Steven Baguma
26 May 2006
Kigali — One of Britain's leading investigative journalists, Linda Melvern, has dubbed the content of Paul Rusesabagina's book, 'An Ordinary Man' as a 'deviation' from the facts surrounding the 1994 Genocide.
'The version of events described in this book (An Ordinary Man) and concerning the genocide in Kigali seems to deviate from the facts as I have researched them. I do not understand the claim that Paul Rusesabagina was responsible for saving the lives of those Rwandans trapped at Hotel des Mille Collines', Melvern, a renowned and widely published researcher about the 1994 Genocide, wrote in an internet interview with The New Times.
The TNT interview followed protests by the UK-based Rwandans against Rusesabagina throughout this week, in the wake of the launch of the 224-page autobiography (An Ordinary Man) in London.
Melvern contends that contrary to Rusesabagina's account of the events at the Hotel Des Mille Collines, the safety of the people at the hotel during the Genocide was largely due to the presence of the United Nations Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) personnel. 'I think it important that film makers who want to use the Rwandan Genocide as a backdrop for their work should state clearly whether their films are either fiction or fact. It is the merging of fiction and fact that is dangerous,' she says.
'To claim that fiction is fact does a disservice to history and also to the understanding of how mass human rights abuses take place. It also allows those politicians and officials who were responsible for the failure over Rwanda to escape adequate scrutiny', Melvern adds.
She also disclosed that US diplomats pleaded with the regime in Kigali not to kill those seeking asylum at the high profile hotel.
'The presence of four UN peacekeepers at the Hotel made a decisive difference to the safety of those inside,' Melvern states in her correspondence of Tuesday, May 23.
Linda Melvern has authored books including A People Betrayed (The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide), Conspiracy to Murder (the story of how that Genocide was planned and executed), The Ultimate Crime, a secret history of the UN's first fifty years.
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