There is no media institution as venerable or august as the BBC; their objectivity is never called into question and they are well respected. Sadly the Kinyarwanda Service has never stood up to the high levels of service that the English Service delivers. There is a tendency for BBC World Service special language services to employ exiles and former political players and in so doing become a mouth piece for the opposition.
There is no media institution as venerable or august as the BBC; their objectivity is never called into question and they are well respected. Sadly the Kinyarwanda Service has never stood up to the high levels of service that the English Service delivers.
There is a tendency for BBC World Service special language services to employ exiles and former political players and in so doing become a mouth piece for the opposition.
The Farsi service (Iran) denounces the Iranian government, as does its Russian service and most other services. The management at the BBC does not speak the foreign languages that are broadcast and so have little control over what is said on these foreign services.
It is sad to see the Kinyarwanda service removed from the air in Rwanda but this decision was long overdue. It had long been a platform for the FDLR to promote their misguided view of reality and when they allowed Jean Kambanda, while in prison in Mali after being sentenced by the ICTR, to deny there was ever a genocide; then the writing was on the wall.
Genocide denial is alive and well in the Western world; in the newspapers, in Internet chat-rooms and general conversation. The deniers have used Western ignorance about Africa to portray a totally skewed version of reality; sometimes they say it was tribal violence, random killings or that there was a double-genocide, all of which is false.
Some elements in the West want to believe this, the genocide is such a stain on their conscience that they believe any lies told to them by genocide-deniers.
The government of Rwanda is often caught in a dilemma; either to ignore these deniers and not give them the dignity of response or to counter all these falsehoods directly and thus recognising the likes of FDLR.
The government has rightly refused to take part in interviews in which the FDLR is present but in so doing ceded ground to murderous ideology and the BBC became a de-facto mouthpiece for the FDLR.
Genocide denial is now done with such articulacy that one can be fooled into thinking that FDLR is just another reasonable political party however when one sees the trauma and atrocities that it perpetrates in the Congo then one has to think again.
The BBC Kinyarwanda service still has a role to play in Rwanda; however the problem of their methods remains. One should always have balanced coverage but giving a platform to genocide-denial goes against all the ethics of the BBC; it is tantamount to giving Hitler or Goering the microphone and telling them to do their worst.
At the heart of this issue is the BBC’s tendency to support whoever is not in government. We could go into a wider discussion of how the Western media portrays Rwanda and Africa in general but that is not the issue; Rwanda is a special case in that given our history and the role of the media in the 1994 genocide.
In the 90’s the BBC dramatically cut its Foreign Service budget, they also moved away from Short-Wave to FM transmission. In so doing they accepted that cooperation with governments was key in maintaining their coverage, the BBC repeatedly broke the bond of trust by giving a platform to the FDLR to air their views.
It isn’t fair to invite the government to a programme, then when they refuse to attend to just give the FDLR free reign. The BBC will hopefully return to our airwaves but this issue has to be resolved.