The Media and the Rwanda Genocide

by Allan Thompson

Overview

The news media played a crucial role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide: local media fuelled the killings, while the international media either ignored or seriously misconstrued what was happening.

This is the first book to explore both sides of that media equation. The book examines how local radio and print media were used as a tool of hate by encouraging neighbours to turn against each other. It also presents a critique of international media coverage of the cataclysmic events in Rwanda. Bringing together local reporters and commentators from Rwanda, high-profile Western journalists and leading media theorists, this is the only book to identify and probe the extent of the media's accountability. It also examines deliberations by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on the role of the media in the genocide.

This book is a startling record of the dangerous negative influence that the media can have, when used as a political tool or when news organisations and journalists fail to live up to their responsibilities. The authors put forward suggestions for the future by outlining how we can avoid censorship and propaganda, and by arguing for a new responsibility in media reporting.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745326252
Publisher:	Pluto Press
Publication date:	03/20/2007
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Allan Thompson is Professor of Journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and a columnist with the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. After working as a reporter with the Toronto Star for 17 years, Thompson took up a teaching post at Carleton in 2003 and now heads a media capacity-building project in Rwanda called the Rwanda Initiative.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Allan Thompson

The images are so disturbing they are difficult to watch. Two women kneel amid the bodies of those who have already been slain. They are at the side of a dirt road in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Their final moments are captured on video by a British journalist, one of only a few foreign reporters left in the country, who is recording clandestinely from the top of a building nearby. Remarkably, during a genocide that claimed as many as a million lives, this is one of the only times a killing is recorded by the media. In the footage, one of the women is pleading, first clasping her hands in front of her, as if in prayer, then throwing open her arms, appealing to the throng of men who are milling about nearby, holding machetes and sticks. Further along the road are the bodies of others who have been dragged out of their homes and killed. The woman continues to beg, but the men seem to be oblivious to her. A young boy dressed in a T-shirt strolls past, giving the women only a backward glance. At one point, you can see a man in the crowd clutching something in his left hand. It appears to be a radio.

Minutes go by and the woman continues to plead for her life. The other figure crouched beside her barely flinches. Men wielding sticks in one hand and machetes in the other move forward and begin to pound the bodies that are strewn around the two women, striking the corpses again and again. One man gives the bodies a final crack, as if driving a stake into the ground, then slings his stick over his shoulder and ambles off. All the while, the woman continues to wave her arms and plead. A white pickup truck approaches and drives through the scene. The windshield wipers are flopping back and forth. One of the men huddled in the back of the vehicle waves a hand at the woman who is kneeling on the ground. He taunts her with a greeting.

Finally, two other men approach. One, dressed in dark trousers and a white shirt, winds up to strike the pleading woman. He has the posture of someone who is about to whip an animal. She recoils. Then he strikes her on the head with the stick he is clutching in his right hand. She crumples to the ground, then suffers more blows from her murderer. Almost at the same moment, the other woman is struck down as well by another assailant, her head very nearly lopped off by the initial blow. Finally, the two men walk away casually, leaving the bodies to squirm. In the distance, there is the sound of birdsong. The date is 18 April 1994, nearly two weeks after the 6 April plane crash that claimed the life of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and plunged Rwanda into the abyss. The tiny central African country, a mere dot on the world map, garnered virtually no international media attention before the killing spree that followed the president's death. No one had paid much attention to a fledgling peace accord signed in Arusha, Tanzania in 1993, setting out the details for a power-sharing arrangement between the majority Hutu population and the minority Tutsi, represented in the talks by the rebels from the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). An international peacekeeping force, commanded by a Canadian general, Roméo Dallaire, was dispatched to oversee implementation of the accord. Dallaire and his peacekeepers were only vaguely aware of the mounting tensions in the autumn of 1993, but heard rumblings about a 'third force' – Hutu extremists who opposed the powe-rsharing arrangement.

The voice of Hutu Power was the private radio station RTLM, established by extremists who surrounded the president. And RTLM was an echo of other extremist media, notably the newspaper Kangura. Once the president's plane was shot down by unknown assailants, the message from RTLM was unmistakable: the Tutsi were to blame; they were the enemy and Rwanda would be better off without them. The killings began almost immediately in Kigali through the night of 6-7 April. Hutu moderates, who were willing to share power, were among the first targeted, along with Tutsi marked for extermination in a campaign that eventually fanned out across the country. Many of the hundreds of thousands of Rwandans who were slaughtered had huddled in churches for sanctuary. Death squads lobbed in grenades. In their frenzy, killers severed the Achilles tendons on the heels of their victims, so they could return and finish the job later. Teachers killed students, neighbours slaughtered neighbours as local officials helped organize the killing.

In its 2003 verdict in the 'Media Trial' of executives from RTLM and Kangura, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) confirmed the undoubted role of Rwandan hate media in the killing:

The newspaper and the radio explicitly and repeatedly, in fact relentlessly, targeted the Tutsi population for destruction. Demonizing the Tutsi as having inherently evil qualities, equating the ethnic group with 'the enemy' and portraying its women as seductive enemy agents, the media called for the extermination of the Tutsi ethnic group as a response to the political threat that they associated with Tutsi ethnicity. (ICTR 2003: para. 72)

(The full text of the judgement summary can be found in Part Three of this collection.)

Most international news organizations initially misunderstood the nature of the killing in Rwanda, portraying it as the result of tribal warfare, rather than genocide. Much of the international coverage focused on the scramble to evacuate expatriates from the country. In mid-April, when the killing intensified, the volume of news reports actually declined. Most journalists had left along with the other foreigners.

The grainy video captured on 18 April by Nick Hughes, who was positioned on the top floor of the French School, is truly the exception that proves the rule. Hughes looked first through the scope of a rocket launcher, borrowed from a Belgian soldier stationed in the school. Then he trained his camera on what he saw taking place in the road below. Hughes would recount later that he had to stop shooting at several points for fear that his lone remaining battery pack would expire and, as a result, there are 'jump cuts' in the video at points when he briefly turned off his camera. Because he was shooting from such a distance, the sound on the audio track is the background noise in the school and, occasionally, the voice of Hughes and an associate. 'She's praying over the person that has just been killed,' he comments at one point. 'They're going to kill her, you can see that,' he says later.

Eventually, the international media reports on Rwanda were replete with images of bloated corpses, strewn at the roadside or choking Rwanda's rivers. But because there were so few foreign journalists on the ground at the height of the killing and because the domestic media had either been cowed or co-opted into the massacres, there are no other known images of the crime itself, the crime of genocide. Would the world have reacted differently if confronted daily by images of people being slaughtered rather than the static, disembodied pictures of disfigured corpses? More informed and comprehensive coverage of the Rwanda genocide, particularly in those early days, might well have mitigated or even halted the killing by sparking an international outcry. The news media could have made a difference. But within Rwanda, the only news media making a difference were hate media, such as RTLM, which proved instrumental in fanning the flames and implicating tens of thousands of ordinary people in the genocide.

Journalists could have had an impact in Rwanda – a sort of Heisenberg effect – had there been a significant enough media presence to influence events. The Heisenberg effect, named for German physicist Werner Heisenberg, describes how the act of observing a particle actually changes the behaviour of that particle, its velocity or direction. Arguably, more comprehensive and accurate reporting about the Rwanda genocide could have changed the behaviour of the perpetrators, mitigating the slaughter. Instead, the lack of international media attention contributed to what I would call a sort of inverse Heisenberg effect. Through their absence and a failure to adequately observe and record events, journalists contributed to the behaviour of the perpetrators of the genocide – who were encouraged by the world's apathy and acted with impunity.

At every turn, it seems, we return to this troubling equation, implicating news media – both within Rwanda and internationally – in the genocide. In looking back on this period, it is important to examine the role of domestic hate media and the international media in tandem in one collection of papers. As uncomfortable as this connection may seem, we cannot separate the two. We are looking at the role of the media, the power of its message and the impact of an information vacuum.

There is a considerable and growing body of literature on the Rwanda genocide in general and the role of the media in particular. Indeed, a number of authors have focused intently on the role of hate media in fostering and fomenting the genocide and that important work is reflected and elaborated upon in the collection of papers you are about to read. This collection takes the crucial step of juxtaposing analysis of the Rwandan media with analysis of coverage by the international media, thus encouraging a broader reflection on the role of the media as a whole. No other publication brings together both sides of the topic in this way. The role of hate media in the Rwanda genocide is in some ways self-evident. But it is not so clear, or at least not as universally accepted, that international media played a role in the genocide as well.

In the autumn of 1994, French journalist Edgar Roskis, wrote in Le Monde Diplomatique of 'un genocide sans images', a genocide without images. His article, translated and reprinted in this collection, underlines the point that because most foreign journalists fled the country, the indisputable crime of genocide very nearly went unrecorded. Roskis cites French photographer, Patrick Robert, who was working in Rwanda at the time for the Paris-based Sygma photo agency. 'There were six American correspondents,' Robert recounted. 'They had scarcely arrived when their editors gave them all orders to come home. At the Hôtel des Mille Collines, I picked up snatches of their conversations: "Too dangerous, not enough interest ... deep Africa, you know ... middle of nowhere."'

From 6 April until the middle of May, when the bulk of the genocide took place, Rwanda was still relegated to the inside pages of most newspapers, Roskis notes. The photos that were published were small and often old, the accounts second-hand, with little if any news appearing for days at a time.

The international media really only began to pay attention once Hutu refugees began to pour out of Rwanda into neighbouring countries. As Roskis contends, it was the 'humanitarian melodrama' of Goma that finally garnered the full attention of the international media. The Rwanda genocide was a media event, without question. And yet, it never quite graduated to the rank of 'mega-event', the kind of sensation that frequently attracts hundreds of international reporters, camera crews and satellite uplinks.

There is irony here. Dallaire continues to insist that with an intervention force of 5,000 troops, he could have put a halt to the killing. But the world's power brokers – chief among them the United States, Great Britain and France – used their positions on the United Nations Security Council to argue against intervention. The lack of focused, persistent media coverage of events in Rwanda only served to help the cause of those foot-draggers who did not want to get involved. Many blame American unwillingness to be drawn into Rwanda on 'Somalia fatigue', a reference to its humiliating withdrawal from Mogadishu in 1993 after 18 US rangers died in an abortive mission. The bodies of some of the helicopter pilots were later mutilated and dragged through the streets of the Somali capital by a jeering crowd. Canadian journalist, Paul Watson, then working for the Toronto Star, captured a Pulitzer-prize-winning photograph of the body of one of the American pilots as it was being hauled through the streets. That searing media image was published by many US newspapers and is widely credited with prompting the Clinton administration to withdraw from Somalia.

A media image contributed to US withdrawal from one African mission. A year later, at the height of the Rwanda genocide, the lack of media images probably helped the cause of those in Washington, London, Paris and other major capitals who wanted to avoid mounting an international intervention in another African country. As Dallaire puts it in his overview chapter in this collection, the world turned its back on Rwanda, not least because international news organizations initially downplayed the story. The Rwanda genocide, as a news event, simply did not break through.

By most accounts, there were only two foreign journalists in Rwanda on 6 April 1994, when Habyarimana's plane was shot down: Katrin van der Schoot, a freelance Flemish reporter for Belgian radio, and Lindsey Hilsum (the author of 'Reporting Rwanda: the Media and the Aid Agencies', in Part Two of this collection). Hilsum was in Rwanda on a temporary contract for UNICEF, although she also worked as a freelance reporter for the BBC, the Guardian and the Observer. As Hilsum recounts in her paper, some Nairobi-based journalists managed to move southward from Uganda with the RPF. Others – among them the BBC's Mark Doyle, who recounts his experiences in this volume – persuaded a World Food Programme official in Entebbe to fly them into Kigali on a plane being used to evacuate foreigners. A few others drove up from Burundi, but for most of April, there were no more than 10 to 15 reporters in the country at any time.

As Hilsum describes, most of the journalists were Africa specialists, but even they did not understand what was happening at first. 'With a shooting war in the east and the north and massacres in much of the country, for most of April it was genuinely confusing,' Hilsum writes. The journalists who did remain were mainly British, French and Belgian. Most US reporters had been ordered to leave by their employers because it was too dangerous. Although a significant number of reporters arrived on the scene shortly after the killing began, most were there with instructions to cover the attempts to rescue foreign nationals. And all but a handful left along with the evacuees in mid-April. There was virtually no 'real time' TV news out of Rwanda for the first weeks of the genocide because it was too risky to send an expensive satellite uplink into the country. The first satellite uplink was erected in Kigali only in late May, after the RPF had secured the airport.

As French journalist, Anne Chaon, notes in her contribution to this collection, the media muddled the story from June onward, when the French military began 'Operation Turquoise' in southwest Rwanda. 'Dozens of reporters returned to Rwanda. And while they were able at that time to discover the enormity of the killing campaign in this area ... they reported also on the humanitarian and military intervention from abroad. The result was that the reality of genocide was, once again, submerged in too much information.'

*
This collection of papers grew out of the 13 March 2004 symposium at Carleton University, organized by Canada's best-known and oldest journalism school. The purpose of the event was to make a direct and explicit connection between the conduct of Rwandan media in the genocide and the role played by the international media. Like the symposium, the collection of papers follows the same structure, with an added focus in the final section on events since 1994 and the current state of the media in post-genocide Rwanda.

A substantial introductory section includes a historical overview by Gerry Caplan, author of the Organization of African Unity report, Rwanda: the Preventable Genocide (IPEP 2000). Retired Canadian General Roméo Dallaire speaks from the unique vantage point of a key player during the period, with first-hand knowledge of the role of the media, his failed attempts to shut down or jam RTLM hate radio and his efforts to attract international media attention to the genocide in Rwanda. Dallaire argues that hate media were essentially the soundtrack of the genocide and were deployed as a weapon. He also recounts how, in his view, the international media influenced events by their absence, at a time when so much attention was focused on the war in the Balkans, where white Europeans were the victims.

This central contention – that local hate media fomented the genocide and international media essentially facilitated the process by turning their backs – is the crux of this collection of papers. This collection is, in essence, a journey through the media role in the events in Rwanda, a journey that has not yet reached its destination.

(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

Foreword: Message to the symposium on the media and the Rwanda genocide - Kofi Annan Preface Introduction - Allan Thompson 1. The media dichotomy - Romo Dallaire 2. Rwanda: walking the road to genocide - Gerald Caplan Part 1: Hate media in Rwanda 3. Call to genocide: radio in Rwanda, 1994 - Alison Des Forges 4. RTLM propaganda: the democratic alibi - Jean-Pierre Chrtien 5. Kangura: the triumph of propaganda refined - Marcel Kabanda (4910) 6. Rwandan private print media on the eve of the genocide - Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro 7. Echoes of violence: considerations on radio and genocide in Rwanda - Darryl Li 8. Journalism in a time of hate media - Thomas Kamilindi 9. RTLM: the medium that became a tool for mass murder - Mary Kimani 10. The effect of RTLM's rhetoric of ethnic hatred in rural Rwanda - Charles Mironko Part 2: International coverage of the genocide 11. Reporting the genocide - Mark Doyle 12. Who failed in Rwanda, journalists or the media? - Anne Chaon 13. Reporting Rwanda: the media and the aid agencies - Lindsey Hilsum 14. Limited vision: how both the American media and government failed Rwanda - Steven Livingston 15. Missing the story: the media and the Rwandan genocide - Linda Melvern 16. What did they say? African media coverage of the first 100 days of the Rwandan crisis - Emmanuel C. Alozie 17. Exhibit 467: genocide through a camera lens - Nick Hughes 18. Media failure over Rwanda's genocide - Tom Giles 19. A genocide without images: white film noirs - Edgar Roskis 20. Notes on circumstances that facilitate genocide: The attention given to Rwanda by the media and others outside Rwanda before 1990 - Mike Dottridge 21. The media's failure: a reflection on the Rwandan genocide - Richard Dowden 22. How the media missed Rwandan genocide - Alan J. Kuperman 23. An analysis of news magazine coverage of the Rwanda crisis in the United States - Melissa Wall Part 3: Journalism as genocide: the Media Trial 24. The verdict: summary judgement from the Media Trial 25. The pre-genocide case against Radio-Tlvision Libre des Milles Collines - Simone Monasebian 26. The challenges in prosecuting print media for incitement to genocide - Charity Kagwi-Ndungu 27. 'Hate media' - crimes against humanity and genocide: Opportunities missed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda - Jean-Marie Biju-Duval 28. A lost opportunity for justice: Why did the ICTR not prosecute gender propaganda? - Binaifer Nowrojee Part 4: After the genocide and the way forward 29. Intervening to prevent genocidal violence: the role of the media - Frank Chalk 30. Information in crisis areas as a tool for peace: the Hirondelle experience - Philippe Dahinden 31. The use and abuse of media in vulnerable societies - Mark Frohardt and Jonathan Temin 32. Censorship and propaganda in post-genocide Rwanda - Lars Waldorf 33. PG - parental guidance or portrayal of genocide: The comparative depiction of mass murder in contemporary cinema - Michael Dorland 34. The responsibility to report: a new journalistic paradigm - Allan Thompson Bibliography Index