Document(s) 10 of 37

Eleven years after the end of the Rwandan genocide, two films were released for popular audiences, greatly increasing widespread realization of the horror that had taken the lives of more than half a million Tutsi. In both cases, the film-makers highlighted the importance of radio in mobilizing people to kill. Audiences leave the theatre wondering how it was possible for genocide to occur in full public view at the end of the twentieth century and why no action had been taken to halt the broadcasts that were promoting the worst of all crimes.

LEAD-UP TO GENOCIDE

At the end of the 1980s, Juvénal Habyarimana saw his power slipping after nearly 20 years. Even though he was a member of the Hutu ethnic group, who formed some 90 per cent of the population, he had lost much of his popular base. For years he had favoured his own region and, even more, his own family circle, as the rest of the country experienced an economic crisis due to the falling prices of coffee and tea, the country's major exports. The voices of dissent grew, taking the form of a demand to end the monopoly of power held by the president's political party, the Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement (MRND).

In 1990, Rwanda was attacked by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a movement consisting mostly of refugees and children of refugees of the Tutsi ethnic group. Once the ruling elite of Rwanda, the Tutsi had been overthrown in a revolution beginning in 1959 and many had fled the country. In the early 1960s these Tutsi refugees had led a series of incursions into Rwanda, each of which provoked reprisals against the Tutsi who still lived in the country. After Habyarimana came to power in 1973, there was a period of calm with neither attacks from the outside, nor killings of the Tutsi minority in Rwanda.

With the 1990 attack by the RPF, Habyarimana and some around him saw the chance to stop the erosion of their popularity and to try to craft a new Hutu solidarity by turning against the Tutsi minority inside the country, labelling them traitors and accusing them of supporting the RPF attackers. Within days of the first attack, the government had rounded up thousands of Tutsi and Hutu opposed to the regime; it would hold some for months without trial in inhumane conditions. Many were tortured and scores died. Two weeks after the RPF attack, government officials carried out the first of a series of massacres of Tutsi civilians, killing hundreds at the commune of Kibilira. Over the next three years, there would be another 15 such massacres before the genocide of 1994 began (Des Forges 1994: 87; International Commission 1993: 11–29).

From the opening days of the war, the government understood the importance of using media to rally Rwandans around the regime. Believing that the government-controlled media were not up to the task of carrying forward a vigorous propaganda campaign, Habyarimana named a promising young intellectual and university professor, Ferdinand Nahimana, to take over the official information office, a post that included authority over the national radio station (Chrétien et al. 1995: 51–2).

THE ROLE OF RADIO

A large number of Rwandans could not read or write and, as a result, radio was an important way for the government to deliver messages to the population. In addition to the usual news, the radio broadcast official notification of appointments to and dismissals from government posts, announcements of government meetings and lists of candidates admitted to secondary schools. It also broadcast daily reminders from the president, exhorting Rwandans to work hard and live clean, moral lives. So long as Rwanda was a single-party state – that is until June 1991 – the radio also disseminated propaganda for the president's party, the MRND. Not just an official voice of the state and a propaganda channel for the single party, the national radio also helped link families whose relatives were distant, broadcasting news of deaths so that relatives could return home for funerals.

In March 1992, Radio Rwanda was first used in directly promoting the killing of Tutsi in a place called Bugesera, south of the national capital. On 3 March, the radio repeatedly broadcast a communiqué supposedly sent by a human rights group based in Nairobi warning that Hutu in Bugesera would be attacked by Tutsi. Local officials built on the radio announcement to convince Hutu that they needed to protect themselves by attacking first. Led by soldiers from a nearby military base, Hutu civilians, members of the Interahamwe, a militia attached to the MRND party, and local Hutu civilians attacked and killed hundreds of Tutsi (International Commission 1993: 13–14).

The role of the radio in inciting killing demonstrated the importance of controlling the media. Opposition parties, having proved their strength in massive street demonstrations, were able to push Habyarimana into conceding to them the right to participate in government and one of the ministries they wanted to control was a newly created ministry of information. In the new coalition government formed just after the Bugesera massacre, a member of one of the opposition parties was named to head this ministry. He gradually instituted policies meant to end the MRND monopoly on the media and to guarantee equal access to members of other political parties. Nahimana was removed as head of the information office and so lost control of the radio as well (Chrétien 1995: 61).

Other voices were also beginning to be heard. The RPF broadcast through a station called Radio Muhabura, although its signal did not reach all of Rwanda. Some civil society groups also drew up proposals for independent radio stations, such as one to serve the rural poor.

RADIO AS PART OF THE 'SELF-DEFENCE'

The war dragged on through 1991 and 1992, punctuated by occasional ceasefires and sporadic negotiations, but without any real settlement. In January 1993, the RPF was able to force some major concessions on the government during a negotiating session, a diplomatic success they followed by a stunning military advance in early February – in violation of an existing ceasefire agreement. Until this time, Habyarimana had been able to count on France as a reliable supplier of arms and political support. French troops, supposedly in Rwanda to protect French citizens, were decisive in stopping the RPF advance on several occasions, including in early 1993. But some French authorities were becoming convinced that the Rwandan government would need substantial additional support if it were to continue to resist the RPF and the French were increasingly unwilling to supply this.

In that atmosphere of growing RPF strength and weakening French support, some Habyarimana supporters – and perhaps Habyarimana himself – turned to the idea of mobilizing large numbers of civilians as a 'self-defence' force to back up the national army. Military correspondence, as well as propaganda, had made clear in the preceding months that the 'enemy' included Tutsi civilians as well as RPF combatants. Thus the self-defence force was apparently meant as much to attack these civilians as to confront the soldiers of the RPF force.

The general outlines of the self-defence force were sketched out by Colonel Théoneste Bagosora in the first pages of his 1993 engagement book. Bagosora, who would take the lead in national affairs after President Habyarimana was killed on 6 April 1994, was known for his hostile attitude toward Tutsi. Many of the details jotted down in his 1993 engagement book were later replicated in a secret national self-defence plan drawn up in the early months of 1994, then implemented in April 1994 when the civilian population was mobilized to kill Tutsi civilians. Even in his preliminary notes, Bagosora suggested that the radio should be used in the self-defence effort. He even noted the name of Simon Bikindi, one of the most popular musicians in Rwanda, who would become famous for his songs extolling Hutu solidarity and denouncing supposed Tutsi crimes (Bagosora 1993).

AN END TO WAR: THE ARUSHA ACCORDS

Nearly four years of war between the Rwandan government and the RPF ended with the signing of the Arusha accords in August 1993. At that time the signatories already recognized the importance of propaganda in contributing to tensions between parties and agreed to end such propaganda.

But despite the carefully detailed accords, some elements in both the Rwandan government and the RPF were not ready to make peace and continued preparations for further war.

As part of the accords, a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force was created to help implement the agreement. Known as the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), it arrived later than expected – most of the peacekeepers came only in December – and was smaller than thought necessary by its commanding officer, Canadian General Roméo Dallaire. UNAMIR was poorly equipped and poorly supplied throughout its time in Rwanda. Taking into consideration its weaknesses, the UN Security Council gave the force a mandate that was far less robust than originally envisioned in the accords.

RTLM MAKES ITSELF HEARD

Radio-Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) began its broadcasts just after the accords were signed. In the context of multiplying voices, adamant supporters of the MRND and of a new, related party called the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR) decided to launch a radio station to broadcast the message that used to be the only one heard on Radio Rwanda. Nahimana, well acquainted with the power of radio, did much of the work organizing the new station. Habyarimana himself was the most important of its backers, which comprised many of the ruling elite, including ministers and other government officials, bankers and high-ranking military officers. But the station was meant to be the voice of the people and the price for a single share was kept low to attract ordinary citizens to support the effort (ICTR 2003: para. 4.2).

RTLM was also meant to reach out to the ordinary citizen in its programming. It aired the latest music, especially popular Congolese songs, while Radio Rwanda was still broadcasting old standard tunes. Unlike the official Radio Rwanda, which spoke in the ponderous tones of state officials, RTLM was informal and lively. Several of its announcers were known for their quick wit, which was appreciated even by those who were the butt of their humour. According to one Rwandan well-acquainted with the media in his country, RTLM offered comments that sounded like 'a conversation among Rwandans who knew each other well and were relaxing over some banana beer or a bottle of Primus in a bar' (Higiro 1996).

RTLM brought the voice of ordinary people to the airwaves. Listeners could call in to request their favourite tunes or to exchange gossip with announcers and a wider audience. RTLM journalists went out into the streets and invited passers-by to comment on topics of the day. This populist approach allowed RTLM to claim a legitimacy different from that of Radio Rwanda; it still broadcast official voices often enough to continue to enjoy the authoritativeness of national radio, but to that it added the appeal of being the station to speak for the people.

But in late October 1993, the president of neighbouring Burundi and the first Hutu to hold that post, was assassinated by military officers who had seemed to accept his popular election by majority vote several months before. As soon as the news of the assassination became known, Burundian Hutu – in some cases led by local government officials or political leaders – began attacking Tutsi. The Tutsi-led army then carried out extensive reprisal killings of Hutu civilians, sometimes in areas where Tutsi had not actually been killed. The final death toll was tens of thousands of dead in both groups.

These events in Burundi further polarized Rwandans, many of whom were quick to draw lessons from the neighbouring state, whose Hutu–Tutsi population mirrored their own. For many Tutsi, the attacks on other Tutsi in Burundi demonstrated the vulnerability of a minority in situations of ethnic conflict and made them even more afraid to put their trust in a Hutu-led government. Meanwhile, some Hutu speculated that the RPF had assisted Burundian Tutsi soldiers in the assassination and claimed that the crime proved that Rwandan Tutsi could not be trusted to implement the Arusha accords as they had agreed to do.

Two important opposition parties split over the question of the desirability of continuing with efforts to implement the accords, while their anti-Arusha accord members formed a new coalition with Habyarimana's MRND and the CDR. The coalition became known by its rallying cry 'Hutu Power' and its voice became the RTLM.

RTLM reported the assassination of the Burundi president in a highly sensationalized way to underline supposed Tutsi brutality and heighten Hutu fears of Tutsi (RTLM transcripts: 25 October; 20, 29, 30 November; 12 December 1993). The president was actually killed by a bayonet blow to the chest, but RTLM reported details of supposed torture, including castration of the victim. In pre-colonial times, some Tutsi kings castrated defeated enemy rulers and decorated their royal drums with the genitalia. The false report of the castration of the Burundi president was intended to remind Hutu listeners of this practice and to elicit their fear and repulsion; it did so with great success.

From late October on, RTLM repeatedly and forcefully underlined many of the themes developed for years by the extremist written press, including the inherent differences between Hutu and Tutsi, the foreign origin of Tutsi and, hence, their lack of rights to claim to be Rwandan, the disproportionate share of wealth and power held by Tutsi and the horrors of past Tutsi rule. It continually stressed the need to be alert to Tutsi plots and possible attacks and demanded that Hutu prepare to 'defend' themselves against the Tutsi threat (RTLM transcripts: 25 October; 12, 20, 24 November 1993; 29 March; 1, 3 June 1994).

In addition to the increasingly virulent propaganda against Tutsi, the radio spewed forth attacks on Hutu who were willing to continue cooperating with them. In some cases, the radio moved from general denunciations to naming specific people, including the Hutu prime minister, as enemies of the nation who should be eliminated one way or another from the public scene. It used increasingly violent language, saying, for example, that the Interahamwe militia might rip into little pieces those thought to support the RPF (Article 19 1996: 92–3, 96–7, Sénat de Belgique 1997: 70).

In February 1994, RTLM showed that it could be used just as Radio Rwanda was used at the time of the 1992 Bugesera massacre, to pinpoint targets for attack. An opposition politician was assassinated and, in reprisal, the head of the CDR party was lynched by militia members of the opposition party (Sénat de Belgique 1997: 38–9, 71–2). RTLM warned that the RPF were going to attack the capital, a report that was false. It demanded that listeners protect themselves against RPF supporters in certain parts of the city. Hutu in those neighbourhoods, led by militia, killed about 70 people, thus foreshadowing the bloody events to come two months later (Article 19 1996: 97).

FEAR AND FOREBODING

In December 1993, some 600 RPF soldiers moved into Kigali, implementing a provision of the accords that allowed the RPF to station troops in the capital to protect their political leaders during the period of transition to a new government. At the same time, preparations for renewed war increased. Political leaders of Hutu Power parties recruited thousands of militia members and arranged for their training. Officials and military officers distributed thousands of weapons to civilians, an effort so widespread and public that it drew condemnation from a Catholic bishop who asked authorities to explain why the firearms were being handed out (Kalibushi et al. 1993). In December and throughout the early months of 1994, RTLM stepped up the pace and bitterness of its attack on Tutsi, Hutu opposition figures, leaders of civil society and even the UN peacekeepers, all of whom it accused of favouring the RPF. In several cases, the peacekeepers did behave badly toward Habyarimana supporters, thus providing a kernel of truth on which RTLM expanded very successfully (Belgium 1994).

Rwandan and international human rights organizations and other members of Rwandan civil society denounced these preparations publicly while diplomats cabled their capitals more discretely, warning of the growing risk of renewed war and violence (Sénat de Belgique 1997: 41, 85–6). Dallaire notified UN headquarters in New York about caches of arms hidden in the capital and he reported that militia were highly organized and prepared to kill 1,000 Tutsi in the first 20 minutes after the signal for attack was given. His warnings, like his efforts to win permission to confiscate arms and his pleas for more supplies and equipment, went unheeded.

Those who tried to raise the alarm about the preparations for violence frequently drew attention specifically to the radio. Dallaire, who had once hoped for radio equipment to permit the UN force to inform the public in a responsible fashion, notified New York about the broadcasts against his force, but to no avail. One RTLM announcer warned that the UN peacekeepers from Belgium – particularly disliked because Belgium, the former colonial power, had refused to provide arms to the Rwandan government – would face 'a fight without pity' and 'hatred without mercy' unless they gave up and returned home (Sénat de Belgique 1997: 49). The Belgian ambassador told authorities at the Belgian Foreign Ministry that RTLM was disseminating 'inflammatory statements calling for the hatred – indeed for the extermination' of Tutsi. Days before the start of the genocide, the German ambassador, then serving as head of the European community in Rwanda, called attention to the 'unacceptable role of some media' (Adelman and Suhrke 1996: 32, Prunier 1995: 209). When diplomats protested to Habyarimana and other officials about the broadcasts, they claimed that the radio station was a private enterprise, merely exercising its right to free speech.

The minister of information, under whose authority the radio station operated, tried to call the directors of RTLM to account for the content of its broadcasts. In correspondence and in meetings, he insisted that the incitement to fear and hatred must stop. On at least one occasion, RTLM leadership promised to moderate the tone of the broadcasts, but did not do so. The attorney general registered civil complaints against RTLM but, under pressure from the president, had not yet taken action on them by early April (ICTR 2003: para. 4.3).

Critics of RTLM all asked for changes in the content of the broadcasts; none went so far as to ask for the station to be closed down completely.

RADIO IN THE GENOCIDE

President Habyarimana, the president of Burundi and leading military and civilian officials of the Rwandan government were killed on the evening of 6 April 1994 when their plane was shot down on its approach to Kigali airport. Within hours, military, administrative and political authorities ordered the killing of leading members of parties opposed to Hutu Power and of Tutsi. Under the guidance of Colonel Bagosora and other Hutu Power officers and officials, a new interim government was installed. It included political leaders ready to implement a 'self-defence' plan that included widespread killing of Tutsi civilians.

The killings began first in the capital and some outlying areas where Hutu Power leaders were strongest; authorities in other regions, particularly the south and centre of the country, resisted the killing for the first two weeks. On 7 April, the RPF attacked the Rwandan government army, thus beginning full-scale war once again. From this time forward, the war and the genocide were intertwined, making it easier to direct the killing of Tutsi civilians as if it were part of the war effort.

Assailants searched out Tutsi, moving from house to house in a neighbourhood; they massacred them by the thousands in churches and other public buildings where Tutsi sought refuge; and they picked them out at barriers set up to impede their flight on roads and paths throughout the country.

Authorities used RTLM and Radio Rwanda to spur and direct killings both in those areas most eager to attack Tutsi and members of the Hutu opposition and in areas where the killings initially were resisted. They relied on both radio stations to incite and mobilize, then to give specific directions for carrying out the killings (RTLM transcripts: 13, 29 April; 15, 20 May; 1, 5, 9, 19 June 1994).

Incitement

As RTLM had forewarned, it turned its full force against the Belgian peacekeepers, accusing them of having shot down – or helping to shoot down – the president's plane. Under the stimulus of these broadcasts, some soldiers of the Rwandan army brutally murdered ten UN troops of the Belgian contingent. Some Hutu Power leaders had foreseen that the Belgian government would withdraw its troops from the peacekeeping force should some of its soldiers be killed, and it did just that soon after the murders. This withdrawal so badly weakened the force that the Security Council initially favoured the withdrawal of the whole force, although it finally permitted a token force to remain in the country with orders to keep a low profile, concentrating on protecting itself and taking no risks to save Rwandans (UN 1996: 37–44).

After 6 April, RTLM called on all Hutu to 'rise up as a single man' to defend their country in what was said to be the 'final' war. One announcer predicted that the war 'would exterminate the Tutsi from the globe ... make them disappear once and for all' (Chrétien et al. 1995: 205). RTLM staff carried forward all the themes so vigorously developed in previous months, emphasizing the cruelty and ruthlessness of the Tutsi (RTLM transcripts: 15 May; 9, 14, 19, 20 June 1994). As one announcer said, using the term inyenzi or cockroach to refer to the RPF and its supporters, 'the cruelty of the inyenzi can be cured only by their total extermination' (Chrétien et al. 1995: 204; RTLM transcript: 3 June 1994).

RTLM used terms like inyenzi and Tutsi interchangeably with others referring to RPF combatants, leading listeners to believe that all Tutsi were necessarily supporters of the RPF force fighting against the government. RTLM announcers warned specifically that combatants dressed in civilian clothes were mingling among displaced people fleeing combat zones, and they encouraged people along their route to be vigilant in searching out any refugees who looked like they might be RPF in disguise, that is, who looked like they might be Tutsi (RTLM transcripts: 1, 2 February; 29 April; 4–6, 20 June 1994).

After 6 April, the director of Radio Rwanda, himself a member of the political opposition, fled and the national radio station took up the anti-Tutsi messages of RTLM. One RTLM announcer commented that Radio Rwanda had changed from 'rival' to 'sister' (Chrétien et al. 1995: 79). On 21 April, Radio Rwanda broadcast a debate by political leaders, during which one politician insisted that Tutsi returning from exile abroad intended to 'exterminate, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate'. Tutsi, he said, were going to 'exterminate you until they are the only ones left in the country so that they can keep for a thousand years the power that their fathers had kept for four hundred years ... You must not let up in your efforts,' he told his listeners (Chrétien et al. 1995: 300).

On some occasions, national authorities were heard on Radio Rwanda, delivering a similar message but one that carried additional weight because of the respect attached to their offices. In an effort to force the people of the southern prefecture of Butare to begin killing, the government removed the prefect (governor) in a humiliating way that left no doubt about why he had lost his post. At the ceremony installing his successor, broadcast by Radio Rwanda, the interim president of Rwanda, who had been set up by the Hutu Power faction, exhorted all citizens to see killing Tutsi as their responsibility. He said that any not ready to do so should step aside for those ready to 'work', a common euphemism for killing. He warned further that those not willing to 'work' should be eliminated by others, by the good 'workers who want to work' for their country (Sindikubwabo 1994).

Directives

Authorities used both radio stations to give instructions and orders to listeners. RTLM announcers identified specific targets to attack, sending assailants on 8 April to the home of Tutsi businessman Antoine Sebera and later to the home of Joseph Kahabaye. One identified a hill in the capital where Tutsi were said to be hiding in the woods and another provided a list of 13 people and their locations. On one occasion, an announcer urged people guarding a barrier in Kigali city to eliminate Tutsi in a vehicle just nearing that checkpoint. Notified soon after that the Tutsi had been caught and killed, the announcer congratulated the killers on the air. In yet another case, the station directed assailants to attack a mosque in Kigali where Tutsi were seeking shelter and on another day, urged an attack on a convoy that was attempting to evacuate Tutsi and Hutu opponents of Hutu Power from the Hotel Mille Collines, a gathering point for people at risk (RTLM transcripts: 13, 29 April; 15, 20 May; 1, 5, 9, 19 June 1994). Later in May, RTLM said that General Dallaire should be killed, identifying him as a white man with a moustache (Dallaire 2004: 379–80). Leaders of the militia used RTLM to call their men to meetings in the capital or to send them off to other parts of the country (Kamanzi n.d.: 146).

Radio Rwanda conveyed orders from the authorities, including a message from the prefect of Kigali telling residents to 'close ranks, remember how to use the usual tools [weapons] to defend themselves' (Kayishema 1994). He went on to specify that citizens should clear the brush in which Tutsi might hide. He directed them to 'search houses, beginning with those that are abandoned, to search the marshes of the area to be sure no inyenzi have slipped in to hide there ... and to search the drains and ditches.' He said that 'reliable' people should be chosen for these tasks, meaning those who supported the Hutu Power line, and that they should be given what they need for the work, meaning weapons. Radio Rwanda served to summon drivers of bulldozers needed to dig mass graves for the thousands of bodies (Chrétien et al. 1995: 298).

Authorities relied on the radio stations to congratulate those who were 'vigilant' and performed well and to castigate those who hesitated to join in the killing. On occasion, when they wanted to limit the violence, authorities used radio to deliver this message as well. In early May, when the UN commissioner for human rights was about to arrive, RTLM told listeners to abstain from attacks on Tutsi. In another incident a short time later, the interim government was seeking to win renewed French support and found the French unwilling to commit much assistance to a government then beginning to come under criticism for its genocidal policy. To help persuade the French that the genocide would not pose a problem to the delivery of aid, RTLM told listeners to please behave in a more dignified fashion. Listeners were told to make sure that bodies were not left on the roads to be seen by foreigners and to please not stand around barriers laughing when someone's throat was cut (Chrétien et al. 1995: 316–17; Human Rights Watch 1994).

The impact of the radio

Authorities supporting the genocide urged citizens to listen to the radio. One official even told the residents of his area that they should regard what the radio told them as having the same importance as direct orders from him. In some cases, authorities picked up radio messages and used them to mobilize local people more effectively. Thus when the radio claimed that supporters of the RPF had hidden weapons in or near churches, local authorities staged incidents in which they 'discovered' planted weapons to give credence to the reports of secret preparations for attacks against Hutu.

Conversely, authorities who tried to resist or limit the killings asked national officials to halt the broadcasts or moderate their content; in one case, two prefects advised the people in their prefectures to listen to the radio with a very critical ear.

In addition to this indication of the importance that authorities attached to the radio, there is considerable evidence from the perpetrators themselves about the impact of radio and RTLM, in particular. One foreign religious sister crossed dozens of barriers as she moved across Rwanda during the genocide; at each one, she found the guards listening to the radio. Others have testified that bands of killers set off to 'work', singing the anti-Tutsi songs they had learned from RTLM. One witness said that it was RTLM who said that the Tutsi were to be killed and another said the radio had taught people that they must 'kill them before they kill you' (Human Rights Watch/International Federation of Human Rights Leagues interviews: Kigali, 16 July 1995; Musebeya, 7 June and 28 August 1995; Butare, 19 October 1995).

Throughout the genocide, RTLM continued the interactive broadcasting that it had begun in the months before. Its journalists went out around the city of Kigali, interviewing ordinary people at the barriers, giving them an opportunity to explain on air what they were doing and why they were doing it. This confirmation by ordinary people of the 'rightness' of what they were doing contributed to the legitimacy of the genocide for radio listeners.

When foreign observers began to criticize the genocide, RTLM sought to bolster the legitimacy of the authorities by discounting all negative comments and by reminding its listeners that all they had to do was to win the war and then foreign critics would forget any crimes they had committed (Chrétien et al. 1995).

Demands for action

As the death toll mounted, human rights and humanitarian organizations sought without success to persuade leading UN members to increase the number of peacekeeping troops in Rwanda. On 30 April, the Security Council did direct the Secretary General to examine ways to expand the force, but it was another two and a half weeks before the resolution calling for an enlarged force was approved. Because of the difficulties securing, equipping and transporting the new peacekeepers, the reinforcements did not arrive in Rwanda until the interim government had been defeated by the RPF and had fled the country.

Unable at first to obtain assurance of reinforcements, activists sought help from the United States (US), France and the UN with the more limited objective of closing down the radio stations that were inciting and directing the violence.

The argument developed by Human Rights Watch and followed by some other international nongovernmental organizations was that international silence on the genocide and failure to interrupt the broadcasts made it possible for the interim authorities to continue to claim that they constituted a legitimate government, recognized by other governments. The fact that Rwanda continued to sit as a non-permanent member of the Security Council throughout the genocide reinforced its claim to international legitimacy. Human Rights Watch argued that jamming radio broadcasts would disrupt incitements to genocidal violence and would limit the delivery of genocidal directives. And, argued the human rights group, jamming the broadcasts would deliver a broader message as well: it would make clear international condemnation of the genocide, thus weakening the claim of the authorities to legitimacy and perhaps encouraging resistance against the killings.

In early May, US State Department staff who shared concern over the role of the radio stations in the genocide had their legal staff consider the implications of jamming the radio. In accordance with the usual strong US support for freedom of speech as guaranteed by international conventions and telecommunications law, the State Department lawyers concluded that the US should not interrupt RTLM broadcasts. At a congressional hearing on 4 May, George Moose, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said that the issue was moot because a military attack by the RPF had silenced RTLM, an assertion contradicted immediately by a Human Rights Watch representative who said that the station had resumed broadcasting from a mobile transmitter (Des Forges 1994). On the same day, national security advisor Anthony Lake, who had been pressed by human rights activists to interrupt the radio broadcasts, raised the issue with the secretary of defence. Within 24 hours, the Department of Defence replied that the radio could be jammed from a specially equipped aircraft, but that it would be 'ineffective and expensive', costing about US$ 8,500 for each hour (Wisner 1994).

On 1 June, Ted Kennedy, an influential senator, made a new effort to get action and asked the US Secretary of State to cooperate with the UN in ending 'the unconscionable incitement to genocide' being carried out by radio stations in Rwanda. Once again the official response described jamming as 'legally contentious', an assertion to which officials again added arguments concerning the cost and supposed ineffectiveness of jamming the radios (Acting Undersecretary of Defence for Policy 1994).

In fact, the legal arguments against jamming could have been countered by another set of arguments in its favour – arguments used previously by the US when it silenced radio broadcasting in Haiti and during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Had the US lawyers been willing to recognize the killings in Rwanda as genocide – an action delayed until June – lawyers could also have justified halting the broadcasts by referring to that part of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UN 1951) that prohibited 'direct and public incitement to commit genocide' (Metzl 1997).

Arguments concerning cost and effectiveness could also have been debunked had officials with sufficient clout wished to do so. In the end, the ultimate consideration was simply to avoid getting involved in what US officials saw as becoming a complicated conflict and especially to avoid becoming enmeshed in a conflict that might require the deployment of US forces. From that perspective, jamming the radio carried a significant risk: if the US judged that the situation was serious enough to merit this first step, it would find it difficult not to move to a further stage of involvement if the jamming itself proved insufficient to stop the killings. It was probably this consideration that moved a defence department official to advise that jamming could be a very 'dangerous and open-ended prospect' (Acting Undersecretary of Defence for Policy 1994). Having suffered the loss of 18 soldiers in a peacekeeping operation in Somalia the previous year, US officials were determined to avoid any 'dangerous and open-ended' commitments, especially on the African continent.

The UN Security Council was finally moved to action by RTLM threats against General Dallaire and the peacekeeping troops under his command. In late June, the president of the council asked the interim government to close down RTLM. At first the Rwandan representative, still sitting as a nonpermanent member of the council, put forward arguments about the private nature of the enterprise and guarantees of freedom of speech. After further pressure, he agreed to end the broadcasts, but they continued, his commitment notwithstanding (Haq 1994).

In late June, the French government sent a military force to Rwanda, purportedly to protect civilians. At first, interim government officials expected that the deployment, known as Operation Turquoise, would support its troops in opposing further RPF advance. RTLM and Radio Rwanda hailed the arrival of the French soldiers and gave instruction on how to welcome the troops warmly. By the first week of July it was clear that the French did not intend to support the interim government and its army – at least not openly – and French soldiers began protecting Tutsi and dismantling some of the barriers. The tone of RTLM commentary changed abruptly and the radio began criticizing the French presence. The French, with experienced, highly qualified troops on the ground, lost little time in destroying at least one and possibly more radio transmitters used by RTLM and the national radio. When RTLM continued to broadcast, although apparently to a more limited area, French officials were able to oblige the stations to halt verbal attacks on French troops. They also brought in equipment to jam the radio, although they did not use it.

NEW ATTITUDES TOWARD JAMMING RADIO

In mid-July the RPF defeated the Rwandan army and both army and interim government officials led a massive exodus of nearly two million Rwandan Hutus into neighbouring countries. This caused an enormous humanitarian crisis and the loss of even more human lives, this time mostly Hutu. Recognizing that the outflow threatened to destabilize the entire region and cause far larger problems, the UN and the US hoped to limit the crisis by persuading the refugees to return home rapidly; but RTLM, still broadcasting from a mobile transmitter, encouraged the refugees to remain outside Rwanda. In late August, the US asked the French to jam the radio and offered to help them do it; however, the French had sent their equipment home (Quiles et al. 1998: 329–30). In October, the US and the UN discussed cooperating in jamming the broadcasts, but before they could act, the radio vanished from the airwaves.

Having seen the power of hate radio in Rwanda, US officials were ready to act in 1995 when a Burundian station called Radio Rutomorangingo began broadcasting anti-Tutsi messages. A policymaking group decided that the US could 'technically and legally contribute to silencing the radio' (Young 1994). In the end, the station moderated its broadcasts and the US took no action against it, although the Burundian government jammed its broadcasts a year later, using equipment from Israel. As a result of the Rwandan experience, President Bill Clinton issued a policy directive in 1999 permitting US interventions in any future cases in which radio stations called for violence (Clinton 1999).

The importance of the radio, which was recognized by policymakers in the United States in the years after the Rwanda genocide, was spread to wider audiences with the showing of the popular films in 2005. Perhaps this recognition of the role of the radio by a broader audience will help ensure that policymakers actually act to stop the voices of hate in similar tragedies in the future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Memoranda originating in the Department of Defense were provided by the National Security Archive, an organization that assists researchers in obtaining access to previously classified US government documents. I thank William Ferroggiaro of the archive for his kind assistance.

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