Neutralising the Voices of Hate: Broadcasting and Genocide

This article intends to discuss the effect of propaganda in broadcast media on public behaviour in the context of the 1996 Rwandan genocide.

According to the author, Western media reports maintained that Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) incited Hutus to kill Tutsis by both racist broadcasting and explicit instructions to kill Tutsis. RTLM was launched in September 1993. Subsequently, in 2003, three Rwandan journalists, two of whom worked for RTLM, were found guilty by the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda of participating in the genocide because of their broadcasts. The article examines these claims, querying the power of media to influence pre-existing prejudices and the assumption that without the media, the genocide might not have happened. It makes reference to the claim that violent television programmes predispose children to behave violently too.

The report refers to research done on the broadcasting of RTLM before and after April 6 1994 and examines more closely claims that RTLM was broadcasting "a steady stream of racist, anti-Tutsi invective" to Hutus. It maintains that after 6 April 1994, RTLM supported the genocide by broadcasting the names and vehicle registration numbers of targeted victims. However, before 6 April 1994, "ethnic propaganda" was apparently more subtle, "favoured listening of the rebels of the Rwanda Patriotic Front - the very targets of its ‘anti-Tutsi invective'" and not under obvious governmental control, unlike Radio Rwanda, a station under strict government control.

The article continues to point out that the Rwandan genocide arose from a situation in which there was a lack of democracy in media. This has happened historically in Nazi Germany and former Yugoslavia and the fomenting of ethnic crimes is happening currently in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe. The report claims that hate messages in the media do not necessarily aim to convince the general public of propaganda, but rather fire up and justify the actions of ruling party militias and security forces and reinforce existing prejudice.

The article maintains that hate speech can best be opposed by tolerant, pacifist opinions in an environment in which there is diverse media and freedom of expression. "Anti-hate speech laws notoriously have the opposite effect from that intended," claims the author, who believes that giving governments a mandate to shut down broadcasting stations is dangerous. He concludes, "Pluralistic and accountable broadcasting is an indispensable part of building democracy and the voices of hate can only be neutralised if they are confronted with a variety of alternative points of view."

Richard Carver is director of Oxford Media Research. He wrote "Broadcasting and political transition: Rwanda and beyond" in Richard Fardon and Graham Furniss (eds), African Broadcast Cultures: Radio in Transition, James Currey, 2000.