Should Reads...

At the end of this year, one thing a lot of members of the UMass Amherst Darfur Campaign said was that they wished they had more information about what was actually going on on the ground in Darfur. With that in mind, I've decided to post occasionally about books, news articles and columns that are good sources of information about Darfur and related subjects. Today, I have 3 should reads for you:

Nicholas Kristof's New York Times columns - located here - are always a should read. Kristof is perhaps the loudest media voice when it comes to Darfur, and his columns have at times blurred the lines between activist and journalist. Not all of his columns are about Darfur, he actually focuses on Asia, but he has published quite a bit of information about the conflict and it's a good place to start.

The Devil Came on Horseback by Brian Steidle and Gretchen Steidle Wallace - Brian Steidle is an American and a former Marine who spent six months in Darfur working with an African Union team that was supposed to be maintaining the ceasefire between rebel troops and the Government of Sudan. The book chronicles his time in Sudan (including time he spent in South Sudan before he went into Darfur), and discusses his frustration with the African Union mandate which didn't allow for intervention. It also provides specific, detailed and graphic information about the situation.

Steidle publishes a document from the Government of Sudan that he managed to get his hands on while in Sudan. Without reprinting the entire thing, I'd like to say that after reading this document, if I had ever had any doubts as to whether the situation in Darfur was a genocide, this paragraph would have silenced them (it's been translated into English, so the grammar is not so great, but you get the idea):

"Killings, burnings of villages, farms and terrorize and rob properties from African tribes and force them to migrate outside Darfur, killing of intellectuals, the youth that may participate with the rebels in fighting and celebrate by raising the Arab Coalition flag after two years." (Steidle and Wallace, 187).

The government wants to completely wipe out these citizens because they are not Arabs. The killings of intellectuals, leaders and youths are all clear signs of genocide.

And my final should read:

Any and everything by Eric Reeves. His essays on Darfur can be found here. He's also written a book called A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide (I haven't read it yet, so you'll probably see Eric Reeves on the should read's list again, when I have). Reeves has been working tirelessly for the people of Darfur for a decade, working as a full time researcher and analyst on the conflict. He's written a LOT about Darfur, but it's all worth sifting through.