Journalists in the country and officials from Media High Council, yesterday, met for a walk to remember their counterparts who were killed during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The majority of more than 50 journalists were killed simply because they were Tutsi. But there were also those (both Hutu and Tutsi) who had put their lives on the line to give a voice to the voiceless and oppose genocide ideology.

That’s what Silas Mbonimana and Sehene Ruvugiro, both former journalists at Radio Rwanda, remember, 21 years since many of their colleagues were murdered by Interahamwe militia and soldiers of a genocidal regime that killed more than a million Rwandans within 100 days in 1994.

Experts and witnesses say that many journalists were among the first victims of the massacres because the former Rwandan Armed Forces (ex-FAR) and Hutu militia (Interahamwe) took the opportunity to eliminate political opponents and journalists who were opposed to the government.

There is no research that has been conducted so far to identify independent journalists who were killed not necessarily because they were Tutsi during the slaughter but what remains a fact is that among the journalists killed were Hutu critics of the regime.

"People didn’t have a place to voice their views; so some journalists put their lives on the line to make it possible for people to have a voice,” Mbonimana said.

Mbonimana was a friend to four among the more than 50 journalists killed in the Genocide; André Kameya, Vincent Shabakaka, Charles Kalinganire, and Vincent Rwabukwisi.

"Some of them had Hutu identity cards and they were indeed Hutus but they simply didn’t agree with the Genocide ideology of the then government,” he said.

Intimidation and killing

Mbonimana, 52, remembers that the four journalists he knew well were people with a vision to unite Rwandans and openly denounced discriminatory policies of former President Juvenal Habyarimana.

In April 1994, Kameya, who had openly opposed the Habyarimana regime was killed together with his wife and son.

Then the editor-in-chief of Rwanda Rushya newspaper, and an official of the opposition Liberal Party, Kameya had been imprisoned and threatened with death under the Habyarimana regime on several occasions since 1991.

Shabakaka was killed by Interahamwe on June 1, 1994, in Kigali’s suburb of Nyamirambo at the home of his neighbour.

Then a journalist for the Kigali-based newspaper Kiberinka, which was opposing the policies of the Habyarimana regime, he and several colleagues from the paper had been threatened and went into hiding on fears of being arrested in 1992.

Rwabukwisi is said to have been shot dead by the ex-FAR soldiers between April 10 and 12 in 1994 just in front of his home in Nyamirambo.

He was the director of the opposition newspaper , which was considered to be close to the then rebel fighters of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF).

Rwabukwisi had long been persecuted by the Habyarimana regime for his journalism, including a 15-year jail term imposed on him in 1990, of which he served 10 months and then released only to be rearrested and jailed for another four months.

Facing continued harassment, he would sometimes go into hiding and his newspaper was counter-opposed with the then government’s sponsored Kangura, which published a lot of anti-Tutsi propaganda in the days leading up to the Genocide.

Charles Kalinganire, a journalist with the then opposition newspaper Le Flambeau, was killed at his home in Kigali on April 24, 1994 by ex-FAR soldiers who butchered him with machetes in front of his young brother.

He had been detained for more than two months in 1991 as the Habyarimana regime tried to silence independent media.

Risky political climate

For all the journalists who were killed among the first victims of the Genocide because of their work, those who knew how the political climate was risky in the lead-up to the Genocide still remember their acts as courageous.

"It’s hard to describe them. They were just great people with a vision to bring Rwandans together,” Mbonimana said.

Ruvugiro, who survived the Genocide while he had worked for Radio Rwanda from 1991 to 1992, agrees with Mbonimana when it comes to describing the work of journalists who were killed by the Genocidal regime.

"Their voice was different from the then government’s mouthpieces such as Radio Rwanda and Imvaho Nshya newspaper. They had denounced discrimination and the then government’s plans to pit Rwandans against other Rwandans,” Ruvugiro told The New Times yesterday.

In 2012, the Media High Council (MHC) released a list of 50 journalists who were killed during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The list contains 43 names of journalists who were affiliated to several media houses, mostly print media, and seven freelancers.