“While empathy and collaboration may eventually become the norm for historical writing, in the short run the aim is to delegitimize the nationalist (and often hateful) historical myths that
feed ethnic and national xenophobia and conflict.”1
Contents
Abbreviations & Glossary 6
Map of Rwanda 7
Prologue 8
Introduction 9
Structure and methodology 12
Part I Radio as Destruction: Civil War and Genocide (1990-1994) 15
Chapter one: Hate Speech over the Airwaves 16
Historiography of ethnic violence in Rwanda 16
Propaganda on Radio Rwanda (1990) 18
The Bugesera massacres (1992) 19
Political Challenges to MRND- control over National Broadcasting 22
The Speech of Léon Mugesera: incitement to genocide or legitimate self-defense? 23
Analysis of the speech made by Léon Mugesera 26
Establishment of RTLM (1993 – 1994) 28
Unrest in Burundi: fear and foreboding 29
RTLM broadcasts after 6 April: a direct call to genocide? 32
Conclusion 36
Chapter two: Shifting Moral Belief Systems 38
Can Propaganda be the Cause and Violence the Effect? 39
Radio propaganda and personal agency 42
Perpetrator accounts 44
Access to RTLM and Radio Rwanda: Being part of a greater audience 45
Basic education 48
Mass media effects 49
Perpetrator behavior 50
Recent empirical developments: the impact of revenge speech 52
Revenge speech in Rwanda: analytical consequences 55
Personal disposition 56
Group identity and testosterone 56
Contextualization: structure vs. agency during the 1994 Rwanda genocide 58
Conclusion 59
Part II Radio as Repair: Post-genocide Rwanda (1994-2016) 61
Chapter three: Restoration in Rwanda: Radio as Repair 62
A media intervention to prevent genocidal violence 62
Framing the media as a means towards peace and justice 64
Policies of truth and justice in post-genocide Rwanda 66
Post-genocide Rwanda (1994) 66
Two decades of economic development 67
Post-genocide retributive justice 68
Post-genocide restoration: the NURC & the national policy on unity and reconciliation 70
RPF policy: distinguishing image from reality 71
Understanding the Multiplicity of Interpretations of Rwandan history 74
The survivor-perpetrator dichotomy 75
Legal prohibitions 78
Restorative consequences of RPF policy 80
Non-governmental restoration in post-genocide Rwanda 82
On the evolvement and methodology of Radio la Benevolencija 82
Evolution of Radio la Benevolencija 83
Human psychology and the psychology of mass violence 86
Media interventions: knowledge, attitudinal, and behavioral change 88
A “virtual” discussion to contribute to healing and restoration 90
Confronting the past and creating a shared collective memory 91
Conclusion: a media intervention bridging the restorative gap? 92
Chapter four: Interpretations of Musekeweya 94
Radio la Benevolencija & Restorative Justice 94
Focus & structure 95
Experiences of Musekeweya by a second generation in present-day Rwanda 96
The second generation and their relations to the past 96
Individual interpretations of history 98
Towards a shared narrative: second-generation thinking explained 99
Musekeweya, grassroots groups, and “agents of change” 102
Historical analogy & identification: understanding the meaning of Musekeweya 105
Understanding RLB’s educational messages 107
Building intergroup trust: in between prejudice, tolerance, and integration 107
Personal stories on building intergroup trust 109
Self-efficacy in situations of conflict 113
Conclusion 116
Conclusion: Memories in Transition 118
Abbreviations & Glossary
CDR - Coalition pour la Défense de la République ICI - The International Commission of Inquiry MDR - Mouvement Démocratique Républicain
MRND - Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement PL - Parti Libéral
PSD - Parti Social-Démocrate
RTLM - Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines RLB - Radio la Benevolencija
RPF - Rwandan Patriotic Front (Front Patriotique Rwandais) SNJG - The National Service of the Gacaca Courts
UNICTR - United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Arusha Peace Accords – The Arusha Accords were a set of five accords signed in Arusha, Tanzania on 4 August 1993 by the government of Rwanda and the RPF rebels to make and end the three-year long civil war.
Gacaca - Grass roots courts based on pre-colonial tradition, re-introduced in 2002. Ingando - Re-education and training camp for building unity and reconciliation. Ingangurarugo - An army division of a Tutsi king who ruled Rwanda at the end of the nineteenth century.
Inkotanyi - “Tough fighters,” a term used by the Hutu elite to refer to RPF combatants. Interahamwe - “Those who stand together,” the traditional term used to describe the youth faction (paramilitary group) allied to President Habyarimana’s political party (MRND). Inyenzi - “Cockroach,” a derogatory term used by the Hutu elite to refer to Tutsi. Musekeweya – “New dawn,” Radio la Benevolencija’s soap opera.
Map of Rwanda
Prologue
When I arrived at Kigali airport for the first time in 2013, and stepped into a taxi around 10 p.m., I was amazed to see that there were almost no people in the streets. Contrary to most other capital cities in Africa, Kigali is everything but a bustling capital city at night. By day, you can see the orderliness of the city: newly paved roads, orderly traffic, and businesslike people. There is no garbage in the streets, no street vendors, no homeless persons, and no one ever shouts. It is the image of a developing capital. Yet, the silence that comes with it is confusing to a first time visitor.
For a social researcher in Rwanda, it does not take long to find out that the complexity and implications of this silence are interspersed with everyday, official taboos. This first dawned on me when I met with the director of SURF, one of the country’s many survivor-funds. He promised me to bring me into contact with groups of young Rwandans, all related to the survivors of the genocide. When I asked him how I could get into contact with the children of perpetrators, he told me that this would be difficult, if not impossible, since “NGOs and funds in Rwanda only support survivors, not perpetrators.” It was only later on that I understood that it is not only the NGOs that have a sole focus on survivors; the whole of Rwandan society does. The stories of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, and their children, are kept silent.
“But why?” I asked myself. Is this not contrary to the purposes of reintegration, seeing that perpetrators, survivors, and their children are living together in the same society?
During my three months of research in Rwanda, I have tried to speak to as many young Rwandans – both children of survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide – as possible to get a grasp of how they perceive their relations to the past and the future. As with all young generations, many young Rwandans have a sense of hope for their future, and have difficulties maneuvering through the silences imposed on them. In order to understand how their stories may come together privately, but also publicly, my research project focused on an NGO (Radio la Benevolencija) that aims to open up the silences in present-day Rwanda. With this project, I hope to bring to light how young Rwandans may be supported in their effort to open up the stories of both survivors and perpetrators – something I believe to be imperative to Rwanda’s road towards sustainable peace.
To be able to conduct this research, I would like to thank the staff of Radio la Benevolencija, who gave me access to all the information there presently is on their organization, on their way of working, and their perspectives on the Rwandan way of life. I am grateful to have been part of the organization for a little while in Amsterdam, and Kigali.
In addition, I would like to thank all of my Rwandan friends and interviewees for sharing their stories and thoughts with me. Their hopes and dreams for the future of Rwanda have truly inspired me. For privacy and safety reasons their names are not revealed or have been changed.
Finally, I would like to show my gratitude to my family, friends, fellow students, and my university supervisor Nanci Adler, and second reader Thijs Bouwknegt, for their support and trust in this project.
And Zeno, for his closeness, endless remarks, and ability to put everything into perspective.
Arja
Introduction
Worldwide, the media are closely related to situations of conflict and times of conflict recovery. In the past century, the feature of a propagandist hate campaign presented itself on the public forefront of almost every war. The propaganda campaigns set-up by the Nazis, Serb nationalists, Hutu extremists, as well as the current use of the online media by the Islamic State, are egregious examples. On the other hand, in times of recovery, the media are fundamental to the process of transitional justice – the umbrella term for approaches dealing with the past in the aftermath of violent conflict or dictatorial regimes.2 The narratives presented by the mass media about the past (and future) shape the construction, contestation, and reconstruction of individual and collective memories.3
Whether the media are used or abused, and whether we are aware of it or not, our sense of self, our environment, and our history are all related to the images and words presented to us through the media.4
Nevertheless, to come to a thorough and nuanced understanding of the role of the media in pre- and post-conflict societies, we must bear in mind that individuals on the receiving end are not solely shaped by their environment: they are also rational, motivated actors, with their own habitual inclinations, who ascribe meaning to the information they receive and the context within which it is shaped.5
Therefore, studying the mass media means to study the organizational structures behind it as well as the implicit and explicit meaning ascribed to the messages transmitted.
To contribute to the growing body of knowledge about the role of the mass media during violent conflict, as well as in times of recovery, this thesis situates the dual role of the radio in the context of Rwanda, from the start of the civil war (1990) until the end of the genocide (1994), and from the start of the transitional justice period until the present-day (2016). This thesis focuses on the various roles played by the radio, because this is the mass medium that is most available and listened to in past- and present-day Rwanda. In 1994, a large part of the population could not read and write. Therefore, the radio was an important
2 Susanne Buckley-Zistel, et al. Transitional justice theories (New York: Routledge, 2014).
3 Aleida Assman and Linda Short, eds., Memory and Political Change (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 4 Kristin Sorensen, “Communication for Memory and Peace: articulating violence in post-repressive societies,” in Communication and Peace: mapping an emerging field, ed. Julia Hoffman and Virgil Hawkins (New York: Routledge,
2015), 277-288.
5 This is in line with the agentic perspective reflected in the work of Max Weber: Max Weber, Economy and Society
means to deliver the ruling party’s message to the population.6 Nowadays, listening to the radio is still part and parcel of everyday life in the country.7
In the twenty years after the civil war and genocide (1990-1994) in Rwanda, a myriad of scholars have described the propagandist use of radio airwaves as fundamental to the processes that led to genocidal violence.8
Central to their analysis of this process is the fact that the extremist Hutu elite presented their hate campaign against Tutsis as government policy on both private radio station Radio-Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) and national station Radio Rwanda. Therefore, researchers, politicians, and practitioners alike have argued that the radio directly influenced the violent behavior of Rwandan Hutus – to become génocidaires. In 1995, a French historian Jean-Pierre Chrétien in fact described two tools to have been essential to the perpetrators of the genocide: “the radio and the machete, the first to give and receive orders, the second to execute them.”9
That the international community addressed the media’s part in the violence with condemnation is underscored by the fact that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) convicted three individuals for their use of the media to incite the genocide.10
If the radio can function as a tool of destruction and fan genocidal violence, it may also be a means of repair. This idea is reflected in the work of Dutch non-governmental organization Radio La Benevolencija Humanitarian Tools Foundation (RLB), established in 2002 to develop radio soap opera Musekeweya (meaning “New Dawn”) with the aim to encourage “hope, empowerment and benevolence”11
in post-genocide Rwanda. Musekeweya presents a fictional soap opera, analogous to Rwandan history, in an entertaining and informative format to educate listeners about cycles of violence and restoration. Because Musekeweya is based on a theoretical framework that incorporates the so-called
6 Alison des Forges, “Call to Genocide: Radio in Rwanda, 1994,” in The Media and the Rwandan Genocide, ed. Allan
Thompson (London: Pluto Press, 2007), 42.
7 Aimable Twahirwa (director of Radio la Benevolencija Rwanda). Informal conversation with the author. Kigali, July 18,
2013.
8 Roméo Dallaire and Brent Beardsley, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (Toronto: Random
House, 2003); Linda Melvern, A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide (London: Zed Books, 2000); Linda Melvern, “Radio Murder,” Times Literary Supplement, September 9, 2005; Samantha Power, “Bystanders to
Genocide,” Atlantic Monthly 288 (2001): 84-108;” Alison des Forges “Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda,”
Human Rights Watch and the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, New York, 1999; Article 19 (Global
Campaign for Free Expression), Broadcasting Genocide: Censorship, Propaganda, and State-Sponsored Violence in
Rwanda 1990–1994 (1996); Jean Pierre Chrétien, ed., Rwanda: Les Médias du Génocide (Paris: Karthala, 1995); William
Schabas, “Hate Speech in Rwanda: The Road to Genocide,” McGill Law Journal, 46 (2000): 146; Francois Misser and Yves Jaumain, “Death by Radio,” Index on Censorship 23 (September/October 1994); Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis,
History of a Genocide (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 168. 9 Chrétien, Rwanda, 191.
10 United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNICTR), “The Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana,
Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, and Hassan Ngeze,” Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Trial Judgment (2003), 225-226.
11 Radio La Benevolencija Rwanda, Design Document Radio Serial Drama: The Roots of Mass Violence, Genocide, Trauma
Entertainment-Education (edutainment) 12
communication strategy as well as socio-psychological theory, RLB predicts the listener to apply the newly learned information to his or her own experience. In this regard, RLB is part of the transitional justice initiatives in the country because they devote themselves to transitioning post-genocide Rwanda towards sustainable peace.
RLB’s media intervention forms an extraordinary case study into the role of the media in post-genocide restoration efforts because the NGO, unlike anywhere else in the world, has been involved with restoration in Rwanda for more than a decade. Furthermore, RLB has kept track of its impact – through monitoring activities and (independent) evaluations – on a yearly basis.13
Therefore, the abundance of data available on their radio program Musekeweya makes for a unique case study into how media interventions function over time in post-conflict societies.
Bearing in mind that it is crucial for an understanding of the role of the radio to study how the message is understood on the receiving end, this thesis does not only address the organizational structures behind radio programs, it also explores to what extent the information transmitted impacts on personal attitudes and behavior. This is important with regard to the link between propagandist radio and genocidal violence, because strong causal claims have been discredited for lacking proper analysis based on social scientific research of mass media effects.14 Scott Straus argues for example that studies that opt for causality often only refer to the effect the radio has had on “the masses” and therefore attribute little to no agency to individual Rwandans.15
On another level, there is no easy answer regarding the role of RLB in Rwanda’s transition towards peace. Especially since the available studies on RLB
12 Education-entertainment is a communication strategy, which is based on general learning theory. It focuses on the design
and implementation of a media message that both entertains and educates. The purpose of this strategy is to increase the audience’s knowledge on a specific educational issue, create favourable attitudes, and apparent behavioural change. See for more information: Arvind Singhal, et al., Entertainment-education and social change: History, research, and practice (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004).
13 I have gathered nine impact evaluations on Musekeweya in the RLB archives of Amsterdam and Kigali (evaluated
between 2005 to 2014 by RLB as well as independent researchers). Most of them are based on statistical analysis including control groups. Overall, these control groups assess to what extent background characteristics (education level, gender, age, human rights abuses (yes/no), and residence (urban/rural)) influence opinions on conflict an restoration, and to what extent the radio the radio does so. Nevertheless, in many final reports, only the impact of the radio is emphasized, while
demographic variables (even though controlled), remain unmentioned. As examined in chapter two, media messages are more likely to have an impact if there is confidence in the thought that are generated. Therefore, to understand why Musekeweya has an impact, demographic variables must be highlighted and explained. If these show a tendency towards restorative objectives – similar to RLB’s educational messages – this also explains why such messages work. In addition, this will also help RLB to focus on the messages perceived most important by its audience.
14 Linda Kirschke, Broadcasting Genocide: Censorship, Propaganda, and State-Sponsored Violence in Rwanda, 1990–1994
(London: Article 19, 1996); Scott Straus, “What Is the Relationship between Hate Radio and Violence? Rethinking Rwanda’s ‘Radio Machete,’” Politics and Society 35 (December 2007): 609–37.
only indicate the presence of an impact on attitudes and behavior, not the reasons why.16 Therefore, it is unclear what meaning listeners ascribe to the messages transmitted through the radio soap opera. In other words, in order to fully comprehend the role of the radio in pre- and post-genocide Rwanda, it is imperative to study the habitual inclinations of the listening audience to understand the extent to which the message matters to them.
Therefore, to come to a thorough and nuanced understanding on the role of the radio in the evolution of mass violence, as well as in times of transition to sustainable peace and repair, this thesis both examines the organizational structures behind the radio broadcasts and the individual agency, or habitual inclinations, of listeners to respond to the message transmitted.
Structure and methodology
This thesis consists of two parts. First of all, the first part addresses the role of the radio in Rwanda from the start of the civil war until the end of the genocide, whereas the second part addresses the role of the radio in post-genocide restoration efforts. Second, since there are many in-depth studies into the role of radio propaganda, war, and the roots of violent behavior, the first part of this thesis encompasses an interdisciplinary literature review to piece together what is known about violent behavior and explore how this can be related to propaganda. Because there is a lack of studies on the role of the media in post-conflict societies, the second part of this thesis is substantiated with my own qualitative field-based research in Rwanda in late 2013, and correspondence with RLB over the course of 2012, 2014, and 2015.
Finally, the two parts of this thesis complement each other. They are both imperative to the main argument of this thesis since the evolution and impact of the radio in Rwanda’s recent history provides a substantiated insight into why the abuse of the radio in times of war should be prevented and how the use of the radio as a restorative initiative can be better understood.
Chapter one delves into the evolvement and meaning of radio propaganda to come to an understanding of how the ruling elite attempted to shape the social landscape of Rwanda before and during the genocide. Furthermore, it explores the ruling elite’s propagandist broadcasts in historical context to further comprehension of the extent to which the messages
16 Lauren Kogen, “Assessing Impact: Evaluating Adaptability: a Decade of Radio la Benevolencija in Rwanda, Burundi, and
were clear to the audience. In response, to understand to what extent Rwandans were also susceptible to these messages, chapter two thoroughly explores the concept of agency, focusing on the personal dispositions (or habitual inclinations) of individual listeners with regard to propaganda. With the aim to come to a nuanced comprehension of how propagandist messages affect violent attitudes and behavior, chapter two involves an interdisciplinary approach, including studies from the field of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, anthropology, social psychology, media studies, and neuroscience.
Chapter three explores the rationale of RLB to contribute to the transitional justice process in Rwanda. On a practical level, transitional justice involves judicial (or retributive) and non-judicial (restorative) mechanisms, which aim to redress past wrongs, vindicate the dignity of victims and provide justice in times of transition, such as tribunals, truth commissions, memorial projects, reparations.17
In post-genocide Rwanda, the RPF-led government developed a variety of transitional justice mechanisms, such as the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC), the grassroots Gacaca courts, official memorialization sites, and a project for developing a new historical narrative. However, as chapter three shows, the RPF’s policies of truth and justice do not positively restore social relationships. In this sense, chapter three contains an analysis of the extent to which RLB may bridge the restorative gap left by the government. Because RLB has a restorative rationale, this chapter explores the extent to which their soap opera Musekeweya aligns with the framework of the so-called restorative justice theory, which focuses on “making things right,”18
by involving survivors, perpetrators, and the community in dialogue, mutual agreement empathy and the taking of responsibility.19
From the societal structures discussed in chapter three, this thesis moves into the personal experiences of RLB listeners in chapter four. It does so to come to an understanding as to how and why RLB’s radio soap opera has an impact on restoration. In other words, chapter four explores to what extent Musekeweya contributes to meaningful engagement between survivors, perpetrators, their relatives, and children, and whether this can be translated into the restoration of the social fabric. Based on my findings in the field,20
17 Buckley-Zistel, Transitional Justice, 1.
18 Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1990), 181; Howard
Zehr, “Restoring Justice,” in God and the Victim, ed. Lisa Barnes Lampman (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1999).
19 Unlike retributive justice, restorative justice requires more than the rule of law and prosecuting those responsible for the
genocide because this leaves the needs of victims out of the picture – it separates justice and healing. In Rwanda, retributive justice has been sought through the prosecution of Hutu perpetrators on local, national and international level. For the purposes of this thesis, chapter three only elaborates on how the retributive justice process in Rwanda affected restoration.
20 My primary sources include personal interviews, group discussions, informal talks, e-mails, text messages, and personal
combined with the available data evaluations on RLB, chapter four substantiates and clarifies key aspects of the restorative justice process and positions RLB’s radio messages within it.
The fieldwork for this thesis focuses on a young, second generation, of Musekeweya listeners, and their varying relations to the past. To refer to a second generation implies that young Rwandans have a “living connection”21
to the past, because they are the children of victims, survivors, or perpetrators. In this sense, the second generation may function as the “guardian” of the traumatic personal past of their family when that past is passing into history.22
Naturally, the second generation is the future of Rwanda’s stability. Their interpretations of the past and their feelings about the future are imperative to restoration in the country. Therefore, the second part of this thesis presents their relations to the past, the meaning they ascribe to Musekeweya, and how they perceive the messages transmitted to be adaptable to their lives. In doing so, the potential of RLB to contribute to the restorative justice process in Rwanda is clarified.
21 Marianne Hirsch, “the Generation of Postmemory,” Poetics Today 29 (2008): 104. 22 Ibid.
Part I
Radio as Destruction: Civil War and Genocide
Chapter one: Hate Speech over the Airwaves
“You are still tuned to RTLM, the private radio broadcasting from Kigali […] Go on fighting for our country, go on fighting for our town Kigali, the Capital of Rwanda. Thus those troublesome men will be punished the way they deserve it.”23
This chapter analyzes the evolvement and meaning of radio propaganda in Rwanda between the start of the civil war (October 1990) until the end of the genocide (July 1994). Such an examination allows a more thorough understanding of how societal structures and constraints set up by the ruling party were communicated over the airwaves to structure and organize the Rwandan population. It provides complex and nuanced insights into of the role of the radio during the civil war and the genocide.
To better understand the meaning of radio propaganda, this chapter contains an analysis of the extent to which the messages transmitted on national radio by Rwanda’s ruling elite can be identified as propaganda augmenting exclusion, polarization, dehumanization, feelings of revenge, and instigating violence against the Tutsi population. In fact, I argue that the information conferred over the airwaves indicates how the ruling party did so – in implicit, but also explicit ways.
Historiography of ethnic violence in Rwanda
The purpose of this section is to outline some key elements of Rwanda’s long history of (ethnic) conflict, because this makes it easier to comprehend the evolution of the radio in Rwanda from the start of the civil war until the end of the genocide.
The country’s history of conflict between the three ethnic groups – Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa – started with the arrival of German, and later on, Belgian colonials.24 During German and Belgian rule in Rwanda, distinctions between Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were amplified and transformed into racial opposition.25 In accordance with the now widely discredited colonial findings, the Tutsi population had foreign (Hamitic) origins, with distinct Ethiopian features, and, upon arrival in Rwanda, had imposed their dominion over the countries first occupants,
23 RTLM transcript 28 May 1994, translated by the Office of the Prosecutor, United Nations International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda, accessed 27 March 2014.
http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/7192/unictr_rtlm_0012_eng.pdf?sequence=1.
24 In pre-colonial times, the three ethnic identities of Rwanda pointed to clan and family ties and situated individuals in the
context of a single national community.
25 André Guichaoua, From War to Genocide: Criminal Politics in Rwanda, 1990–1994 (Madison, Wisconsin: University of
pygmoid Twa and Hutu.26 Inevitably, this notion of the foreign origins of the Tutsi population radicalized the conception of ethnicity in Rwanda.27
Furthermore, distinctions between Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa were amplified because German and Belgian colonial policies concentrated wealth in the hand of the minority Tutsi, which formed about 14 percent of the population.28 The political and economic exclusion of Hutu, about 85 percent of the population, led to their violent uprising in 1959, also known as “the Hutu Revolution,” which drove many Tutsi into exile. When Rwanda acceded independence in 1962, a Hutu government was installed while Tutsi became targets of exclusion and discrimination. Throughout the 1960, thousands of Tutsi fled from persecution to neighboring countries. The continuant waves of ethnic violence that followed created momentum for the military, led by General Juvénal Habyarimana, to take control in 1973.
For about a decade, the Habyarimana regime secured peace, and furthered economic development by promoting good governance –which attracted foreign aid and investors.29 Nevertheless, by the late 1980s, economic decline and frustrations with Habyarimana’s authoritarian rule fed growing public discontent. Mainly because concentrations of wealth and privileges went out to Rwanda’s northern prefectures, situated in Habyarimana’s home region. This led to uprisings and a pro-democracy movement initiated by the disadvantaged Hutu and Tutsi population in Rwanda’s southern regions (which included landless farmers, rural youth without formal education, and women).30
In October 1990, the invasion of Rwanda by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group which was based in Uganda and comprised of Tutsi refugees whom had fled from the ethnic violence that began in 1959, signaled the start of the civil war. As the political situation further destabilized, a group of powerful politicians, military officers, and businesspeople with close ties to Habyarimana sought to reinforce their political influence through resurrecting ethnic tensions and promoting themselves as defenders of the Hutu majority. In the 100 days that followed the assassination of president Habyarimana in a plane crash on 6 April 1994, the Hutu Power elite orchestrated the genocide of Rwanda’s Tutsi population. In the extreme horrors of genocidal violence that swept across the country
26 Guichaoua, From War to Genocide, 6.
27 This is an important part of Rwandan history as it presently still structures the self-perceptions of many Rwandans, see for
more information: Guichaoua, From War to Genocide, 6
28 Timothy Longman, “The Uses and Abuses of Media: Rwanda before and after the Genocide” in Transitional Justice, Culture, and Society: Beyond Outreach, ed. Clara Ramírez-Barat (New York: Social Science Research Council, 2014),
248-249.
29 Ibid.
between April and July 1994, approximately 800,00031
Tutsi, moderate Hutu, and Twa were murdered, mostly by their Hutu neighbors and families, with the help of several militia groups allied to the Hutu elite, the Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR), and the Presidential Guard.32
The following chapter goes into the evolution of propagandist radio during the civil war and genocide with the aim to come to thorough and nuanced understanding of its role in the mass persecution of the Tutsi population.
Propaganda on Radio Rwanda (1990)
In October 1990, when the civil war in Rwanda started with the invasion of the RPF rebel army there was only one radio station active throughout the country: the government-led Radio Rwanda. While governmental forces were fighting RPF rebel troops, Radio Rwanda soon started to radicalize and scapegoat the Tutsi rebels. As this chapter shows, the station, just like the civil war, went through a gradual process towards extremist, utopian, and violent thinking – starting with relatively ambiguous anti-rebel sentiments, and ending with hate speech that incited to genocide against the whole Tutsi population.
With the start of the civil war, Radio Rwanda’s supervisor, Christophe Mfizi, whom had directed the station since 1974 with a relatively neutral agenda,33
was removed from his position. The position was replaced by Ferdinand Nahimana, who was known for his intellectual capacities,34 extremist political views and unequivocal support for the ruling (Hutu) party led by president Habyarimana, the Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement (MRND). Under Nahimana, Radio Rwanda started to air propagandist messages that included false information about the progress of the civil war, with the aim to demoralize the RPF rebel forces.35
Furthermore, Nahimana ensured that the hatred and suspicion sown by the ruling party was echoed on Radio Rwanda. President Habyarimana knew that Rwandans, Hutus as
31 I use the figure of 800,000 simply because it is the number that appears most frequently. Among other figures cited is the
Government of Rwanda’s own estimate of “over one million.” The fact remains that all figures are rough estimates as no one knows exactly how many died from April to July 1994 in Rwanda, still less how many participated. See: Alan J.
Kuperman, “Provoking Genocide: A Revised History of the Rwandan Patriotic Front,” Journal of Genocide Research 61 (2004): 61-84.
32 Eugenia Zorbas, “Reconciliation,” 30. As described in chapter one, the most infamous paramilitia was the Interahawme,
allied to the ruling Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement (MRND).
33 Before the civil war, Radio Rwanda – as a government-led station that represented multiple parties – provided different
perspectives on national politics.
34 Ferdinand Nahimana was a historian with a Ph.D from Sorbonne University. 35 Des Forges “Leave None,” 58.
well as Tutsi, were frightened by the RPF invasion.36
Tutsi recalled the Hutu uprisings in 1959 and feared they would be targeted again. Hutu remembered the slaughter of Hutu by Tutsi in the neighboring Burundi in 1972 and 1988 and were afraid of similar killings by the RPF in Rwanda. In response, Habyarimana and his advisors decided to increase support for themselves (and their position within the MRND) by exaggerating the risk of ethnic violence, and by drawing quick conclusions about the “enemy” - the RPF rebel forces.37
Even though it is not a surprise that, in times of (civil) war, radio airwaves are used for such propagandist purposes, it is significant to comprehend that Radio Rwanda was the only radio station available at that time. Therefore, Radio Rwanda’s authority was twofold: it was the voice of the ruling party of the government, and it was also difficult to find information that offered a different perspective.
The Bugesera massacres (1992)
“They [the perpetrators] said they were supposed to kill Tutsi.”38
Bearing in mind that propaganda on Radio Rwanda was the voice of the ruling party, information transmitted to the Rwandan population had the ability to shape choices on the ground. Socio-psychologist Albert Bandura illustratively explains how this process works, by posing that “people will behave in ways they normally repudiate if a legitimate authority sanctions their conduct and accepts responsibility for its consequences.”39
Therefore, because the ruling party presented Radio Rwanda to be firmly embedded in government policy, the propaganda disseminated had the capacity to implicate the choices of listeners.
In fact, as this section shows, Radio Rwanda gradually instilled fear and distrust towards the Tutsi population by furnishing the idea that Hutu had to defend themselves from the so-called imminent “Tutsi threat.”40
By all means, the radio broadcasts in the lead up to
36 Ibid., 75. 37 Ibid.
38 Statement of a witness to the Bugesera massacres: International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations
in Rwanda since October 1, 1990. 1993. Final Report. Africa Watch, International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, Interafrican Union for Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the International Center for Human Rights and Development, New York and Paris, March.
39 Milgram (1974), referred to in: Bandura, “Social cognitive theory of mass communication,” 279.
40 See chapter two: The speech of Léon Mugesera: incitement to genocide or legitimate self-defense? for more information
the Bugesera massacres in March 1992, which resulted in the mass murder of at least 300 Tutsi civilians in the region, provide an excellent, if gruesome, case study.
The events that preceded the massacres were as follows. On the 3rd of March that year, Radio Rwanda received a political fax that accused Tutsi, and mainly an internal branch of the RPF, referred to as the “enemy Inyenzi,” of plotting to execute important Hutu leaders in the Bugesera region. On the same day, Ferdinand Nahimana ordered a broadcast of a tape-recording to reveal the fax’s contents, which was broadcasted at least four times on Radio Rwanda.41
After the communiqué reached the Bugesera region, local authorities tried to convince the Interahamwe (a Hutu youth militia allied to the ruling MRND), and civilians in Bugesera to kill everyone with a Tutsi background, and framed this as “legitimate self-defense.”42
On 4 March 1992, propelled by a context of fear, distrust, and hostility, the massacres of Tutsi in Bugesera commenced, and lasted for more than a week. These violent attacks, carried out by Hutu civilians and members of the Interahamwemilitia, resulted in the execution of at least 300 Tutsi civilians in the region.43
As becomes clear about this history of events, the local authorities interpreted “enemy Inyenzi” to mean everyone with a Tutsi background. In fact, according to prosecution witness to the UNICTR Thomas Kamilindi, who worked as a journalist for Radio Rwanda in 1992, Inyenzi could either refer to political opposition parties, regardless of their ethnic background, or to members of the whole Tutsi population.44
Moreover, the Kinyarwanda word Inyenzi literally translates “cockroach,” meaning that it also functioned as a derogatory and dehumanizing reference to the Tutsi population. This negative connotation attributed to the word Inyenzi came into existence in the 1960s and 1970s, when Tutsi rebels attacked and looted Hutu villages at night and quickly disappeared back to Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and the DRC (formerly Zaire). At that time, Tutsi rebels named themselves “In.ye.nzi,” an acronym meaning “a member of Ingangurarugo [an army division of a Tutsi king who ruled Rwanda at the end of the nineteenth century] who has committed himself to bravery.” However, because the attacked and looted Hutu civilians ascribed a different meaning to Inyenzi, understanding them to be “cockroaches,” the positive
41 UNICTR, “The Prosecutor,” Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, 225-226. 42 Alison des Forges, “Call to Genocide.”
43 UNICTR, “The Prosecutor,” Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, 226.
44 Thomas Kamilindi provided this information as a Prosecution Witness during the trial of Ferdinand Nahimana in 2003.
connotation related to the term changed into a negative one.45
In this regard, Inyenzi became a generic term for Tutsi.46
Therefore, the use of the word “enemy Inyenzi” in the (governmental) communiqué implicitly amplified past grievances of Hutu civilians in the 1960s and 1970s and stereotyped them as inhuman and unworthy of life. Even though this derogatory reference to the whole Tutsi population was implicit, the history related to the word Inyenzi points out that the message was probably clear to the audience. In other words, the communiqué was a clear attempt to exacerbate hostility towards Tutsi over the airwaves.
Such an accusatory governmental message can be recognized as prototype propagandist rhetoric – as it mongers fear, mistrust, and resentment, and promotes a reaction of vigilance, pride and revenge against the accused group.47
In the words of political scientist Jacques Sémelin, “propaganda manufactures emotion [and]… sets out to impose an interpretation of the world presented as being ‘vital’ for the principal group of belonging.”48 Since the accusatory communiqué in the Bugesera region provoked fear and distrust towards Tutsi, it is imaginable that this contributed to radicalization amongst Hutu in the lead up to the massacres.
In fact, the former Prosecutor of Kigali, François-Xavier Nsanzuwera, highlighted this during his testimony before the ICTR in 2003. He claimed that without the communiqué on Radio Rwanda, the numbers of Tutsi killed would not have been significant.49 Nsanzuwera based his argument on personal inquiries with the elderly in Bugesera who had stayed at home during the massacres. One of the reactions, given by an elderly man, was that the radio broadcasts made many Hutu transgress into “some sort of psychosis” in which killing was the only way to defend themselves from being massacred by Tutsi.50
Nsanzuwera also argued that the Hutu who were arrested for their participation in the mass killings against Tutsi
45 Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, “Rwandan Private Print Media on the Eve of the Genocide,” in The Media and the Rwandan Genocide, ed. Allan Thompson (London: Pluto Press, 2007), 84.
46 Ibid., 85.
47 A clear parallel can be found in Hitler’s rhetoric in the lead up to the Holocaust. From 1919 to 1939, Hitler often accused
the Jews of conspiring a war against Germany. On that note, Nazi propaganda presented Germany’s intention to
“exterminate” the Jews of Europe (and war against the Allies) as part of one overarching war of retaliation and defense. See for a comprehensive account on Nazi propaganda: Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II
and the Holocaust (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).
48 Jacques Sémelin, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide (London: Hurst, 2007), 73. 49 Because of his impartial commitment to justice as a former prosecutor in Kigali, the ICTR Chamber found the testimony
of François-Xavier Nsanzuwera to be credible. For more information, see: UNICTR, “The Prosecutor,” Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, 186, 226.
promulgated they did so to avoid being killed – because this was the message they had received from the authorities and the communiqué on Radio Rwanda.51
Evidently, a testimony like this one can neither be generalized to every Rwandan with a Hutu background in Bugesera, nor does it teach anything about those individuals that resisted the communiqué. Yet, it does give an indication of the central role ascribed to the radio in Rwanda at that time, and how the radio was an essential part of the societal structures in which Rwandans had to navigate.
Political Challenges to MRND- control over National Broadcasting
Following the establishment of the coalition government in April 1992, the opposition parties, the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR), Parti Social-Démocrate (PSD) and the Parti Libéral (PL), insisted to bring an end to the media monopoly of the ruling party. In their endeavor to set up more neutral and impartial broadcasting, Nahimana lost leadership over Radio Rwanda.52
Even though this action provided better access for opposition parties to disseminate information on their activities, the interim director of Radio Rwanda still allowed journalists with close ties to president Habyarimana to control the most important news programs on the radio station.53
Despite the challenge from the opposition, the ruling party maintained its dominance over Radio Rwanda.
In the same month, a strong voice of dissent towards the ruling party found its way on to the Rwandan airwaves, as the RPF rebels started their own information outlet via Radio Muhubura, a radio station situated in Uganda. Their objective was to clear the air of Radio Rwanda’s fear-mongering messages against Rwandan Tutsi. On 25 October 1992, Radio Muhubura warned its listeners of the possibility of mass violence against (Tutsi) civilians: “the persistant rumours which are now circulating concerning a new plan to massacre Rwandese civilians in an indiscriminate way… if such a thing should occur, our armed forces could not remain inactive.”54
Radio Muhubura’s audience grew between 1992 and 1993, but did not reach every town or village in Rwanda.55
Although Radio Muhubura used the same propagandist tactics as Radio Rwanda to counterbalance extremist messages against the Tutsi population, one important difference remained: Radio Muhubura did not have the
51 Ibid.
52 Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide, 40. 53 Ibid., 25.
54 SWB, Radio Muhubura, October 25, 1992. Quoted in: Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, 168. 55 Des Forges, “Leave None,” 59.
governmental authority Radio Rwanda had. However, the station did ensure that there was alternative information available to those who dared to listen.
Even though opposition parties and the RPF rebels challenged the leading position of the MRND on national radio, the ruling party maintained its authority by being the most powerful party in the (new) coalition government. Therefore, from the beginning of the civil war and onwards, radicals within the ruling party were able to exert great influence on both the political and media landscape in Rwanda. This allowed exclusionary and polarizing practices of political extremists to be reinforced over the airwaves.
The Speech of Léon Mugesera: incitement to genocide or legitimate self-defense?
The following section examines the meaning of the propagandist speech held by Léon Mugesera (a political scientist, MRND-member and Vice-President of the Gisenyi prefecture at that time) during a party meeting in Kabaya on 22 November 1992. The speech forms an illustrative case study into how fear-mongering propaganda can be understood as implicit, yet clear, incitement to violence. Furthermore, it is important to an understanding of the role of the radio in the evolution of genocidal violence, since it was tape recorded and broadcasted during the first few weeks of the genocide in April 1994.56
Therefore, an understanding of the meaning of the words and utterances used in his speech may provide a deeper insight into how anti-Tutsi propaganda by the ruling party was communicated over the airwaves to structure and organize the Rwandan population.
To provide an understanding of the context in which Mugesera made his speech, and how it has been received on a national and international level, it is of importance to describe some of the key historical events that preceded and followed it. This contributes to a comprehension of the response to the speech by the national (Rwanda) and international community (mainly Canada, where Mugesera was on trial). It shows how jurists have had difficulties with the meaning of the propagandist speech and the effect the tape recordings may have had on the evolution of genocidal violence.
In May 1992, RPF rebels had invaded and taken a significant part of Northern Rwanda, an event that forced the extremist ruling party to negotiate. As a result of the negotiations that followed in Arusha, the ruling party (influenced by the opposition parties) and the RPF rebels signed a ceasefire on 12 July 1992 and a rule of law protocol on 18
56 This knowledge has been reaffirmed by Alison des Forges, who functioned as an expert witness when Mugesera was on
August.57
Even though the situation in Rwanda continued to be unstable in the following months, with frequent eruptions of violence (there are mainly reports of mass violence against Tutsi and political opponents to the MRND),58 a power-sharing agreement between the Rwandan government and the RPF rebels was signed on 30 October 1992. Nevertheless, the actual effect of this power-sharing agreement remained omitted, since president Habyarimana disregarded the agreements as “a scrap of paper.”59
It was in this context Mugesera held his speech before approximately 1,000 members of the ruling party.
Central to the discussion on the interpretation of Mugesera’s speech are the following ambiguous statements:
“[…] you will hear mention of the Arusha discussions […] what I will tell you is that the delegates you will hear are in Arusha do not represent Rwanda […] The delegates from Rwanda, who are said to be from Rwanda, are led by an Inyenzi, who is there to discuss with Inyenzis […] they are Inyenzis born of Inyenzis, who speak for Inyenzis.”60
“Recently, I told someone who came to brag to me that he belonged to the P.L. [opposition party] - I told him ‘The mistake we made in 1959, when I was still a child, is to let you leave.’ I asked him if he had not heard of the story of the Falashas, who returned home to Israel from Ethiopia? He replied that he knew nothing about it! I told him ‘So don't you know how to listen or read? I am telling you that your home is in Ethiopia, that we will send you by the Nyabarongo so you can get there quickly’ […].”
“[W]e should not allow ourselves to be invaded […] do not be afraid, know that anyone whose neck you do not cut is the one who will cut your neck […].”
“[…] We should act so as to protect ourselves against traitors and those who would like to harm us.”61
“[F]or the good reason that our national soldiers are disciplined and do not shoot anyone, especially they would not shoot a Rwandan, unless he was an Inyenzi […]. “
[W]e must all rise, we must rise as one man . . . if anyone touches one of ours, he must find nowhere to go […].62
57 These were later included in the Arusha Peace Accords, signed on 4 August 1993.
58 Des Forges, “Leave None,” 80; Joseph Rikhof, “Hate Speech and International Criminal Law: The Mugesera Decision by
the Supreme Court of Canada,” Journal of International Criminal Justice, 3 (2005): 1122.
59 Supreme Court of Canada, “Mugesera v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration),” Case No. 30025 (28 June
2005), paras. 17-24.
60 The translation of the speech used is that of Thomas Kamanzi, a Rwandan linguist and professor. Prepared for the trial of
Mugesera in 2003: Canadian Federal Court of Appeal, “Mugesera v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)”, case no. 2003 FCA 325, hearing on 28 and 29 April 2003 and judgment on September 8, 2003, para. 21.
61 Canadian Federal Court of Appeal, “Mugesera v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration)”, Case No. 2003 FCA
325, hearing on 28 and 29 April 2003, and judgment on 8 September 2003, section III, para.2.
In the weeks after his speech, Mugesera received strong criticism from moderate Rwandans and opposition parties that condemned him for being both ethnically and politically intolerant. The minister of justice, a member of an opposition party (PL) even issued an arrest warrant for incitement to violence on 25 November 1992.63
However, Mugesera managed to flee Rwanda on 12 December 1992 to find temporary refuge in Spain, where he applied for permanent residence in Quebec. On 12 August 1993, he landed in Quebec, and moved to the vicinity of Laval University, where he had graduated years before.64
When Mugesera faced his first trial before the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal in 2003, the Court rejected the idea that his speech constituted incitement to genocide, since they could not establish a causal link. Instead, the Federal Court argued that the speech simply comprised civil-war politics of one warring faction towards its political opponent. Furthermore, because the speech was made in light of the Arusha peace negotiations, the judges of the Federal Court of Canada indicated the themes of the speech to have been “elections, courage and love.”65
In their conclusion of the judgment, the Court also illustrated that the historical background of Mugesera (on a personal and professional level) did not indicate any tendency towards racism. In light of these findings, the Court concluded:
Even though it is true some of his statements were misplaced or unfortunate, there is nothing in the evidence to indicate that Mr. Mugesera, under the cover of anecdotes or other imagery, deliberately incited to murder, hatred or genocide.66
Nonetheless, in appeal (2005), the Supreme Court of Canada reversed the judgment of the Federal Court.67
For their final judgment of Mugesera, the Supreme Court followed established international law and found that Mugesera did incite to genocide. In order to do so, the Court examined his speech according to legal directives (was the speech public and direct and did Mugesera have the requisite intent?).68
Accordingly, Léon Mugesera was extradited to Rwanda in January 2012. On 15 April 2016, the High Court of Rwanda sentenced Mugesera to life in prison.
The section that follows does not include an analysis of whether the speech was public or whether it had the requisite intent. This is mainly because the Supreme Court of Canada has already established this, but also because this does not shed light on the reason
63 Des Forges, “Leave None,” 69.
64 Canadian Federal Court of Appeal, “Mugesera v. Canada,” paras. 4 and 53. 65 Ibid.
66 Ibid.
67 Canada had official jurisdiction over Mugesera, since he emigrated to Quebec and gained citizenship in 1993. 68 Supreme Court of Canada, “Mugesera v. Canada,” para. 70.
why the tape recording of Mugesera’s speech may have had an impact on the listening audience, while this is of central importance to an understanding of the role of radio propaganda during the genocide.
Analysis of the speech made by Léon Mugesera
“He who is about to commit murder presents himself as the victim.”69
This section explores the propagandist characteristics of Mugesera’s speech based on theories within the field of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. This provides an in-depth insight into how the extremist Hutu elite used tape recordings of the speech in the first few weeks of the genocide to manufacture emotion, arouse fear, and provoke a reaction of revenge.
Mugesera’s speech in November 1992 verbalized extremist thinking: to fervently object to the peace negotiations in Arusha70
between the Rwandan government and the RPF rebel forces, and to do so by intensifying the idea that the Tutsi population posed a threat to Hutu existence. To do so, Mugesera used one of the main vehicles of propaganda, namely, the implication of a common past and present suffering.71
In this case, Mugesera refers to the “mistake” made in 1959 – when Hutu allowed Tutsi to flee to neighboring countries. Mugesera refers to this alleged mistake as the reason why Hutus suffered – because they became targets of reprisal attacks orchestrated by Tutsi (in the 1960s and 1970s)72
, and were threatened again as a result of invasion of Rwanda by the RPF rebels. According to political scientist Jacques Sémelin, such manipulations of collective memory are in fact “one of the most effective triggers for awakening resentment and fear in a people […]”73
Mugesera also alluded to the “subhuman” (Inyenzi) and “foreign” (Ethiopia) origins of the Tutsi population. This is of crucial importance to an understanding of how his speech, and the tape recordings of his speech, encouraged a context of fear and resentment, and provoked feelings of pride and revenge towards Tutsi. As described in the section about the Bugesera massacres, the Kinyarwandan word Inyenzi translates cockroach, and became a
69 Jacques Sémelin, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide (London: Hurst, 2007), 48. 70 The first actions towards formal negotiations were taken in June 1992, when a stalemate led the two warring parties to
convene in France to establish terms for a peace process to take place in Arusha, Tanzania.
71 E.g. Nazi propaganda referred to the First World War, Serb nationalist propaganda referred to the Second World War,
Hutu extremist propaganda referred to Tutsi royalty and their attacks on Hutu in Rwanda after they fled into neighboring countries between 1959 and 1962.
72 See chapter one: The Bugesera massacres (1992). In the 1960s and 1970s Tutsi rebels attacked and looted Hutu villages at
night and quickly disappeared back to Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and the DRC (formerly Zaire).
derogatory term to refer to Tutsi during the civil war and genocide. Furthermore, the idea that Tutsi were of foreign origin was first speculated by the colonial state, which described them to have “Hamitic” origins and distinct Ethiopian features. For the radical Hutu elite, this (now widely discredited) idea became a tool to argue why “they” needed to be destroyed to save “us.” As sociologist Helen Fein has put it in her analysis of the psychological processes that lead to mass murder, “one group of people must come to see its potential victims as a threat to their existence, as subhuman, or both.”74 To claim that the “other” is an animal, subhuman, and foreign is a way to essentialize difference. The fear and resentment that is aroused by the threat of this difference may invite people to reject or even destroy him, for reasons of security.75
In this sense, such extreme essentialisation of differences between “us” Hutu and “them” Tutsi is an erroneous call for self-defense, and amounts to implicit, yet clear, incitement to violence.
In fact, according to The International Commission of Inquiry (ICI), a commission dedicated to reporting human rights violations in Rwanda between 1993 and 1996, the broadcasted excerpts of the speech in the beginning of 1994 incited violence against Tutsi amongst Hutu perpetrators. Their argument was based on the fact that, during the genocide, Hutu perpetrators had been reported to cite phrases of the speech as they went forth to kill.76 In addition, according to historian and main editor of the report, Alison des Forges, the speech strongly relates to the evolution of genocidal violence, since it affected the choices of many Rwandans at the time of the genocide. As an example, des Forges refers to the fact that Mugesera threatened to send Tutsi back to where they came from (Ethiopia) via the Nyaburongo-river. During the genocide, des Forges argues, Tutsi who were killed in the region where Mugesera made his speech were thrown in the same river.77
Even though these two causal claims are difficult to prove, they provide an insight into how Mugesera’s speech in 1992 became an example for the extremist Hutu elite in 1994. The radical Hutu elite used the speech to manufacture emotion: by arousing fear and resentment, and provoking a reaction of pride, revenge, and self-defense in the name of group survival.
This polarizing propagandist approach is not new. Similar calls for legitimate self-defense to protect the nation against outside enemies have also been used in other propaganda
74 Supreme Court of Canada, “Mugesera v. Canada,” para. 27; Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization during the Holocaust (New York: Free Press, 1979), 3-30.
75 Sémelin, Purify and Destroy. 49.
76 International Commission of Investigation (ICI) on Human Rights Violations Since October 1, 1990, Final Report, trans.
Alison des Forges (Ouagadougou March 17, 1993), 16-17.
campaigns that preceded genocidal acts.78
This relates to, for example, Nazi propaganda prior and during World War II, in which the Aryan race needed to protect themselves from the Jewish “threat” and “invasion.” In Rwanda between 1990 and 1994, the choice for a similar approach by the extremist Hutu elite appears to have been effective, since many Hutu civilians were frightened of the consequences of disobeying orders and afraid of what rebel victory meant.79
To conclude, this examination of Mugesera’s speech allows for a more substantiated understanding of how the radical Hutu elite used the airwaves during the genocide to structure and organize fear, resentment, and distrust amongst the Hutu population, and provoke a reaction of pride, revenge, and self-defense against Tutsi – in the form of violence.
Establishment of RTLM (1993 – 1994)
Because of the ongoing peace negotiations in Arusha in 1992 and 1993, the neutralizing changes made by the opposition parties on Radio Rwanda, and in order to counter RPF propaganda on Radio Muhubura, around 50 governmental officials (most of them MRND members and members of its extremist ally, the Coalition pour la Défense de la République (CDR))80
founded their own station: Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM).81 Not coincidentally, RTLM started broadcasting right after the Arusha Peace Accords were signed in August 1993 to bring an end to nearly three years of civil war and to integrate the RPF into the Rwandan government. Because the MRND and CDR both fervently rejected the Arusha Accords, which can be understood in light of Rwanda’s long history of ethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi (such as in 1959-62 and 1990-93), broadcasts on RTLM were a useful way to ensure that anti-Tutsi propaganda would be heard.
Even though RTLM was backed by president Habyarimana, ministers and other governmental officials, bankers and military officers (i.e. the ruling elite), it was meant to represent the voice of the people.82
Directed by Ferdinand Nahimana, who was already well acquainted to managing a populist radio, RTLM attracted a large audience of young Rwandans through the informal and playful character of its broadcasts. It provided the
78 Supreme Court of Canada, “Mugesera v. Canada,” para. 27. 79 Straus, “Radio Machete,” 632.
80 During his own trial before the UNICTR, Nahimana identified the founding members of RTLM as thirty-nine MRND
members, two CDR members and nine others without party affiliation, see for more information: UNICTR, “The Prosecutor,” Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, 167.
81 Ferdinand Nahimana verified this information during his trial, see for more information: UNICTR, “The Prosecutor,” Case
No. ICTR-99-52-T, 166.
possibility for listeners to request popular songs (mostly Reggae and Congolese music) and gossip with announcers.83
This stood in sharp contrast with Radio Rwanda, which still played old standard tunes and reproduced the more official voice of the government.84 However, RTLM did broadcast official opinions to present the station to be in line with government policy.85
Because of RTLM’s populist approach, combining popular entertainment with authority, the radio station ensured their official messages reached all layers of society.
Unrest in Burundi: fear and foreboding
In an earlier analysis of propagandist rhetoric, I have indicated how fear mongering operated in constructing the Tutsi “enemy” inside Rwanda. The extremist Hutu elite did so by essentializing differences between Hutu and Tutsi, presenting Tutsi to be subhuman, foreign, and treacherous. This section shows how the construction of fear may also arrive from the outside as a way to encourage a (revengeful) violent reaction.
In case of Rwanda, fear arrived from several incidents between Hutu and Tutsi in Burundi. This happened in October 1993, when a few high-ranking Tutsi army officers attempted a coup d’état in Burundi and executed Melchior Ndadaye, the country’s first democratically elected Hutu president, and other members of his government.86
In Burundi, the execution of Ndadaye was followed by a period of civil unrest, mass violence and revenge killings between Burundian Hutu and Tutsi. To understand how these events were used by propagandist to monger fear in Rwanda, it is important to bear in mind that, ever since independence, Burundi and Rwanda related to each other as mirror societies since there were so many parallels in their past histories and social structures.87
It is also crucial to take into account that, Hutu remembered the slaughter of Hutu by Tutsi in the neighboring Burundi in 1972, 1988, and 1991 and were afraid of similar killings by the RPF in Rwanda. Therefore, incidents in Burundi had the capacity to worsen the situation in Rwanda.
In fact, there were three reactions in Rwanda that made the country’s already volatile situation deteriorate. First, in Rwanda, the ruling parties (MRND and CDR) framed the execution of Ndadaye as hard evidence for the goal of Tutsi to attack and dominate all Hutu in the Great Lakes Region and their willingness to use force for acquiring their goal. Second,
83 Christine Kellow and Leslie Steeves, “The Role of Radio in the Rwandan Genocide,” Journal of Communication 48
(1998): 118.
84 Des Forges, “Call to Genocide,” 44. 85 Ibid.
86 Kellow and Steeves, “The Role of Radio,” 118; Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide, 51.
