Setting
the Record Straight on Sudan
Amid the world’s
ongoing wars and military struggles, and among the numerous reports of suffering,
violence and natural disasters, even the most appalling atrocities can be quickly
swept to the back pages of history.
 Events in Sudan during its bloody
civil war have rarely taken front-page prominence in world
news reports, even while the years of violence perpetrated
by the country’s government against its own people,
combined with calamitous famine, have claimed some 2 million lives and displaced
untold millions more.
Partly for that reason, Eric
Reeves, professor of English language and literature and
an expert on the Sudan struggle, recently published ,
an eBook, available for free, that compiles numerous writings
and analyses about the conflict.
“It is above all an effort to ensure that we do not forget or deny the suffering
of people throughout greater Sudan,” says Reeves about Compromising
with Evil in a Weblog on enough!, a publication of the Enough Project, which works to end
genocide and crimes against humanity around the world. “These are people who
have collectively endured unimaginable suffering and losses over more than five
decades of virtually uninterrupted civil war.”
For about a decade, Reeves has
maintained a Weblog, at , detailing the conflict
between the Islamic government of President Omar al-Bashir,
based in Khartoum, and the vast southern region of Sudan,
largely consisting of Catholic and animist sects. The southern
region gained political independence on July 9, 2011, becoming
the country of South Sudan, though many issues, as well as
widespread violence, continue.
Through his expertise and
public outspokenness on Sudan, Reeves has become recognized
among the most trusted sources for information on the region.
He has published numerous articles
in international journals and testified before the U.S. Congress.
He is also the author of A Long Day’s Dying:
Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide, a 2007 book
about the Khartoum regime’s
systematic genocide against people in the Darfur region of
Sudan.
Reeves produced
the eBook in collaboration with Madeline Zehnder ’13, a fellow participant last
year in the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute’s “Evil” project. Through her copy-editing,
research and help with organizing, formatting and other tasks, Zehnder learned
a vast amount about the Sudan conflicts.
“I was shocked to learn about the extent and nature of the violence,” she said, “but
I was equally if not more disturbed to learn just how much I didn’t know about
a truly incomprehensible amount of human suffering.”
Eric Reeves |
Compromising
with Evil presents
multiple perspectives on the unrest in Sudan, its spillover
to neighboring states and its historical and future implications.
An example of the thorough
reportage in Compromising with
Evil is its many annexes
that present numerous articles, tables and statistics on
aspects of the Sudan conflict, on mortality, humanitarian
missions, accounts of Reeves’ testimony,
media coverage, government communications and other topics.
In addition to its
comprehensiveness in framing and documenting events
in Sudan, Compromising with Evil is also important
as a counter to attempts at historical revision by groups,
such as the al-Bashir government, set on obscuring the dimensions
of its violent campaigns over time—including massacres of
civilians, bombing attacks on unarmed villages, assaults
on refugee camps, extortion and widespread rape and sexual
violence.
“Many of the reports we worked from never made it into mainstream news,” noted
Zehnder, “and there are countless other reports that never
move beyond the confidential stage. I encourage everyone
to read at least the book’s introduction, which offers
a comprehensive overview of the main issues regarding greater
Sudan.”
Evidence shows Reeves’ book is succeeding in spreading the
archival record far. Compromising with
Evil has been cited
and praised broadly since its October publication, with numerous
reviews and acclaim in publications and media around the
world.
“Working on this project overturned my cynicism about the power that one individual
has to make a difference,” commented Zehnder. “Eric’s moral
commitment to this subject and perseverance in bringing Sudanese
accounts into the public eye definitely make him a person
with that ability.” |
