Reviews for Conspiracy to Murder. The Rwandan Genocide.
Voted Best Book on Africa by Foreign Affairs 2004
“Essential... quite possibly the definitive account of the origins of the tragedy. Melvern relies heavily on material that had not been available to earlier researchers, such as captured Rwandan government documents... Scholars will appreciate the meticulous research and extensive endnotes. Melvern’s writing is clear and direct. Accessible to all readers.”
An Outstanding Academic Title Choice
Linda is one of our finest investigative journalists. She was first to obtain and publish the secret minutes of Security Council meetings, revealing how the UK – perhaps at US instigation but probably not – took the lead in pretending that this was not genocide and in blocking any Security Council response other than to withdraw blue berets and to betray the people they were protecting. I can think of no more irresponsible act of a British government in modern times and it is a shameful thing that there has been no kind of enquiry into how or why the UK thus became complicit in genocide.
Geoffrey Robertson QC
“For a chronicle of the events that unfolded between April and June 1994, the book is unsurpassed. It is hard to image that there could be any significant facts...that would contribute to your knowledge of what happened.. the book is really a starting point for considering crucial questions about the meaning of the genocide.. Melvern’s text will no doubt in future become indispensable to those who do ask questions about the genocide’s appalling excesses and the unspeakable extremities of the violence perpetrated... It is thorough, uncompromising in its attention to detail”. read review...
Leonhard Praeg
Journal of Contemporary African Studies
“It is a devastating account of the West’s failure to act, in the face of clear evidence that a planned genocide was taking place. The British role is a deeply troubling one. Silence, as Melvern points out, was the worldwide response to mass murder. The media contributed to it by ignoring the story when it mattered most. That silence continues to be deafening”. read review...
Magnus Linklater
The Times
“Melvern’s book is outstanding. She writes clearly and with no attempt at cheap dramatisation of horror. Her research has been exhaustive and the clarity of her chronology is the most damning of all indictments against those who looked the other way in the years leading up to 1994. ...objectivity subsidises credibility. In this way her work ranks with the 2003 book, Gulag”.
Robert Kirby
Mail and Guardian
Linda Malvern’s second book on this genocide, updated to include recent information from the International Criminal Tribunal, shocks twice. First, she reveals the careful preparations the Rwandan army made in advance. Second, she explores the shameful roles of Western powers in stalling the United Nations Security Council’s already cumbersome responses. Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, the heroic head of the UN’s pitifully impoverished peacekeeping force in Rwanda, accused Britain, the US and France of leading the UN “to aid and abet a genocide".
James Urquhart
Conspiracy to Murder is not only an impressive narrative of the genocide based on a wealth of data and testimonies but also a sharp critique of the international community’s failure to stop the killings.
Beatriz Pavon
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