“Not a single person in the world has done as much for Darfur as Eric Reeves. Combining passion, reason, black humor, legal acuity, and political savvy, Reeves sends us all off in search of our ‘better angels.’ What you have in these pages are the brilliant, fierce, rigorous writings of a one-man-lobbying machine who is single-handedly responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of lives.”       

Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide, Professor, Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government

“No one has covered the Darfur genocide more thoroughly and knowledgeably than has Professor Reeves. He has been the thorn in the conscience of policymakers, scholars, journalists and readers of The New Republic for several years with his erudite and provocative writings. This book collects the best of them with highly readable essays. Historians will rely on A Long Day's Dying for the in-depth analyses and critical judgments of every step taken, and not taken, during the years of atrocity crimes in Darfur. Place this book in the Oval Office.”     

Professor David Scheffer, Northwestern University School of Law (Former U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, 1997-2001)

“During the massive media reporting of the disaster in Darfur no one has been more prolific, determined, and dedicated to reveal the genocide in Darfur than Eric Reeves. Well-informed, carefully researched, and extremely readable, A Long Day’s Dying will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the enormity of this tragedy in the killing fields of Darfur.”      

Robert O. Collins, Professor of History, Emeritus, University of California Santa Barbara

Senior Advisor, International Crisis Group
Co-Founder, ENOUGH Campaign (enoughcampaign.org)
Co-Author with Don Cheadle Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond

The first time I became aware of the “Eric Reeves Phenomenon” was when I worked in the Clinton White House.  We were putting in heavy overtime hours trying to address the various fires that were burning in Sudan, but Eric’s level of commitment put us to shame. No matter what we did to try to isolate the regime in Khartoum, it was never enough, according to Eric. He was right then.  And he continues to be right now.

The record of the international community, “led” by the United States, is as abysmal as Eric’s writings have exposed it to be. When ambiguity has served the Bush administration’s agenda of coddling the regime in order to maintain its access to intelligence about al-Qaeda, Eric’s voice has rung out clearly, providing witness to the hypocrisy of a president who uses the word genocide but then desecrates the Genocide Convention by doing nothing to stop it.

I cannot add anything to the comprehensiveness and clarity with which Eric has documented and analyzed the tragic events of the last four years in Darfur. I can, however, tell you that once you have read this you will be armed and ready to do battle with the indifference and inertia that prevents a more meaningful response to the mass atrocities being perpetrated in Darfur today. You will have no excuse – once educated – to turn your back on a dying Darfur. You will have no choice but to enter the policy battlefield which sees a distracted international community pitted against a growing network of citizens (dare we call it a movement?) internationally who are trying to force their governments and relevant multilateral institutions to respond to the crisis.

It may seem too little or too late, but letters must be written, calls must be made, and our voices must be heard by elected officials if they ignore Darfur and other mass atrocity cases: “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to vote for you anymore!”

The lack of a response to the Darfur crisis is a stain on humanity’s conscience. But it is not too late. Two and a half million Darfurians are still languishing in displaced and refugee camps, extremely vulnerable to the same sources of violence that rendered them homeless in the first place. We need to press the U.S. and other governments to make the perpetrators pay for their crimes, to press the Chinese and Russians to lean on their business partners in Khartoum, and to help bring a measure of peace and protection that Darfurians have lacked for years.

I’ve worked in the White House, the State Department, the Congress, the UN, and for NGOs in African war zones for twenty-plus years. I know from experience that the only way governments around the world are going to respond is if we turn up the volume against genocide and mass atrocities. Use what you learn from Eric in this book and write letters to your elected officials, go to rallies, meet with your representatives, join organizations, raise funds . . . Do something!   

With no action, hundreds of thousands more Darfurian lives will be extinguished. With more letters and more calls, we have a chance to stop the horrors in Darfur. We cannot afford to ignore that grave responsibility.