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy. Prendergast was the founding director of the Enough Project and was formerly director for African affairs at the National Security Council.
Samuel Totten is an American professor of history noted for his scholarship on genocide. Totten was a distinguished professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville where he taught from 1987 to 2012 and served as the chief editor of the journal Genocide Studies and Prevention. He is a Member of the Council of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1547, adopted unanimously on 11 June 2004, after welcoming the commitment of the Sudanese government and Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) to work towards a full ceasefire and peace agreement to end the Second Sudanese Civil War, the council established a United Nations Advance Team in Sudan to prepare for a future United Nations operation following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The brief reference to the situation in the Darfur region divided Council members, with Algeria, China and Pakistan against a mention of Darfur and the other two-thirds of the council supporting its inclusion.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1556, adopted on 30 July 2004, after recalling resolutions 1502 (2003) and 1547 (2004) on the situation in Sudan, the council demanded that the Sudanese government disarm the Janjaweed militia and bring to justice those who had committed violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Darfur.
Throughout the ongoing Darfur genocide in the Darfur war there has been a systematic campaign of rape, which has been used as a weapon of war, in the ethnic cleansing of black Africans from the region. The majority of rapes have been carried out by the Sudanese government forces and the Janjaweed paramilitary groups. The actions of the Janjaweed have been described as genocidal rape, with not just women, but children also being raped, as well as babies being bludgeoned to death and the sexual mutilation of victims being commonplace.
The Darfur genocide was the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people during the War in Darfur. The genocide, which was carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict several people for crimes against humanity, rape, forced transfer and torture. An estimated 200,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2005.
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, generally referred to mononymously as Hemedti, Hemetti, Hemeti, or Hemitte, is a Janjaweed leader from the Rizeigat tribe in Darfur, who was the Deputy head of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) following the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état. Since 2013, Hemetti has commanded the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). He was considered by The Economist to be the most powerful person in Sudan as of early July 2019.
The Masalit massacres is an ongoing massacres of the Masalit ethnic group in Sudan perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Sudan and its allies. The massacres began in 2023 during the Sudanese civil war when the RSF began committing a series of massacres and organized mass killings of Masalit civilians in West Dafur.