The Media and the Rwanda Genocide This Page Intentionally Left Blank the MEDIA and the RWANDA GENOCIDE

The Media and the Rwanda Genocide This page intentionally left blank THE MEDIA AND THE RWANDA GENOCIDE Edited by Allan Thompson With a Statement by Kofi Annan Pluto P Press LONDON • ANN ARBOR, MI Fountain Publishers KAMPALA, UGANDA International Development Research Centre OTTAWA • CAIRO • DAKAR • MONTEVIDEO • NAIROBI • NEW DELHI • SINGAPORE First published 2007 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 www.plutobooks.com International Development Research Centre PO Box 8500, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1G 3H9 www.idrc.ca/[email protected] ISBN 1–55250–338–0 (e-book) Fountain Publishers Ltd Fountain House, 55 Nkrumah Road, P.O. Box 488, Kampala, Uganda www.fountainpublishers.co.ug E-mail: [email protected] ISBN-10 9970–02–595–3 ISBN-13 978–9970–02–595–4 Copyright © Allan Thompson, 2007. Statement by Kofi Annan, © 2007 The right of Allan Thompson to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Hardback ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2626 9 ISBN-10 0 7453 2626 9 Paperback ISBN-13 978 0 7453 2625 2 ISBN-10 0 7453 2625 0 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton Printed and bound in India Contents Message to Symposium on the Media and the Rwanda Genocide ix Kofi Annan Preface xi Notes on Contributors xiii 1 Introduction 1 Allan Thompson 2 The Media Dichotomy 12 Roméo Dallaire 3 Rwanda: Walking the Road to Genocide 20 Gerald Caplan PART ONE: HATE MEDIA IN RWANDA 4 Call to Genocide: Radio in Rwanda, 1994 41 Alison Des Forges 5 RTLM Propaganda: the Democratic Alibi 55 Jean-Pierre Chrétien 6 Kangura: the Triumph of Propaganda Refi ned 62 Marcel Kabanda 7 Rwandan Private Print Media on the Eve of the Genocide 73 Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro 8 Echoes of Violence: Considerations on Radio and Genocide in Rwanda 90 Darryl Li 9 RTLM: the Medium that Became a Tool for Mass Murder 110 Mary Kimani 10 The Effect of RTLM’s Rhetoric of Ethnic Hatred in Rural Rwanda 125 Charles Mironko 11 Journalism in a Time of Hate Media 136 Thomas Kamilindi PART TWO: INTERNATIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE GENOCIDE 12 Reporting the Genocide 145 Mark Doyle vi CONTENTS 13 Who Failed in Rwanda, Journalists or the Media? 160 Anne Chaon 14 Reporting Rwanda: the Media and the Aid Agencies 167 Lindsey Hilsum 15 Limited Vision: How Both the American Media and Government Failed Rwanda 188 Steven Livingston 16 Missing the Story: the Media and the Rwanda Genocide 198 Linda Melvern 17 What Did They Say? African Media Coverage of the First 100 Days of the Rwanda Crisis 211 Emmanuel C. Alozie 18 Exhibit 467: Genocide Through a Camera Lens 231 Nick Hughes 19 Media Failure over Rwanda’s Genocide 235 Tom Giles 20 A Genocide Without Images: White Film Noirs 238 Edgar Roskis 21 Notes on Circumstances that Facilitate Genocide: the Attention Given to Rwanda by the Media and Others Outside Rwanda Before 1990 242 Mike Dottridge 22 The Media’s Failure: a Refl ection on the Rwanda Genocide 248 Richard Dowden 23 How the Media missed the Rwanda Genocide 256 Alan J. Kuperman 24 An Analysis of News Magazine Coverage of the Rwanda Crisis in the United States 261 Melissa Wall PART THREE: JOURNALISM AS GENOCIDE – THE MEDIA TRIAL 25 The Verdict: Summary Judgement from the Media Trial 277 26 The Pre-Genocide Case Against Radio-Télévision Libre des Milles Collines 308 Simone Monasebian 27 The Challenges in Prosecuting Print Media for Incitement to Genocide 330 Charity Kagwi-Ndungu CONTENTS vii 28 ‘Hate Media’ – Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide: Opportunities Missed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda 343 Jean-Marie Biju-Duval 29 A Lost Opportunity for Justice: Why Did the ICTR Not Prosecute Gender Propaganda? 362 Binaifer Nowrojee PART FOUR: AFTER THE GENOCIDE AND THE WAY FORWARD 30 Intervening to Prevent Genocidal Violence: the Role of the Media 375 Frank Chalk 31 Information in Crisis Areas as a Tool for Peace: the Hirondelle Experience 381 Philippe Dahinden 32 The Use and Abuse of Media in Vulnerable Societies 389 Mark Frohardt and Jonathan Temin 33 Censorship and Propaganda in Post-Genocide Rwanda 404 Lars Waldorf 34 PG – Parental Guidance or Portrayal of Genocide: the Comparative Depiction of Mass Murder in Contemporary Cinema 417 Michael Dorland 35 The Responsibility to Report: a New Journalistic Paradigm 433 Allan Thompson Bibliography 447 Index 455 This page intentionally left blank UNITED NATIONS NATIONS UNIES THE SECRETARY-GENERAL --- MESSAGE TO SYMPOSIUM ON THE MEDIA AND THE RWANDA GENOCIDE Carleton University School of Journalism and Communication Ottawa, 13 March 2004 When, on 7 April, people around the world commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, that observance should be fi lled not only with remorse, but with resolve. We must remember the victims – the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children abandoned to systematic slaughter while the world, which had the capacity to save most of them, failed to save more than a handful, forever sullying the collective conscience. We must also help the survivors still struggling with the physical and psychological scars. But most of all, we must pledge – to ourselves as moral beings and to each other as a human community – to act boldly, including through military action when no other course will work, to ensure that such a denial of our common humanity is never allowed to happen again. The United Nations has now had ten years to refl ect on the bitter knowledge that genocide happened while UN peacekeepers were on the ground in Rwanda, and to learn lessons that all humankind should have learned from previous genocides. We are determined to sound the alarm about emerging crises and to help countries tackle the root causes of their problems. I expect soon to appoint a United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide, and to make other proposals for strengthening our action in this area. It is encouraging to know that the news media are also undertaking a process of self-examination as we collectively remember this tragedy. Media were used in Rwanda to spread hatred, to dehumanize people, and even to guide the genocidaires toward their victims. Three journalists have even been found guilty of genocide, incitement to genocide, conspiracy and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. We must fi nd a way to respond to such abuses of power without violating the principles of freedom, which are an indispensable cornerstone of democracy. I am glad that you are confronting these and other questions, including the role of the international media, especially at a school where future journalists are being trained. Such training must include refl ection on the responsibilities of their chosen profession. There can be no more important issue, and no more binding obligation, than the prevention of genocide. The world has made some progress in ix x MESSAGE FROM KOFI ANNAN understanding the responsibility to protect. Yet it is still not clear, were the signs of impending genocide to be seen somewhere today, that the world would mount an effective response. I hope that all of us, as diplomats, journalists, government offi cials or just concerned citizens, will act promptly and effectively, each within our sphere of infl uence, to halt genocide wherever it occurs – or better still, to make sure there is no ‘next time’. Preface It was the French philosopher, Voltaire, who wrote: ‘We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth.’ In the case of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the news media accomplished neither of Voltaire’s admonitions. Confronted by Rwanda’s horrors, Western news media for the most part turned away, then muddled the story when they did pay attention. And hate media organs in Rwanda – through their journalists, broadcasters and media executives – played an instrumental role in laying the groundwork for genocide, then actively participated in the extermination campaign. On the eve of the tenth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University in Ottawa hosted a one-day symposium on 13 March 2004, entitled ‘The Media and the Rwanda Genocide.’ The symposium examined in tandem the role of both the international media and Rwanda’s domestic news organizations in the cataclysmic events of 1994. The Carleton symposium brought together for the fi rst time an international collection of experts as well as some of the actors from the Rwandan drama; it also inspired this collection of papers. Many of the contributions found here are based on papers delivered at the Carleton event, but others were commissioned or have been reprinted here because of their valuable contribution to the debate. The symposium was made possible by generous contributions from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Government of Canada, through the Global Issues Bureau of the Foreign Affairs department and the Canadian International Development Agency. The IDRC has also played a key role in the publication of this collection; it continues to support Carleton’s efforts to build a Media and Genocide Archive and to establish a partnership with the School of Journalism and Communication at the National University of Rwanda in Butare through a project called The Rwanda Initiative.

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