"Call me Ishmael, but don't call me a fabulist!"

Ishmael Beah's bestseller "a long way gone' is challenged by Australia, "Rupert Murdoch's Aussie broadsheet". Australia avows that Ishamael was not recruited as a boy soldier for 2 year, but for 2 months. Ishmael Beah denies Australia's accusation emphasizing his honesty.
The accusations began when an Australian mining engineer found out that one of his employees could potentially be Beah's father. When the engineer contacted Beah to let him know that Beah's father might still be alive, he replied that the miner cannot possibly be his father. Beah, his editors and his agents concluded the mail, saying "we are deeply concerned that this issue not go further" Later, it turned out that the man in the mine is not Beah's father, but one of his distant relatives. Even though, Beah and his agents' assertion was proved to be right, their hostile reaction to a news left the engineer puzzled: "wouldn't a man bearing good news that Beah's father was potentially alive be embraced?" This incident aroused more suspicion and Australia presented several witnesses to corroborate their accusation. Australia finds the timeline in "a long way gone" controversial. With several witnesses, they have arguing that Beah's town was actually attacked in 1995, not in 1993 as Beah narrates in his book.
I thought this article would give me an answer to determine which side to believe. However, this article only made me MORE confused;both Beah's and Australia's assertion sound plausible. Luckily, the fact that Beah actually served the rebel army as a boy soldier is not proven to be controversial. Even though, I believe what Beah depicts in his book is not fictional, I would be furious if Beah used plausible adversity to earn fame and money. However, regardless of the book's authenticity, "a long way gone" represents the cruel misery of countless children in Sierra Leone. There are many children who lose their parents and serve the rebel army for many years. Instead of trying to prove an individual's probable falsehood, we should pay attention to stories of countless voices in pain.

http://www.observer.com/2008/ishmael-beah-defends-himself-and-his-memoirs-against-accusations-misrepresentation
http://www.slate.com/id/2185928/pagenum/3