The world's first environment conference. Exclusive.

Thursday, 28 July 2011 14:46 Written by Linda Melvern

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 experts from 48 countries -- agriculturalists, economists, geologists, and ecologists -- from universities, scientific associations, and from private industry. They were tasked to produce the evidence and the solutions to one of the world’s most intractable problems – known then as “the improvident use of the world’s natural resources”. The 1949 UN Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilization of Resources was a milestone. And yet today no one talks of it. Instead, history records that the involvement of the UN in the environmental cause began in 1972 in Stockholm at the Conference of the Human Environment. The 1949 conference was not even a footnote.

Taking Sides on Genocide

Wednesday, 15 September 2010 22:55 Written by Linda Melvern

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 peacekeepers from UN duty – including troops protecting civilians in Darfur. The UN delegation would be well aware of the security council's shameful decision to pull its peacekeepers out of Rwanda in 1994, at the height of the genocide of the Tutsi people. It was Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front that eventually brought the genocide to an end.

Sarkozy Closes the Book on Rwanda

Thursday, 25 February 2010 18:35 Written by Linda Melvern

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 had been made, not just by France, was as far as he went. The lack of apology was no surprise. No matter the weight of evidence that has accumulated, no forgiveness is being sought – and none will be offered.

The issue is simply off the agenda.

France and Genocide: The Murky Truth

Friday, 08 August 2008 23:08 Written by Linda Melvern

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 probably the paper trail that might have revealed the depth of involvement between the Elysée Palace and the Hutu faction responsible for massacring hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and opposition Hutu.

Expert refutes Bruguière claims that RPF shot down Rwandan President’s aircraft in 1994

Monday, 27 November 2006 19:41 Written by Linda Melvern

The New Times, Kigali, Rwanda

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 Rwanda and the president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira were assassinated that night and almost immediately afterwards, as the plane lay smouldering in the presidential garden, there was a promise from the UN that an international enquiry would be held. There was an imperative to find those responsible.

No international enquiry was ever held.

The Press Failed to Hold Politicians to Account Over Rwanda

Friday, 16 July 2010 23:00 Written by Linda Melvern

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 year's One World Media Awards. In reading and watching the entries for the awards, he found the suffering of victims in developing countries sometimes "unbearable" to watch. Journalists "try their best to humanise their tales of woe", he wrote, but this so often became "a mere technique in a numbingly repetitive formula".

A Landmark for International Justice

Thursday, 18 December 2008 17:04 Written by Linda Melvern

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 genocide began on April 6 1994 and lasted until July 17, during which time up to one million people were murdered. On Thursday, at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, three military officers were sentenced to life for this crime. In a landmark ruling – and a milestone for international justice – they were convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of war: they were Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, Lt Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva and Major Aloys Ntabakuze.

The Perfect Crime?

Friday, 29 February 2008 17:47 Written by Linda Melvern

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 speculation as the assassination, on 6th April 1994, of Rwanda’s president Juvénal Habyarimana. For 13 years, the identity of those who shot down the president’s Mystère Falcon jet—triggering the genocide of up to 1m Rwandans, mainly Tutsi—has remained a mystery. All that is known with certainty is that surface-to-air missiles were fired at the jet as it came in to land at Kigali airport, causing it to crash into the garden of the presidential villa—killing all on board.

French Accused of Complicity in Genocide that Killed a Million in Rwanda

Sunday, 05 November 2006 19:42 Written by Linda Melvern

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 murder, by the French military.

The commission is also examining Operation Turquoise, the 1994 French military intervention that was ostensibly aimed at saving Rwandan lives. Human rights groups in France claim French soldiers tricked thousands of Tutsi survivors out of hiding, and abandoned them to the Interahamwe militia. The three-month genocide claimed up to one million Tutsi victims.

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