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122 Visions of the “Oppressor” in Rwanda’s Pre-Genocidal Media CHRISTOPHER C. TAYLOR O n April 6, 1994, the flames of the twentieth century’s last genocide were ignited when Rwanda’s president, Juvénal Habyarimana, was killed when his plane was downed by a shoulder-held missile. I was present in Rwanda and working as a behavioral research specialist for Family Health International (a contractor to USAID). Less than three days later, along with other members of the American expatriate community, my Rwandan Tutsi fiancée and I were evacuated from Rwanda by a land convoy headed for Bujumbura, Burundi. We stayed there for several days. Each day we learned, from the few Rwandan refugees who managed to make it there, who among our friends and acquaintances had been killed and who was still alive. From Bujumbura we flew to Nairobi, where we spent the next four months. There as well, refugees of Rwanda’s crisis were arriving in small numbers. Each passing day brought news of survivors, but more frequently, news of those who had been killed. Although killings on a massive scale began just hours after Habyarimana’s assassination, rumors of widespread massacres had been in the air for months. One of my closest Rwandan friends, killed on the first night of the genocide, often argued, “It’s not possible for anyone to wipe out an entire people.” “Oh yes it is,” I would reply, “so you had better do your best to get out of here or keep a low profile.” Although my friend was Tutsi, he, like many others of his ethnicity, had not been in favor of the invasion that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) had mounted from Uganda in 1990. Moreover, in an indirect way he was tied to the regime, as his Hutu wife was the sister-in-law of someone highly placed in the Habyarimana government. Months later, that same government, in an effort to blame the RPF invasion on Tutsi in general, imprisoned many of them, though most had not supported the RPF in any way. My friend was among them. Subjected to daily abuse, he was finally released after his wife’s brother-in-law intervened. After his release, he made no attempt to conceal his pro-RPF sympathies. Today, it is the brother-in-law who is a prisoner. Accused of crimes against humanity, he is in the custody of the International War Crimes Tribunal on Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. Months before the genocide, he had warned my friend on several occasions. There were going to be massacres, he 123 said, and they would make those that occurred in 1959 seem small by comparison .1 He advised my friend to leave while he could. That large-scale massacres were being planned was hardly in doubt among Rwandans whom I spoke with during the early months of 1994. Only American diplomats and employees of USAID seemed to think that the peace agreement between the warring sides still had a chance of success. Although the war between Rwandan Government Forces (RGF) and the RPF had temporarily abated with the signing of the Arusha accords in August 1993, later that year the political situation began to deteriorate. The propaganda campaign on the part of all the interested parties was heating up, and this was especially apparent on Rwanda’s infamous “hate radio,” Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). For years before, however, Rwanda’s print media had been fanning the fires of ethno-nationalist passion. A “free press” was something new in Rwanda. Before the democratization initiative pushed by France and other Western powers in the late 1980s and early 1990s,2 Rwanda had had only a handful of printed news sources, and these were very cautious in tone. By the early 1990s—with widespread discontent at home, war with the RPF on its northern border, and pressure from Western donor states abroad—the Rwandan government was forced to accept opposition political parties and an open press. Although a free press came to life, it had no history, few precedents to follow, and little constraints on its actions. Consequently fantasy, rumor, and slander all took their places at the table with fact, and all appeared to be drinking from the same chalice. Distinguishing between truth and falsehood was difficult. In every rumor and every allegation there was an element of plausibility, and many found their way into print. The print media consisted of dozens of cheap news...

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