Radio Rwanda
The mass slaughter of 800,000 Tutsi citizens of Rwanda had its roots in ethnic hatreds and a brutal civil war.
The majority of the killings in this small central African country were perpetrated by Hutu gangs and militias. The assassination of Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana ignited the genocide of the minority Tutsis over a three-month period in 1994.¹
But in order to hunt and kill every Tutsi in the country, the Hutu militants had to find them hidden in the countryside. They needed the help of Hutu civilians, who might not be as keen to turn on their Tutsi neighbors and friends.
The Hutu elite employed a powerful weapon to reach these potential rural allies: a radio station willing to dehumanize, degrade, and incite mass murder.²
Photo: Genocide memorial. AP/Ben Curtis. 1 million killed by machete, club and gun: Rwanda remembers its genocide 20 years later
In 1994, the majority of the population of Rwanda consisted of subsistence farmers. Literacy and education were luxuries that most could not afford. (This is largely still true today).
Television presence was minimal. However, one essential item could be found in even the most impoverished households: a transistor radio.
Along with state-run media, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM — “Thousand Hills Free Radio and Television”) was broadcast across the entire country. Between popular songs from local artists, the station would host roundtable discussions and guest debates.³
These discussions and debates invariably boiled down to the hatred of one particular group: the Tutsis themselves. The Hutu hosts would make no distinction between Tutsi fighting groups, such as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and civilian non-combatants. All were the same, and worthy of extermination.⁴
Anti-Tutsi propaganda became RTLM’s primary goal. They focused on the standard tools perfected by previous regimes:
- Create a false history.
- Focus on the population’s well-known grievances.
- Assign blame for these grievances on a nearby enemy.
- Dehumanize the nearby enemy.
Hutu broadcasters linked the Tutsis with their colonial oppressors, calling for an end to Hutu “enslavement” by their Tutsi overlords. This pseudo-history was peddled to the masses as simple fact.⁵
The discourse of slavery in these broadcasts seems to represent Hutu slavery as naked reality; that is, these broadcasts understand historical Hutu slavery to be literal.
In a second broadcast from April 17, 1994 (11 days after the assassination), journalist Agenesta Mukarutama leads a roundtable discussion about how the RPF seeks to return Rwanda to its pre-revolutionary time in which the Tutsi commanded and the Hutu obeyed.
“But,” the broadcast tells us, “Rwandans have learned their history and are ‘saying no’ to a repetition of history.”⁶
RTLM’s favorite description of the Tutsis was “cockroaches.”⁷ Rage against the Tutsi minorities was stoked to a fever pitch.
“Radio Hate” called for a “final war” against the cockroaches. Multiple shows broadcast lists of Tutsis “to be killed and instructed killers on where to find them.” ⁸
And Hutus in the countryside were listening.
Photo: AFP Rwanda’s 100 days of slaughter
As the Hutu militias rampaged throughout the country, murdering and hacking Tutsi men, women, and children to death with their favored weapon — the machete — RTLM continued their poisonous broadcasts. Rwandan government identification cards listed the person’s ethnic group, making impromptu roadblocks an easy way to target victims.⁹
Excerpts from RTLM showcase their seething anti-Tutsi hatred:
And you people who live … near Rugunga … go out. You will see the cockroaches’ straw huts in the marsh … I think that those who have guns should immediately go to these cockroaches … encircle them and kill them …”¹⁰
“The graves are only half full — we must complete the task. . . We made the mistake 30 years ago of letting them flee into exile, this time none will escape. . . When you kill the rat do not let the pregnant one escape.”¹¹
“You cockroaches must know you are made of flesh. We won’t let you kill. We will kill you.”¹²
Inspired by the relentless radio-fueled hate propaganda, Hutu civilians began to participate in the slaughter. No one was safe as neighbor turned against neighbor.
One survivor, Valentina Iribagiza, told PBS Frontline of her experiences as a 12-year-old during the genocide.
The morning of April 15th, she had heard a chilling radio broadcast:
All Tutsis will perish. They will disappear from the earth. Slowly, slowly, slowly, we will kill them like rats.¹³
Valentina had “followed her parents into the Catholic church in Nyarubuye, where along with more than 5,000 other Tutsis, they waited.”¹⁴
I was a young girl. My parents thought the church was safe because no one would be killed in a church. When we arrived, I could see the older people were very sad and upset. Everybody was scared, but nobody knew what was going to happen.
The leader of the local community told us that Tutsis had fled to Nyarubuye and that we’re to go there and kill them.
They started shooting and shooting. All we had to defend ourselves were rocks. And our local governor, Gacumbizi, came in and stood in front of us. Gacumbizi said that everyone should know what they were there for. He said that all those who were there should be killed, that no one should survive.
Then they started killing, hacking with their machetes. They kept doing it, and I was hiding under dead people. They didn’t kill me. Because of the blood covering me, they thought they had killed me.¹⁵
Photo: Thousands of abandoned machetes at the border between Rwanda and Tanzania. David Turnley/Corbis, via Getty Images Rwanda Marks 25 Years Since the Genocide. The Country Is Still Grappling With Its Legacy.
Six years later, RTLM Co-Founder Ferdinand Nahimana and Executive Committee Chairman Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza were brought before the United Nations war crimes tribunal to answer for their roles in the Rwandan genocide.¹⁶
The two media executives were convicted in 2003 of genocide, incitement to genocide, and crimes against humanity. Nahimana was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Barayagwiza to 35 years in prison. Both sentences were later reduced on appeal.¹⁷
These convictions were little comfort to the survivors of the worst genocide since World War II.
Photo: Cemetery holding 6,000 victims of the genocide. 2008 World Vision, photo by Jon Warren. 1994 Rwandan genocide, aftermath: Facts, FAQs, and how to help | World Vision
“I once spoke to someone who had survived the genocide in Rwanda, and she said to me that there was now nobody left on the face of the earth, either friend or relative, who knew who she was.
No one who remembered her girlhood and her early mischief and family lore; no sibling or boon companion who could tease her about that first romance; no lover or pal with whom to reminisce.
All her birthdays, exam results, illnesses, friendships, kinships — gone. She went on living, but with a tabula rasa as her diary and calendar and notebook.¹⁸
— Christopher Hitchens
Footnotes
[4] The impact of hate media in Rwanda
[5] Radio in the Rwandan Genocide — The Devil’s Tale
[6] Radio in the Rwandan Genocide — The Devil’s Tale
[7] Journalists jailed for inciting Rwandan genocide
[8] The impact of hate media in Rwanda
[9] Rwanda’s 100 days of slaughter
[10] RwandanRadioTrascripts_RTLM
[11] ‘The graves of the Tutsi are only half full — we must complete the
[12] Trial Centers on Role of Press During Rwanda Massacre
[13] Transcript | Ghosts Of Rwanda | FRONTLINE | PBS
[14] Transcript | Ghosts Of Rwanda | FRONTLINE | PBS
[15] Transcript | Ghosts Of Rwanda | FRONTLINE | PBS
[16] Journalists jailed for inciting Rwandan genocide
