The right to information and gahuzamiryango closure

The radio was so powerful that mass killers abandoned their children during their flight to then Zaire but not their tiny radios and in the two Kivus, all the way to Tingi Tingi and beyond Refugees would be seen crowding round tiny transistors so they could know the latest news. In Rwanda the Radio has always been a mystery and a voice of authority; a source of orders and laws. Word spoken via the Radio was the law itself and when in 1994 word came via the radio for citizens to pick up machetes and slaughter the Tutsi many people obeyed believing that with the blessing of the authority (radio) killing Tutsis was a National duty. The radio was so powerful that mass killers abandoned their children during their flight to the then Zaire but not their tiny radios and in the two Kivus, all the way to Tingi Tingi and beyond Refugees would be seen crowding round tiny transistors to hear the latest news. It is a couple of years since the Government of Rwanda liberalized the air waves and over a dozen private radio stations have been operating in the Country but once in a while you will find people insisting that one side of the story is in an argument is the truth because “it was said on the Radio” whatever the radio, the programme, who said it and context in which it was said. In other words what is said on radio is the Truth. To discerning listenership besides radios other forms of mass media are part of everyday life but no society or Government will accept a medium of mass communication that is likely to bring about social disorder or that go against National priorities. This does not negate the right to have and air opinions and views critical of official policies and media houses are expected and indeed practice “self-censorship” because not everything that is broadcast is meaningful nor acceptable to the public though this may differ from one society to another and from country to country. As an example neither radio nor TV Station can be allowed to spew messages that promote drug use and peddling on US territory. Can anyone imagine a radio producer in the US encouraging teenagers to enjoy heroin or cocaine and possibly tell them where to get it? Can a TV station be used on the US territory to advocate eradication of the capitalist system and establish a “revolutionary peoples Republic that is premised on the principles of Leninist-Marxist ideology?” Imagine CBS, ABN, CNN, or Fox TV broadcasting uncensored and unedited a recording of Osama Bin Laden calling on every Muslim to rise up and kill all Western infidels in holy Muslim lands or Ahmed Abdenejad calling on the erasure of Israel from the map of the world. Can the Spanish Government allow members of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or the Separatist Basque ETA group to use the media to advocate for the Independence of the Basque region from Spain and if it is not granted, kill reactionary Government Officers who impede their desire for a “Basque Homeland and Freedom whether in France or Spain?” Imagine what would happen if a national Radio or TV is Germany decided to air views of someone who preaches that Hitler and the Nazi were the greatest thing to have happened to their country and there was no genocide against the Jews but instead the Jews killed Germans in gas Chambers and concentration camps and Germans should set a day to mourn the Nazis and all socialist volunteers by Allied invaders. Can the Italian Government allow the Corsican criminals airwaves to peddle their lies and cover crime in the name of freedom of expression? Can anyone imagine a member of the Real Irish Republican Army or Oglaigh na h’Eireann using the airwaves within the United Kingdom or its territories to advocate for the killing of British Police in Northern Ireland so the People of Ireland can have one united homeland and that all Victims in the Northern Ireland conflict from the 1920s were murdered by the Royal English Army and the Brutal British Police? The above are Imaginary scenarios but the dangers of abuse of airwaves to commit crimes against Humanity in Rwanda are not imaginary but part of our History. It is part of our history that Radio presenters on Radio Television Mille Collin (RTLM) using the airwaves urged his listeners thus, “... eh young men manning the roadblocks, I can see you; you are doing a good job killing those Cockroaches (read Tutsi Nationals of Rwanda), they are the enemies of Rwanda; they are your enemies. Do not have any mercy, all Tutsis are snakes even babies; they are dangerous. I can see you smoking that thing (marijuana) I have been smoking too. Let us sing, all Inkotanyi are dead, all Tutsis are dead, God does not take sides”. To many people reading this, the words sound like the rumblings of mentally disturbed person but during the Genocide those rumblings led to the wanton destruction of some of the most beautiful and cultured people the world may have seen. The victims felt betrayed by everyone including the authority through the Radio and the killers had the license and blessing of the authorities to kill. Many people who took part in the planning, the mobilization, training, empowerment, brainwashing and dehumanization of the actual killers, holed up in Europe, are back on the airwaves using BBC Kinyarwanda-Kirundi service in the name of free speech and sharing information. They deny there was genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda but a “political genocide”, (whatever that means), they say the dead were Hutus and not Tutsi, they say the Genocide was a spontaneous reaction to the Tutsi (including toddlers and grey heard grandmas in far-flung places of Rwanda) killing of Habyarimana, that there was a double genocide and those who died during the genocide were victims of FPR (the very people who stopped it). People in Rwanda who know the Radio as a source of authority will conclude that history has been rewritten, there is no need for reconciliation, there is no need for forgiveness and the plan to wipe out Tutsis can be carried to its conclusion. Survivors may conclude they have nothing left to lose and take the law in their hands according to the Law of Moses (an eye for an eye) and God forbid what might happen! The Government of Rwanda has the duty to protect the people of Rwanda, as it has done before, and the closure of Gahuzamiryango (BBC Kinyarwanda-Kirundi service) should be hailed as a step in the right direction. E-mail: ekaba2002@yahoo.fr