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April 2004 saw the tenth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, an event generally acknowledged to be one of the most appalling of the twentieth century and potentially avoidable.
Linda Melvern’s new book, the result of a decade of investigative work, is a damning indictment of almost all the key figures and the institutions involved. It reveals how the French military trained the killers, how the US is still withholding wiretap and satellite evidence that the genocide was about to begin, how the John Major government ignored vital warnings that the genocide was planned, how much Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the French government knew prior to the genocide and how the Security Council’s shameful decision to evacuate the peacekeepers came about. In addition to these official sources, the author draws on dozens of witness statements yet to be heard at the International Criminal Tribunal, at which she will be an expert witness, and a sixty-hour confession from the prime minister in the government that presided over the genocide never before made publicly available and currently locked in the safe of the chief prosecutors at the ICT court.
“Linda Melvern’s work on Rwanda is in the finest traditions of investigative journalism. Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide extends her previous book, A People Betrayed: the Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide, a brilliant investigation into the tragedy for which the “international community” was itself responsible. With testimony from witnesses and access to documents previously unseen, she tells an epic and shaming story of culpability and missed opportunities.” — John Pilger
“... the best overall account of the background to the genocide, and the failure to prevent it.” — General Romeo Dallaire
“Quite extraordinary; precise, and yet overwhelming; a fine balance in the face of depravity ... a brave and compelling book.” — Richard Falk on A People Betrayed
Linda Melvern is a well-known and widely published investigative journalist. She is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and was a consultant to the Military One prosecution team at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. Her previous books include The Ultimate Crime, a secret history of the UN’s first fifty years, and A People Betrayed.
Publication
Cloth: April 2004
Paper: April 2006
384 pages
Cloth
1 85984 588 6
£16 / US$25 / CAN$37
Paper
1 84467 542 4
£9.99 / US$18 /CAN$25
