A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide, Revised and Expanded Edition

Following thirty years of research, including research into recently declassified government archives, this newly revised and expanded edition of Linda Melvern’s classic of investigative journalism reveals how policymakers continue to refuse to properly acknowledge their responsibilities under international law. The new edition includes copious new material reckoning with the information that came to light during the 2022 trial of Félicien Kabuga, the alleged financier of the genocide. This new evidence feeds not only into a revised chronology and a wholly new section on the build-up to the genocide, but also into a new appendix that lists the six major genocide memorial sites in Rwanda along with now-incontrovertible details of the massacres that occurred there.

Throughout it all, Melvern reveals in unmatched detail the scale, speed, and intensity of the unfolding genocide, and she exposes the Western governments and individuals who could have prevented what was happening if only they had chosen to act. What emerges is a shocking indictment of how Rwanda was ignored in 1994 and of how it is misremembered in the West today-an indictment that renders all the more poignant Melvern’s accounts of the unrecognised heroism of those who stayed on during the violence, from volunteer peacekeepers to NGO workers.

Linda Melvern has written regularly for the British press, and was previously a reporter for the The Sunday Times. For 20 years she has investigated and written about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. A consultant to the Military One prosecution team at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), her archive of documents on the planning and preparation of the genocide was a part of the documentary evidence used by the prosecution. She is an Honorary Professor in the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.