“LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS”:
ERIC REEVES ON DARFUR
“[Eric Reeves] may be the major source of disinformation (he calls it ‘analysis’) about Darfur which is
then spread throughout the U.S.A…How curious that the American media latches on to Mr Reeves’ onesided
falsehoods by way of presented out-of-context half-truths while at the same time ignoring the
dispatches of other journalists, including those who have provided eyewitness accounts.”
The Online Journal [1]
It was the British Statesman Disraeli who was said to have observed that: “There are three kinds of lies: lies,
damned lies, and statistics”. However apocryphal this comment may have been it could not be more apt in
describing the claims made about Sudan, and most recently the Darfur crisis, by the long-standing anti-Sudan
activist Eric Reeves. These claims have included allegations of genocide in Darfur. An English teacher at Smith
College in Massachusetts, Reeves has been active for some time in a campaign against Sudan. In the course of this
campaign Mr Reeves has written dozens of articles making serious allegations about events within Sudan. On
examination many of these claims have fallen apart at the seams. Several measured criticisms of Reeves’ approach,
methodology, and especially the sources he has relied upon for his claims, have been published and republished. [2]
Reeves continues to make, or repeat, serious claims about the situation in Sudan – most recently focusing on
Darfur – without any means of verifying them. He has, for example, made numerous allegations of genocide and
ethnic cleansing in Darfur. [3] He has claimed that as of January 2005, 400,000 people have died in the Darfur
“genocide” – this almost six times the number of people who are feared to have died through violence or disease. [4]
Figures for the number of people who have died in the Darfur tragedy vary from the World Health Organisation’s
estimate of 70,000 through to Khartoum’s claim of 5,000. [5] Reeves’ 400,000 number jumped from his own earlier
statistical extrapolations that deaths were “already approaching 100,000” in late June 2004. [6] That is to say Reeves
now says that between July and December 2004 over a third of a million civilians died in Darfur – apparently
without being documented either by the aid agencies or the many foreign journalists and diplomats in Darfur. Infact
in its year-end report for 2004, the United Nations pointedly noted that “by 31 December 2004…the catastrophic
mortality figures predicted by some quarters have not materialised”. [7] Amazingly Reeves has made the sorts of
assertions he has made while at the same time acknowledging that such claims are based on “second-hand
accounts” and “fragmentary” accounts. He has also acknowledged that verification of such claims has been
impossible: “There have been virtually no first-hand accounts by journalists, and the observations by humanitarian
organizations are necessarily scattered”. [8]
In September 2004, in order to please the Christian right political constituency within the United States, the Bush
administration chose to label the conflict in Darfur as “genocide”. This was admitted by former Senator Jack
Danforth, President Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, in an interview with the BBC in July 2005. [9] This labelling also served to divert attention away from the escalating crisis in Iraq. Washington’s genocide claims have been
pointedly contradicted by well-respected humanitarian groups such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, also known
as Doctors Without Borders). [10] MSF-France President Dr Jean-Hervé Bradol subsequently described American
claims of genocide in Darfur as “obvious political opportunism”. [11] Dr Bradol had previously stated that the use of
the term genocide was inappropriate: “Our teams have not seen evidence of the deliberate intention to kill people of
a specific group. We have received reports of massacres, but not of attempts to specifically eliminate all the
members of a group.” [12] Dr Mercedes Taty, MSF’s deputy emergency director, who worked with 12 expatriate
doctors and 300 Sudanese nationals in field hospitals throughout Darfur at the height of the emergency, has also
warned: “I don’t think that we should be using the word ‘genocide’ to describe this conflict. Not at all. This can be
a semantic discussion, but nevertheless, there is no systematic target – targeting one ethnic group or another one. It
doesn’t mean either that the situation in Sudan isn’t extremely serious by itself.” [13]
In common with several people who have claimed genocide in Darfur, Reeves has turned a blind eye to the
reservations of groups such as Médecins Sans Frontières about such allegations. This is particularly disingenuous
given that Reeves has previously repeatedly cited MSF as a credible source on Darfur. [14] Indeed, he states that it was
through Médecins Sans Frontières that he first heard about Sudan. [15] Indeed, he cites a “life-changing” conversation
with the executive director of MSF as the reason he become involved with Sudan. [16] Reeves’ selectivity with regard
to which MSF material he wishes to use, especially if it contradicts his case, is deeply questionable.
Médecins Sans Frontières is an exceptionally credible observer with regard to allegations of genocide for three
reasons. Firstly, MSF was amongst the first humanitarian groups to establish a presence in Darfur as the conflict
unfolded. MSF is very heavily involved in the provision of medical and emergency services in all three of the states
that make up Darfur, deploying two thousand staff. It has been actively assisting hundreds of thousands of people
displaced by fighting throughout the region. Médecins Sans Frontières is also present and engaged in Chad. MSF,
therefore, has a unique institutional awareness of events in Darfur. Secondly, MSF’s reputation is quite simply
beyond reproach. Médecins Sans Frontières was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. It has also received
numerous other awards recognising its outstanding humanitarian work throughout the world. [17] And thirdly, MSF’s
record with regard to genocide is also unambiguous. Dr Bradol, cited above, headed MSF’s programs in Rwanda in
1994, and spent several weeks assisting the surgical team that struggled to remain in Kigali during the genocide. Dr
Bradol and MSF called for armed intervention in Rwanda stating “doctors can’t stop genocide”. Given the clear
position with regard to genuine genocide taken by Dr Bradol and MSF, their unambiguous position in pointedly
criticising allegations of genocide in Darfur is all the more powerful.
Despite having noted that Médecins Sans Frontières “has performed superbly in the field”, when MSF’s viewpoint
differed from his, Reeves abruptly turned on MSF, accusing the organisation of being “disingenuous” and that it
had made “ignorant and presumptuous statements about the issue of genocide” in Darfur. He dismissed comments
by Dr Jean-Hervé Bradol as a “particular disgrace”. [18] Given this level of intellectual gerrymandering it is little
wonder, therefore, that Reeves’ has even been criticised, especially on the genocide issue, by other established
long-time anti-Sudan activists. In July 2004, for example, Jemera Rone, the Human Rights Watch Sudan specialist
– whose work on Sudan has previously been described by Reeves as “assiduously researched”, “distinguished”, “unsurpassed” and “trenchant” [19] – publicly asked whether “people like Eric Reeves are abusing the legal term
[genocide] to try and rouse people to act?” [20]
Reeves’ credibility on Darfur is questionable across the board. In a 17 December 2004 commentary, for example,
Reeves acted as an apologist for the cold-blooded murder by rebel Sudan Liberation Army gunmen of two Save the
Children (UK) aid workers, in an attack on their clearly-marked vehicle, in Darfur on 13 December 2004. [21] The
United Nations special envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk unambiguously confirmed rebel involvement in these deaths.
Reeves, however, claims there were “somewhat conflicting accounts” of the crime. He claims that the “perpetrator
was drunk” while admitting this may not be true. He claims that there was “a heated debate…about what to do with
the aid workers”. Reeves then claims: “The person responsible for shooting the two aid workers…was himself
summarily shot and killed by his fellow combatants.” All these assertions are untrue. Reeves attempted to downplay
the murders by claiming that “the insurgents have shown inadequate discipline, even as they confront appalling
provocation.” Quite what “appalling provocation” by aid workers helping to keep civilians in Darfur alive justifies
cold-blooded murder is not made clear by Reeves. He also queried whether the SLA had been responsible for the
October 2004 murder of two other Save the Children aid workers in a land-mine attack. The United Nations
confirmed SLA responsibility. [22] Reeves’s attempt to downplay the December murders as an “action…by a single
drunken soldier” is sickening. This rebel attack on aid workers was part of a clear and systematic pattern and
follows recent rebel threats against aid workers. [23] In his January 2005 report on Darfur – and referring to rebel
actions – the United Nations Secretary-General reported on what he termed a “new trend” in the pattern of attacks
on, and harassment of, international aid workers: “While previous incidents have only been aimed at looting
supplies and goods, December has seen acts of murder and vicious assaults on staff, forcing some agencies to leave
Darfur.” [24] Reeves has also claimed that there are “no credible reports of rebel attacks on civilians as such”. This
further attempt to whitewash the atrocious human rights record of the Darfur rebels was breathtaking in its
dishonesty.
Far from demonstrating the objectivity, discernment and research skills one would have expected from a Smith
College teacher, he has shown crass selectivity. It comes, however, as no surprise. He has previously embraced
similarly serious claims about Sudan. In 2000, for example, Reeves accepted at face value outlandish newspaper
claims that China was deploying 700,000 soldiers to Sudan to protect Chinese interests in the Sudanese oil
project. [25] Reeves called it an “explosive report” stating “it is highly doubtful that the report comes from thin air, or
that important sources are not behind it.” [26] When asked about this allegation, however, the British government
stated that “We have no evidence of the presence of any Chinese soldiers in Sudan, let alone the figure of 700,000
alleged in one press report.” [27] Even the Clinton Administration, as hostile as it was to the Sudanese authorities,
dismissed the claims, stating that even “the figure of tens of thousands of troops is just not credible based on
information available to us”. [28] He has also relied upon dubious sources for some of his other claims about Sudan.
These sources have included South African Islamophobes such as Derek Hammond. [29] Hammond’s website has
overtly championed the “Christian” fight against “the evil of Islam”, referring to the “anti-Christian religion of
Islam”. [30]
In an independent critique of media coverage of Darfur, Online Journal has openly criticised Reeves’ claims about
Darfur, stating that he “may be the major source of disinformation (he calls it ‘analysis’) about Darfur which is then
spread throughout the U.S.A…How curious that the American media latches on to Mr Reeves’ one-sided
falsehoods by way of presented out-of-context half-truths while at the same time ignoring the dispatches of other
journalists, including those who have provided eyewitness accounts.” [31] Quite so.
Footnotes
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