Crisis States Research Centre public lecture
Date: Wednesday 6 May 2009
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Linda Melvern
Linda Melvern is an investigative journalist and author. A world expert on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, she was a consultant to the prosecution team at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the military one case. She is an Honorary Professor of the Department of International Politics (University of Wales - Aberystwyth).
by Pieter Hugo - Essay by Linda Melvern
In 2004 South African photographer Pieter Hugo was astonished by a photograph used to illustrate an article on the Rwandan genocide. The picture showed a human skull on an altar inside the Catholic church at Ntarama, south of Kigali.
Ten years previously an
…Rwandan genocide: French probe reviews attack that sparked terror
As a new probe reverses an earlier French investigation on the event that sparked the Rwandan genocide, shifting the focus from Tutsi rebels to Hutu extremists, François Picard’s panel argues over whether, in the past, there has been a cover-up.
A new report reveals who was behind the assassination which led to genocide. But it leaves France with many questions to answer.
Few events have been the subject of as many rumours and lies as the assassination on 6 April 1994 of Rwanda's President Juvénal Habyarimana. 
The wreckage of the
Exclusive: Bailing out of Oblivion In August 1949, in a converted gyroscope factory in northwest Long Island, the first United Nations conference on the environment took place. A temporary UN headquarters, the factory was located at Lake Success bordering the city borough of Queens. Gathered together that August were 706
…Jocelyn Coulon: ... I would like to invite now Linda Melvern to address us.
Linda Melvern: Thank you so much for inviting me to speak at a school of journalism. I'm an investigative journalist, and for 10 years, I have concentrated on the exact circumstances of the genocide in Rwanda. The
…In Rwanda the g-word has a terrible irony when used against those who were victims 16 years ago
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, made a hurried and unexpected visit to Kigali last week to persuade Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, not to carry out a threat to withdraw all Rwandan
…Victim journalism allowed the UN security council to ignore humanitarian law
Jonathan Freedland's criticism of the way in which news is reported from Africa ( We know Rwanda is the story that matters. Yet we still turn to Rooney , 29 June) was prompted by his role as a judge in this
…The French president's visit is historic but a true reckoning of the role of French policy in the genocide may never be possible During his whistle-stop visit to Rwanda, Nicolas Sarkozy made no apology for the role of France in the genocide of 1994. A carefully worded acknowledgement that mistakes
…Gerald Caplan: ...Melvern is tireless in demanding from each of those who either betrayed or abandoned Rwanda that they must set up a serious independent commission to investigate the role each country or institution played. The government of Stephen Harper has formally acknowledged the reality of the Turkish genocide against
…Crisis States Research Centre public lecture
Date: Wednesday 6 May 2009
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Linda Melvern
Linda Melvern is an investigative journalist and author. A world expert on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, she was a consultant to the prosecution team at the
…Chris McGreal - guardian.co.uk
Theoneste Bagosora, country's defence chief of staff, denies directing massacre of 800,000 by Hutu militia.
An international court has sentenced the mastermind of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda , Theoneste Bagosora, to life imprisonment in what prosecutors hailed as the most significant verdict of its kind since Nuremberg.
…The conviction of Théoneste Bagosora is a milestone in the prosecution of those who perpetrated the Rwandan genocide
There were no sealed trains or secluded camps in Rwanda. The killing took place in broad daylight. A planned and political campaign, and a way to avoid powersharing with a minority, the
…How far was Mitterrand's Government involved in the slaughter of hundred of thousands of Rwandans?
There is remarkable television footage shot in the first days of the genocide in Rwanda. It shows a large room in the French Embassy in Kigali filled floor to ceiling with shredded documents. This was
…In a detailed report, the Rwandan government is accusing France of being complicit in the "preparation and execution" of the 1994 genocide that killed some 800,000 people. The report released by the Rwandan Ministry of Justice Tuesday accuses top French officials, including former prime minister Dominique de Villepin and the
…The Rwandan genocide was triggered by the killing of the country's president in April 1994. The identity of the assassins remains one of the great mysteries of the 20th century. Now a new witness has emerged, alleging French involvement
Few events in recent times have been the subject of such
…Mark Doyle, BBC World Affairs
...A British expert on the Rwandan genocide, Linda Melvern, author of the investigative study Conspiracy to Murder, says she is surprised at the lack of convincing new evidence in the French judge's allegations given that, at the time of the shooting down of the plane,
…Expert refutes Bruguière claims that RPF shot down Rwandan President’s aircraft in 1994
We may never know who was responsible for shooting down of the Mystère Falcon jet under cover of darkness in the skies over Kigali at 8. 25 pm on April 6, 1994.Two African presidents, Juvenal Habyarimana of
…An unprecedented public inquiry into France's role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda held hearings in Kigali last week, where the French army was accused of complicity in massacres of Tutsi. The seven-person examining commission is hearing testimony from 20 survivors, some claiming serious human rights abuses, including rape and
…A new BBC film telling the 'truth' of events in Rwanda only compounds the original sins of the West's media. The Observer
In the course of a few terrible months in 1994, up to one million people were killed in Rwanda in organised and systematic massacres. It was slaughter on
…I thank Fergal Keane for his contribution to the debate about the British media and the coverage of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I am glad he shares my view that the news desks should have given the story a higher priority.
I am saddened however that he is left
…Linda Melvern has been one of the foremost investigators to emerge in the aftermath of the genocide and I respect her work enormously. But her critique of the film Shooting Dogs makes a number of inaccurate statements about BBC News and Rwanda. The impression she conveys is of journalistic abandonment.
…Support for the campaign by Survival International Against the irresponsible use by journalists of phrases such as "ancient tribal hatreds"
Letter from Linda Melvern to Survival International : I have researched the circumstances of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and I have had the opportunity to study in some detail the
…Linda Melvern reveals the role of the Catholic Church in the Rwandan genocide
Of all the terrible stories of genocide to emerge from the court rooms of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, it was the one concerning Father Athanase Seromba that caught the imagination of the western media. The
…From a speech given to Action for UN Renewal in the House of Commons
Thank you to Act-UN for allowing me to share some of my work on the United Nations. I would like to begin by paying tribute to all those people who work for the organisation in the
…The obligation of states towards genocide prevention is outlined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide – the world’s first truly universal, comprehensive and codified protection of human rights.
The convention stood for a fundamental and important principle; that whatever evil may befall any
…The Guardian : France was intimately involved with the extremist Hutu regime
In a few terrible months in 1994, up to 1 million people were killed in Rwanda in a planned political campaign. The preparation for mass killing on a countrywide scale took three years and involved a conspiracy that embraced
… 
Mark Doyle, BBC World Affairs
A British author says a senior official from the Rwandan war crimes tribunal flew to London last week to question her about the secret confessions of a 1994 Rwandan genocide organiser that she obtained for inclusion in a recently-published book.
At least 800,000 people are
… 
I am a British investigative journalist and have spent the last ten years studying the circumstances of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
I was in New York in April 1994, and my first interviews where conducted there with some of the non-permanent members of the Security Council. My first book
…Panel 3: International media coverage of the Genocide - Carleton University School of Journalism and Communication
The events in Rwanda in ’94 were defined for our generation, the consequences of the failure of intervene in the face of mass murder, and there remains little doubt that what took place, the failure
… Sponsored by the Committee on Conscience
JERRY FOWLER: We’ll go ahead and get started. Thank you very much for coming today. We’re very honored to have a presentation by Linda Melvern, who is the author of A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide. Today I think
…The Media and the Rwandan Genocide
In the course of a few terrible months in 1994, one million people were killed in Rwanda. It was slaughter on a scale not seen since the Nazi extermination programme. The killing rate in Rwanda was five times that achieved by the Nazis. Such
…DISPATCHING LUMUMBA: Who killed Patrice Lumumba? The Belgian government’s spokesmen were adamant when news of the murder of the Congo’s first elected prime minister was announced in February 1961: ‘In accordance with its policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of the Congolese state, Belgium has absolutely nothing to do
…Linda Melvern analyses the failure of the international community in Rwanda
In the course of a few terrible months in 1994 up to one million people were killed in Rwanda. It was slaughter on a scale that the world has not seen since the Nazi extermination programme against the Jews.
…The United Nations Security Council meeting in January 1992 had marked a turning point in history. As the first meeting of the Council held at head of state level it had captured the spirit of the age. The Council had met the challenge of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and it
… 
The architects of the United Nations set out to create the most ambitious system of collective security ever attempted. To this end, the Security Council was given unprecedented power. Its five permanent members would be the world’s policemen; they would fulfil the UN’s central purpose of maintaining peace and security.
The Media and the Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is central to the application of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This article examines the role of the Council in the circumstances of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and questions the
…