The Media and the Rwanda Genocide

Edited by Allan Thompson

Description

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.



In writing this 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; outlining how we can avoid censorship and propaganda, and arguing for a new responsibility in media reporting.
Foreword: Message to the symposium on the media and the Rwanda genocide by Kofi Annan

Preface

Introduction by Allan Thompson

1. The media dichotomy by Roméo Dallaire

2. Rwanda: walking the road to genocide by Gerald Caplan

Part 1: Hate media in Rwanda

3. Call to genocide: radio in Rwanda, 1994 by Alison Des Forges

4. RTLM propaganda: the democratic alibi by Jean-Pierre Chrétien

5. Kangura: the triumph of propaganda refined by Marcel Kabanda (4910)

6. Rwandan private print media on the eve of the genocide by Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro

7. Echoes of violence: considerations on radio and genocide in Rwanda by Darryl Li

8. Journalism in a time of hate media by Thomas Kamilindi

9. RTLM: the medium that became a tool for mass murder by Mary Kimani

10. The effect of RTLM's rhetoric of ethnic hatred in rural Rwanda by Charles Mironko

Part 2: International coverage of the genocide

11. Reporting the genocide by Mark Doyle

12. Who failed in Rwanda, journalists or the media? by Anne Chaon

13. Reporting Rwanda: the media and the aid agencies by Lindsey Hilsum

14. Limited vision: how both the American media and government failed Rwanda by Steven Livingston

15. Missing the story: the media and the Rwandan genocide by Linda Melvern

16. What did they say? African media coverage of the first 100 days of the Rwandan crisis by Emmanuel C. Alozie

17. Exhibit 467: genocide through a camera lens by Nick Hughes

18. Media failure over Rwanda's genocide by Tom Giles

19. A genocide without images: white film noirs by Edgar Roskis

20. Notes on circumstances that facilitate genocide: The attention given to Rwanda by the media and others outside Rwanda before 1990 by Mike Dottridge

21. The media's failure: a reflection on the Rwandan genocide by Richard Dowden

22. How the media missed Rwandan genocide by Alan J. Kuperman

23. An analysis of news magazine coverage of the Rwanda crisis in the United States by 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-Télévision Libre des Milles Collines by Simone Monasebian

26. The challenges in prosecuting print media for incitement to genocide by Charity Kagwi-Ndungu

27. 'Hate media' - crimes against humanity and genocide: Opportunities missed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda by Jean-Marie Biju-Duval

28. A lost opportunity for justice: Why did the ICTR not prosecute gender propaganda? by Binaifer Nowrojee

Part 4: After the genocide and the way forward

29. Intervening to prevent genocidal violence: the role of the media by Frank Chalk

30. Information in crisis areas as a tool for peace: the Hirondelle experience by Philippe Dahinden

31. The use and abuse of media in vulnerable societies by Mark Frohardt and Jonathan Temin

32. Censorship and propaganda in post-genocide Rwanda by Lars Waldorf

33. PG - parental guidance or portrayal of genocide: The comparative depiction of mass murder in contemporary cinema by Michael Dorland

34. The responsibility to report: a new journalistic paradigm by Allan Thompson

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Media Studies
• Social Science
• HISTORY
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Ruanda
• General officer
• Military
• Rwanda
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 janvier 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849643450
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE MEDIA AND THE RWANDA GENOCIDE

Edited by Allan Thompson

With a Statement by Kofi Annan

P Pluto 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/[e-mail] 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: [e-mail] 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 identified 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 Genocideix Kofi Annan Prefacexi Notes on Contributorsxiii

1 Introduction Allan Thompson  2 The Media Dichotomy Romo Dallaire  3 Rwanda: Walking the Road to Genocide Gerald Caplan

PART ONE: HATE MEDIA IN RWANDA  4 Call to Genocide: Radio in Rwanda, 1994 Alison Des Forges  5 RTLM Propaganda: the Democratic Alibi JeanPierre Chrtien 6Kangura: the Triumph of Propaganda Refined Marcel Kabanda  7 Rwandan Private Print Media on the Eve of the Genocide JeanMarie Vianney Higiro  8 Echoes of Violence: Considerations on Radio and Genocide in Rwanda Darryl Li  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 125 Charles Mironko 11 Journalism in a Time of Hate Media Thomas Kamilindi

PART TWO: INTERNATIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE GENOCIDE 12 Reporting the Genocide Mark Doyle

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18 19 20 21

22 23 24

CONTENTS

Who Failed in Rwanda, Journalists or the Media? Anne Chaon Reporting Rwanda: the Media and the Aid Agencies Lindsey Hilsum Limited Vision: How Both the American Media and Government Failed Rwanda Steven Livingston Missing the Story: the Media and the Rwanda Genocide Linda Melvern What Did They Say? African Media Coverage of the First 100 Days of the Rwanda Crisis Emmanuel C. Alozie Exhibit 467: Genocide Through a Camera Lens Nick Hughes Media Failure over Rwanda’s Genocide Tom Giles A Genocide Without Images: White Film Noirs Edgar Roskis Notes on Circumstances that Facilitate Genocide: the Attention Given to Rwanda by the Media and Others Outside Rwanda Before 1990 Mike Dottridge The Media’s Failure: a Reflection on the Rwanda Genocide Richard Dowden How the Media missed the Rwanda Genocide Alan J. Kuperman An Analysis of News Magazine Coverage of the Rwanda Crisis in the United States Melissa Wall

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261

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

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CONTENTS

‘Hate Media’  Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide: Opportunities Missed by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda JeanMarie BijuDuval A Lost Opportunity for Justice: Why Did the ICTR Not Prosecute Gender Propaganda? Binaifer Nowrojee

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362

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

Bibliography447 Index455

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 filled 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 reflect 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 genocidairestoward 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 reflection 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

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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 officials or just concerned citizens, will act promptly and effectively, each within our sphere of influence, 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 first 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. I would like to thank all those who contributed to the symposium and to this collection, most notably the authors of the papers you are about to read. Special thanks are due to Chris Dornan, who was director of the School of Journalism and Communication when this project began, Pamela Scholey and Bill Carman from the IDRC, Roméo Dallaire, who lent considerable moral support to this project, and Sandra Garland, who did wonderful work as a copy-editor. Finally, I would like to thank my wife Roula El-Rifai and our son, Laith Rifai-Thompson. My passion for Rwanda has often consumed time and energy that should have been devoted to my family. For my part, I came to Rwanda late. Before joining the faculty at Carleton in 2003, I was a career journalist with theToronto Star. I was not in Rwanda

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PREFACE

in 1994. I fi rst visited in 1996 to report on the repatriation of Hutu refugees from the Goma region of what was then eastern Zaire. But Rwanda does get inside you and, since then, I think I have been trying to some degree to make amends for not having been there in 1994. Reviewing theToronto Stararchives, I found an article of mine published on 9 April 1994. I had forgotten ever having written it; perhaps it left my memory because it was such a dreadful piece of journalism. Written three days into the genocide, the article focused entirely on the evacuation of Canadian expatriates from Kigali and invoked every cliché of tribal conflict, chaos and anarchy. Two months later, in early June, while Roméo Dallaire and his beleaguered contingent watched helplessly as the slaughter continued in Rwanda, I reported for the Starfrom Normandy, France, where then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was participating in ceremonies to mark the fi ftieth anniversary of D-Day. In my experience, major events taking place elsewhere in the world often become a preoccupation for the journalists reporting on such international gatherings. But as I recall, during that weekend of speeches and press conferences in Normandy commemorating a war that ended half a century earlier, there was nary a mention of what was going on at that moment in Rwanda. None of the leaders mentioned the Rwanda genocide. Nor did any in the media throng covering the D-Day commemorations ask about Rwanda. The collection you are about to read explores the role ofhate media in the Rwanda genocide and examines international media coverage of the genocide. Then it turns to an assessment of the guilty verdict in the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda’s ‘Media Trial’ and finally concludes with a section on the aftermath, examining the current media climate in Rwanda, media intervention strategies and the place of the Rwanda genocide in popular culture. The purpose of looking back at the media’s role in the Rwanda events is not just to remember. We still have some learning to do on this subject and examining the way journalists and news organizations conducted themselves in 1994 is not just a historical exercise. Sadly, we don’t yet seem to have fully discerned or absorbed the lessons from Rwanda. Ultimately, this collection is dedicated to those who perished in 1994. To underline the point, I would like to borrow a comparison used by British journalist, Scott Peterson. To understand the number of dead, imagine that every word in this book is the name of a victim. This entire volume would list only 200,000 of the dead, a fraction of the estimated toll of nearly one million people. As you read this collection, look at every word. Then think of someone you know. Allan Thompson Ottawa, 2006

Notes on Contributors

Emmanuel C. Alozieis university professor of media communications at Governors State University, University Park, Illinois. His research interests are in development communication, international/cultural journalism, advertising and public relations. Alozie is former assistant editor with Democratic Communiqué, author ofCultural Reflections and the Role of Advertising in the Socioeconomic and National Development of Nigeria(2005, Edwin Mellen Press), and co-edited,Toward the Common Good: Perspectives in International Public Relations(2004, Ally & Bacon).

JeanMarie BijuDuvalis a Paris-based lawyer who was engaged as the defence counsel for Ferdinand Nahimana, the former Rwandan media executive who was convicted in the Media Trial.

Gerald Caplanis a leading Canadian authority on genocide prevention. He is the author ofRwanda: The Preventable Genocide, the 2000 report of the International Panel of Eminent Personalities appointed by the Organization of African Unity to investigate the 1994 Rwanda genocide. He is also founder of Remembering Rwanda, the Rwanda genocide tenth anniversary memorial project and has developed and teaches a course on the role of the media in the Rwanda genocide.

Frank Chalkis a professor in the Department of History, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, and the co-director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies. He is co-author (with Kurt Jonassohn) ofThe History and Sociology of Genocide.

Anne Chaonis a journalist with Agence France-Presse (AFP). In the fi rst weeks of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, she was based in Paris, working on AFP’s Africa desk. She reported from Rwanda for AFP in June, before heading to eastern Zaire in July of that year. She testified against RTLM media executive Ferdinand Nahimana in Paris and before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the Media Trial.

JeanPierre Chrétienis a historian and co-author ofRwanda: les mdias du Gnocide. He has held teaching positions at l’École normale supérieure du Burundi, l’Université de Lille III, and since 1973 has been a researcher in African history at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi que (CNRS) in Paris.

Philippe Dahindenis a Swiss journalist who is cofounder of and former editor-in-chief at the Hirondelle Foundation, an international organization

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