The UK the Guardian Newspaper and Ms Linda Melvern
It is a shame on The UK The Guardian Newspaper to continue to allow Ms Linda Melvern to disseminate the propaganda against individual Rwandans.
This British woman ( Ms.Linda Melvern) who claims to be a university lecturer has lost credibility by continuing to support General Paul Kagame who is a dictator and war criminal. This British woman should refrain from attacking Rwandan Hutu individuals who are known to have not participated in the Rwandan genocide or who have saved the lives of other people during the Rwandan genocide.
This British woman claims to be a freelance journalist and Honorary University Lecturer. These roles show that she is unemployed individual who cannot even pay for her ticket for participating in international meetings. All travels abroad are paid by Paul Kagame.
This woman is obsessed by Rwandan problems than Rwandan themselves. This is just one example of Western people recruited by Kagame through corruption to support his regime. Others include Kagame's so-called advisors, journalists and scholars who have written books about him.
In the recent Rwandan government's newspaper The New Times of 12 /04/ 2012 ( article below), it is reported that Linda Melvern said in a conference that "the large majority of those who are thought to have masterminded and taken part in the killings live freely in Europe. Some 200 live in the UK, in Canada, in America and, here, in Stockholm. They live among you. In France, evidence against fugitive genocidaires is simply ignored".
If this woman is a true freelance journalists investigator and scholar, she should refrain from using Kagame's propaganda against his political opponents to publish her own unsubstantiated stories about Rwanda, distort the truth and events about the Rwandan genocide or to deny what Rwanda themselves believe in.
This woman has never written even one page about human rights abuses in Rwanda and Congo by Kagame , the genocide against Hutus Refugees in DR Congo and imprisonment of Kagame's political opponents against his dictatorial regime.
It is well know that General Kagame assassinated the former President of Rwanda. This is confirmed by the people who were close allies to Kagame and by other credible reports. However, it is only this British woman who disseminates other stories and lies surrounding this event.
There will be no true reconciliation, freedom, human rights and democracy in Rwanda if we continue to read Linda Melvern's biased stories and misleading account of the Rwandan genocide.
This woman is a shame ! We hope that she will appreciate that we also have freedom of expression about her on this forum as she has it on the Guardian Newspaper.
Reference stories
Hotel Rwanda – without the Hollywood ending: Paul Rusesabagina has received the Lantos Human Rights prize, but his role as hero of the genocide should be examined:
Rwanda: at last we know the truth
Renowned British author warns of "extensive campaign of Genocide denial"
Here is one of the true stories about Rwanda:
Associatiated Press/Washingtonpost.com, July 12, 2012
Rwandan exile, Kayumba Nyamwasa, front, and his wife Rosette Kayumba sit in the Johannesburg court Thursday July 12, 2012, after finishing his testimony as a witness in the trial of six East Africans accused of attempted murder in his 2010 shooting. Nyamwasa alleges that Rwandan President Paul Kagame was behind a plot to kill him, and has tried to kill other dissidents around the world.
A prominent Rwandan exile accuses the president of being a dictator, imprisoning political opponents and destabilizing East Africa, adding in an interview Thursday that he believes the leader, who he once served, has hunted him and other dissidents around the world.
Kayumba Nyamwasa, once Rwandan President Paul Kagame's army chief, spoke to The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Thursday after finishing his testimony as a witness in the trial of six East Africans accused of attempted murder in his 2010 shooting. Rwanda's government has denied involvement in an attack in Johannesburg that left Nyamwasa with a bullet lodged at the base of his spine.
"There is no doubt that my life has been threatened by the president of Rwanda, using government institutions and using hired killer squads," Nyamwasa said. He spoke in the court room where he testified for several days last month and just over two days this week. When he mentioned hired assassins, he gestured to the dock where three Rwandans and three Tanzanians accused of trying to kill him had sat during a trial session earlier Thursday.
The Rwandan government has said it would not comment on matters before a court. Kagame's spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment on Nyamwasa's allegations.
Nyamwasa, who has faced questions about his own conduct when he was close to Kagame, said of Rwanda's president, "I was his chief of staff. I was his ambassador. And I came to South Africa because I'm running away from him. He hires killers to kill me. What else can he be other than a dictator?"
"When I called him a dictator, it was not out of assumption. It was not out of speculation. It was based on facts," he said as his wife Rosette Kayumba sat next to him. His wife, who was in the car with him when he was shot, attended every hearing at which he testified, once bringing along two of their four children.
Nyamwasa said he believes that in addition to the attempt to kill him, Rwandan government agents were behind the killing in Uganda late last year of a Rwandan journalist who was a prominent critic of Kagame. And Nyamwasa cited warnings British police have issued to Rwandan exiles in Britain that their lives were in danger, a threat believed to emanate from the Rwandan government.
Nyamwasa said one reason Kagame wants him dead is that he has evidence Kagame ordered the shooting down of a plane carrying Juvenal Habyarimana, then president of Rwanda in 1994. Rwanda's 100-day genocide was sparked by the death of Habyarimana, a Hutu. Militants from Rwanda's Hutu majority blamed Tutsis for the president's death, sparking the slaughter of more than 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The genocide ended when Kagame's forces seized power.
The Rwandan government blames Hutu extremists for the crash that killed Habyarimana. A French investigation completed earlier this year found that the missile fire came from a military camp and not Kagame's forces. But Nyamwasa said he had evidence Kagame ordered the plane be brought down. Nyamwasa would not elaborate, but said he would present his evidence to French investigators.
Observers speculate Kagame saw Nyamwasa as a political rival, but Nyamwasa said Thursday he had no personal political ambitions. Working with other dissidents in South Africa and elsewhere, Nyamwasa established the Rwandan National Congress in South Africa. It is dedicated to pursuing peaceful political change in Rwanda, he said Thursday.
He said he began opposing what he called "creeping dictatorship" in his homeland before fleeing to South Africa, arriving just months before he was shot. He compared Rwanda under Kagame to Egypt under now-toppled Hosni Mubarak, saying Kagame's political opponents are jailed, journalists are killed or forced into exile, and judges answer to the president instead of the law. Independent human rights groups make similar charges.
"I protested," Nyamwasa said. "That's why I am in exile."
He has refugee status in South Africa and has been under South African government protection since the shooting.
A Spanish judge in 2008 charged Nyamwasa and 39 other members of the Rwandan military with mass killings of civilians. The Spanish allegations, which have prompted rights groups in South Africa to call for Nyamwasa to be stripped of his refugee status here, stem from accusations Nyamwasa and other senior Tutsis waged a retaliatory extermination campaign against Hutus after the genocide.
Nyamwasa denied accusations he is responsible for human rights abuses or war crimes.
"I can concede that during the process of war, people died and there could have been some excesses," he said. "But those could not explicitly implicate me."
He said he supported incursions by Rwandan forces into neighboring Congo in the mid-1990s, saying toppling the Mobutu regime in power in the former Zaire was necessary. But since then, Nyamwasa charged, Kagame has waged unnecessary wars, fueling instability in the region, and is now funding rebels in Congo.
Kagame's government has denied a U.N. experts report accusing it of helping create, recruit for and arm an insurgency in Congo that since April has forced more than 200,000 people from their homes.
Nyamwasa said Thursday that Kagame wants Congo, Rwanda's giant, mineral-rich neighbor, weak so that he can manipulate its politics and loot its wealth.
Nyamwasa, identified earlier as Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, clarified during his testimony that he does not use the name Faustin.
------------------------------
Renowned British author warns of "extensive campaign of Genocide denial"
inda Melvern speaking at the conference on the Genocide in Stockholm yesterday. The New Times / Courtesy.
STOCKHOLM – Renowned British investigative journalist and author, Linda Melvern, on Wednesday, warned against the existence of a broad international campaign by genocidaires and their sympathisers to deny the Genocide against the Tutsi.
Melvern, the author of A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide, among other books, was addressing diplomats, government officials, civil society and Rwandans living abroad at the commemoration conference organised in Stockholm, by the Rwanda Embassy in Sweden to mark the 18th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
"Rwandan genocidaires and their supporters continue to operate a vicious and racist propaganda to ensure that Rwanda, in academic journals, newspapers and broadcasts, is the most misreported nation on earth", said Melvern.
She warned that the ideology of the Genocide perpetrators "has never disappeared."
"To this day, its supporters remain organised and financed, and they live among us, determined one day to finish their task," she warned.
"At the heart of this campaign is a theory that the genocide in Rwanda was not a result of planning but a spontaneous uprising of a population angered by the death of their Hutu president.
"This monstrous lie blames the victims themselves for the moral responsibility for the Genocide and this is the foundation of the campaign," she added.
Melvern also said that in recent years, the Genocide denial campaign had been "actively promoted by a French investigative magistrate, Jean Louis Bruguiere "whose report is used by genocidaires on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) where some defence lawyers actually take part in the ongoing Hutu-power denial campaign".
In 2006, Bruguiere, based on flimsy testimonies by individuals opposed to the Government in Kigali, accused senior Rwandan officials of downing the plane – when they were still part of the RPA rebels – that killed president Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994.
But his controversial report has since been squashed by the findings of a more meticulous French report, which concluded that the missiles that hit the plane were fired from the Kanombe military camp, which was under the tight control of Habyarimana's para-commando and anti-craft battalions.
Melvern said that "the deniers maintain that the Genocide against the Tutsi was a myth" despite the fact that it had been confirmed as "a fact by judges at the ICTR, Human Rights Watch, investigators of the Belgian Senate, the OAU (now African Union), Oxfam, Africa Watch, the UN Independent group of experts inquiry, and many others".
The British author said that denial of the Genocide, as with the Holocaust, had begun right after the massacres began.
"The last stage of genocide is denial, where evidence is destroyed, investigations blocked and the death toll manipulated. With the Holocaust, the first deniers were the Nazi themselves.
"The pattern is repeated with the Genocide in Rwanda. The first deniers emerged in April 1994 when the genocidaires tried to prove to the world that the large number of civilian deaths in Rwanda was due to fighting and a civil war," she explained.
Melvern said that "sadly the large majority of those who are thought to have masterminded and taken part in the killings live freely in Europe. Some 200 live in the UK, in Canada, in America and, here, in Stockholm. They live among you. In France, evidence against fugitive genocidaires is simply ignored".
She called on everyone to ensure that "all efforts continue to establish and properly document the Genocide against the Tutsi and to apprehend and prosecute those responsible".
Melvern's warning echoed one given earlier in the event by Rwanda's Ambassador to the Nordic Countries, Venetia Sebudandi.
"Negationism, revisionism and trivialisation of the Genocide against the Tutsi is currently going on openly unabated in conferences, in the media and in academic debates," said Sebudandi.
She also called on countries harboring Genocide suspects to extradite them to Rwanda or try them in their national courts.
Also speaking at the commemoration was former Swedish envoy to Rwanda, Bo Göranson.
He said that Rwanda had achieved unprecedented socio-economic development since the end of the Genocide against the Tutsi.
"The number of people living in poverty went down from 57 per cent to 45 per cent in five years. Poverty has been reduced by 2.4 per cent each year. This is unparalleled in Africa, and matched only by Vietnam, China and Thailand," said Göranson.
Holocaust survivor Hédi Fried and Ester Mujawayo, an author and survivor of the Genocide against the Tutsi, also spoke.
Among the many dignitaries in attendance was a member of the Independent Inquiry into the United Nations' actions during the Genocide in Rwanda, Ms. Lisbet Palme, wife of former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme.
Rwanda will, tomorrow, officially close a week of mourning organised in line with the 18th anniversary of the Genocide, which claimed the lives of over a million people in a spell of 100 days.
Melvern, the author of A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide, among other books, was addressing diplomats, government officials, civil society and Rwandans living abroad at the commemoration conference organised in Stockholm, by the Rwanda Embassy in Sweden to mark the 18th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
"Rwandan genocidaires and their supporters continue to operate a vicious and racist propaganda to ensure that Rwanda, in academic journals, newspapers and broadcasts, is the most misreported nation on earth", said Melvern.
She warned that the ideology of the Genocide perpetrators "has never disappeared."
"To this day, its supporters remain organised and financed, and they live among us, determined one day to finish their task," she warned.
"At the heart of this campaign is a theory that the genocide in Rwanda was not a result of planning but a spontaneous uprising of a population angered by the death of their Hutu president.
"This monstrous lie blames the victims themselves for the moral responsibility for the Genocide and this is the foundation of the campaign," she added.
Melvern also said that in recent years, the Genocide denial campaign had been "actively promoted by a French investigative magistrate, Jean Louis Bruguiere "whose report is used by genocidaires on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) where some defence lawyers actually take part in the ongoing Hutu-power denial campaign".
In 2006, Bruguiere, based on flimsy testimonies by individuals opposed to the Government in Kigali, accused senior Rwandan officials of downing the plane – when they were still part of the RPA rebels – that killed president Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994.
But his controversial report has since been squashed by the findings of a more meticulous French report, which concluded that the missiles that hit the plane were fired from the Kanombe military camp, which was under the tight control of Habyarimana's para-commando and anti-craft battalions.
Melvern said that "the deniers maintain that the Genocide against the Tutsi was a myth" despite the fact that it had been confirmed as "a fact by judges at the ICTR, Human Rights Watch, investigators of the Belgian Senate, the OAU (now African Union), Oxfam, Africa Watch, the UN Independent group of experts inquiry, and many others".
The British author said that denial of the Genocide, as with the Holocaust, had begun right after the massacres began.
"The last stage of genocide is denial, where evidence is destroyed, investigations blocked and the death toll manipulated. With the Holocaust, the first deniers were the Nazi themselves.
"The pattern is repeated with the Genocide in Rwanda. The first deniers emerged in April 1994 when the genocidaires tried to prove to the world that the large number of civilian deaths in Rwanda was due to fighting and a civil war," she explained.
Melvern said that "sadly the large majority of those who are thought to have masterminded and taken part in the killings live freely in Europe. Some 200 live in the UK, in Canada, in America and, here, in Stockholm. They live among you. In France, evidence against fugitive genocidaires is simply ignored".
She called on everyone to ensure that "all efforts continue to establish and properly document the Genocide against the Tutsi and to apprehend and prosecute those responsible".
Melvern's warning echoed one given earlier in the event by Rwanda's Ambassador to the Nordic Countries, Venetia Sebudandi.
"Negationism, revisionism and trivialisation of the Genocide against the Tutsi is currently going on openly unabated in conferences, in the media and in academic debates," said Sebudandi.
She also called on countries harboring Genocide suspects to extradite them to Rwanda or try them in their national courts.
Also speaking at the commemoration was former Swedish envoy to Rwanda, Bo Göranson.
He said that Rwanda had achieved unprecedented socio-economic development since the end of the Genocide against the Tutsi.
"The number of people living in poverty went down from 57 per cent to 45 per cent in five years. Poverty has been reduced by 2.4 per cent each year. This is unparalleled in Africa, and matched only by Vietnam, China and Thailand," said Göranson.
Holocaust survivor Hédi Fried and Ester Mujawayo, an author and survivor of the Genocide against the Tutsi, also spoke.
Among the many dignitaries in attendance was a member of the Independent Inquiry into the United Nations' actions during the Genocide in Rwanda, Ms. Lisbet Palme, wife of former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme.
Rwanda will, tomorrow, officially close a week of mourning organised in line with the 18th anniversary of the Genocide, which claimed the lives of over a million people in a spell of 100 days.
Renowned British author warns of “extensive campaign of Genocide denial”
Linda Melvern speaking at the conference on the Genocide in Stockholm yesterday. The New Times / Courtesy.
STOCKHOLM – Renowned British investigative journalist and author, Linda Melvern, on Wednesday, warned against the existence of a broad international campaign by genocidaires and their sympathisers to deny the Genocide against the Tutsi.Melvern, the author of A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide, among other books, was addressing diplomats, government officials, civil society and Rwandans living abroad at the commemoration conference organised in Stockholm, by the Rwanda Embassy in Sweden to mark the 18th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
“Rwandan genocidaires and their supporters continue to operate a vicious and racist propaganda to ensure that Rwanda, in academic journals, newspapers and broadcasts, is the most misreported nation on earth”, said Melvern.
She warned that the ideology of the Genocide perpetrators “has never disappeared.”
“To this day, its supporters remain organised and financed, and they live among us, determined one day to finish their task,” she warned.
“At the heart of this campaign is a theory that the genocide in Rwanda was not a result of planning but a spontaneous uprising of a population angered by the death of their Hutu president.
“This monstrous lie blames the victims themselves for the moral responsibility for the Genocide and this is the foundation of the campaign,” she added.
Melvern also said that in recent years, the Genocide denial campaign had been “actively promoted by a French investigative magistrate, Jean Louis Bruguiere “whose report is used by genocidaires on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) where some defence lawyers actually take part in the ongoing Hutu-power denial campaign”.
In 2006, Bruguiere, based on flimsy testimonies by individuals opposed to the Government in Kigali, accused senior Rwandan officials of downing the plane – when they were still part of the RPA rebels – that killed president Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994.
But his controversial report has since been squashed by the findings of a more meticulous French report, which concluded that the missiles that hit the plane were fired from the Kanombe military camp, which was under the tight control of Habyarimana’s para-commando and anti-craft battalions.
Melvern said that “the deniers maintain that the Genocide against the Tutsi was a myth” despite the fact that it had been confirmed as “a fact by judges at the ICTR, Human Rights Watch, investigators of the Belgian Senate, the OAU (now African Union), Oxfam, Africa Watch, the UN Independent group of experts inquiry, and many others”.
The British author said that denial of the Genocide, as with the Holocaust, had begun right after the massacres began.
“The last stage of genocide is denial, where evidence is destroyed, investigations blocked and the death toll manipulated. With the Holocaust, the first deniers were the Nazi themselves.
“The pattern is repeated with the Genocide in Rwanda. The first deniers emerged in April 1994 when the genocidaires tried to prove to the world that the large number of civilian deaths in Rwanda was due to fighting and a civil war,” she explained.
Melvern said that “sadly the large majority of those who are thought to have masterminded and taken part in the killings live freely in Europe. Some 200 live in the UK, in Canada, in America and, here, in Stockholm. They live among you. In France, evidence against fugitive genocidaires is simply ignored”.
She called on everyone to ensure that “all efforts continue to establish and properly document the Genocide against the Tutsi and to apprehend and prosecute those responsible”.
Melvern’s warning echoed one given earlier in the event by Rwanda’s Ambassador to the Nordic Countries, Venetia Sebudandi.
“Negationism, revisionism and trivialisation of the Genocide against the Tutsi is currently going on openly unabated in conferences, in the media and in academic debates,” said Sebudandi.
She also called on countries harboring Genocide suspects to extradite them to Rwanda or try them in their national courts.
Also speaking at the commemoration was former Swedish envoy to Rwanda, Bo Göranson.
He said that Rwanda had achieved unprecedented socio-economic development since the end of the Genocide against the Tutsi.
“The number of people living in poverty went down from 57 per cent to 45 per cent in five years. Poverty has been reduced by 2.4 per cent each year. This is unparalleled in Africa, and matched only by Vietnam, China and Thailand,” said Göranson.
Holocaust survivor Hédi Fried and Ester Mujawayo, an author and survivor of the Genocide against the Tutsi, also spoke.
Among the many dignitaries in attendance was a member of the Independent Inquiry into the United Nations’ actions during the Genocide in Rwanda, Ms. Lisbet Palme, wife of former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme.
Rwanda will, tomorrow, officially close a week of mourning organised in line with the 18th anniversary of the Genocide, which claimed the lives of over a million people in a spell of 100 days.
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