Hate and Reconciliation by Guido Cuyvers

Author:Guido Cuyvers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science
Published: 2022-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

To understand how hatred fueled this conflict, it is important to examine the role of propaganda, a powerful weapon in this conflict. Especially, the roles of the newspaper Kangura and the radio ‘Mille Collines’ were highly detrimental. At the end of 1990, two months after the RPF invasion, the newspaper Kangura published the ‘Ten Hutu Commandments,’ a propaganda piece in which every Hutu that had married a Tutsi or did business with one was labeled a traitor. Command No 8 stated: ‘Hutus should no longer feel sorry for Tutsis.’197

According to Kangura, all Tutsis in Rwanda would have ties with the rebels and engage in subversive activities at night. In mixed marriages, Tutsi women acted as spies for the rebels.198 In speeches by extremists at political and military meetings, regular allusions were made to the extermination of the Tutsis.199 Citizens were frightened with messages in the press and by a speech by Habyarimana about large-scale slaughter among Hutus. After independent investigation, these rumors were proven to have been invented. ‘Special effects’ had to reinforce the propaganda, such as a scene of the attack on Kigali shortly after the 1990 RPF invasion. The rebels had actually stopped 70 km from the capital and with the help of foreign troops.

From July 1993 onwards, the role of the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) was important in inciting the Hutus. This radio and television station was established by members of the extremist party CDR. RTLM called individual Tutsis and members of the opposition ‘enemies’ or ‘traitors’ who deserved to die.200 The radio transmitted information about Tutsis trying to flee the country. In areas where the radio reception was best the most murders occurred.201

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