Intent to Deceive: Denying the Genocide of the Tutsi

Description

The 1994 genocide of the Tutsi, an attempt to exterminate a minority people, was unprecedented in speed and scale, comparable to the genocide of the Armenians by Turkey and the Nazi Holocaust. But the violence continues today as supporters of the racist ideology of Hutu power continue to undermine the established version of events, through systematic denial, propaganda and fake news. This campaign seeks to minimize what occurred and blame the victims for their fate. The genocide denial continues to spread and is promoted by media, academics, lawyers and politicians. In this searing account of the aftermath of the genocide, investigative journalist Linda Melvern exposes systematic attempts to falsify the historical record. This includes a campaign by French military officers, implicated in events, to lay the blame on volunteer peacekeepers in the UN military operation. It includes true story behind the owner of Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina, and his links with the killers. It reveals the number of genocidaires at large, and the priest killers protected by the Vatican. The excessive secrecy and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts by Western governments serves Hutu Power in its campaign of new spin. Intent to Deceive is a chilling, thoroughly investigated expose of how politicians continue to use the crime for their own ends, long after the killing has ceased

Linda Melvern is a widely published investigative journalist. She is a former Honorary Professor in the Department of International Politics at the of the University of Aberystwyth and was a consultant to the Military One prosecution team at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. Her previous books on the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi of Rwanda include Conspiracy to Murder and A People Betrayed.

"The best overall account of the background to the genocide, and the failure to prevent it." -- General Romeo Dallaire * [For Conspiracy to Murder] * An epic and shaming story of culpability and missed opportunities... in the finest traditions of investigative journalism. -- John Pilger * [For Conspiracy to Murder] * Melvern offers a vivid picture of the role of Western nations in abetting, ignoring and allowing Rwanda's genocide. * New York Times Book Review [for A People Betrayed] * An important book by an important investigative journalist. It is thanks to the patience and dedication with which Linda Melvern works and her well earned international reputation for excellence in journalism, that she gained access to new, crucial information. Linda Melvern gets us closer to the truth and the truth gets us closer to a better world. Only when we know how and why genocide happens, can we hope to stop it from happening again. -- Linda Polman, author of We Did Nothing * [For A People Betrayed] * A very sensitive and crucial reading [of the Rwandan genocide]. -- Brad Evans * Los Angeles Review of Books * Exposes wilful deception - on the part of countries and individuals with everything to lose - to manipulate the next generation into revisionists and genocide deniers. These duped academics, journalists and other "experts" continue to propagate self-serving lies onto the victims, aiming to wreak damage as repugnant as that of the earliest colonialists. Her book does not delve in gossip-mongering, hearsay or bias. It presents the facts. And it behoves us every one to remember them. It is our moral imperative. In Intent to Deceive, Melvern clearly and concisely details the indisputable evidence of a planned genocide. -- Lt. General Rome Dallaire, * Globe and Mail * Exposes how genocide deniers have crafted an alternative history of the Rwandan genocide. This first exhaustive analysis of the history of Tutsi genocide denial is an essential resource which helps guide readers through the labyrinth of literature on Rwanda's history. * The Africa Report * Linda Melvern has made it something of a life mission to take on the Rwandan genocide deniers and debunk their poisonous fact-muddying claims. . . A clear, crisp and important contribution to the literature on the genocide. In particular Melvern forensically rebuts attempts by apologists for the genocidaires, including western academics, to suggest a moral equivalence between the parties in Rwanda. -- Alec Russell * Financial Times * A brilliant & incisive book about those who continue to deny the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. -- Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect A scathing indictment of those 'experts' who feed off of each other's bias and persistently ignore (and perhaps even benefit from) the lack of reflexivity on and awareness of the harm done by Western-centred knowledge on Rwanda. She shows how most of the knowledge and expertise on Rwanda disproportionately favours non-Rwandan voices, along the way distorting the experiences of survivors and victims and ignoring the expertise of Rwandans altogether. -- Alice Musabende * Wasafiri * Linda Melvern is the foremost expert on the Rwandan genocide, and her latest book picks apart the lies propagated about the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi ethnic group. ... This matters in an age when political leaders, aided by their media cronies, sacrifice the truth to enhance their re-election chances. -- Rebecca Tinsley * Independent Catholic News *