Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Radio

Radio was one of the great forces behind social and political mobilization in the twentieth century. Joseph Goebbels, one of Adolf Hitler's earliest and most enthusiastic supporters, understood the potential power of this media. When Hitler rose to power in 1933, he appointed Goebbels as his minister of propaganda; in this role, the latter displayed his talents, particularly where radio broadcasts were concerned. Under Goebbels's leadership the Nazis subsidized the production and distribution of millions of cheap radios in order to strengthen their grip on the population. Goebbels's first radios were deliberately designed with a limited range so that they would not pick up foreign transmissions. At the beginning of World War II over 70 percent of all German households owned a radio, the highest percentage in the world.

The extent to which Nazi radio broadcasts played a clear role in preparing and then swaying German public opinion toward the extermination of the Jews is hard to evaluate. Like the press or cinema, radio was one of the media used to diffuse anti-Semitic themes. In the early years of the Nazi regime the radio called for a boycott of Jewish shops. However, not a single radio program with a specific theme of anti-Semitism was designed. Entertainment programs did not include such messages. Of course, speeches given by Hitler and other Nazi leaders containing angry passages condemning the Jews were routinely broadcast on the radio. On the eve of Kristallnacht (Night of broken glass) on November 9, 1938, Goebbels used the radio to urge the German public to pillage Jewish shops and burn down synagogues. During World War II the Nazi media repetitively depicted Jews as devilish characters responsible for the soon worldwide conflict but they continued to keep their extermination a secret.

Some fifty years later the radio was used in a much more direct way to set the stage for and then perpetrate genocide in Rwanda. Within the context of civil war, initiated in October 1990 by the Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), Hutu extremists decided to create their own radio station. Their intention had been to counteract the RPF broadcasts (Radio Muhabura) and those of the official national station (Radio Rwanda) the latter was indeed considered too moderate and had simply become an outlet for the new multiparty government by 1992. This project, driven by the historian Ferdinand Nahimana who had been dismissed from the Rwandan Office of Information (ORINFOR) that supervised Radio Rwanda, commenced in April 1993 with the creation of Radio Télévision Libre Mille-Collines. This new station was formally independent, but in fact influential politicians belonging to the president's entourage, some of them related by marriage, supported it. As in Nazi Germany, many cheap radio receivers were distributed to the population in different regions of the country. Starting in August 1993 the station broadcast rousing Zairian music popular among Rwandans, and the station became rapidly renowned. RTLM presented itself as an interactive radio station, giving listeners the opportunity to speak to the Hutu people by calling into the station.

This broadcasting format was new to Rwanda at that time. RTLM attracted the populace with its candor and humor, but its ideological message was clear: It was the voice of the Hutu people, victims of the profiteering elites, of calculating Tutsis and those who betrayed the Hutu cause. After the Hutu president of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye, was killed on October 21, 1993, RTLM programming became still more aggressive. All day long the station repeated a political jingle that prompted its audience to wait: "We have hot news," the broadcasters would proclaim, and when the news was finally diffused, listeners would hear a series of vicious anti-Tutsi slogans. Several times a day the station also broadcast songs written by the Hutu extremist Simon Bikindi.

Immediately after the assassination of the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, on April 6, 1994, RTLM openly called for the massacre of Tutsis, Hutu opponents, and even Belgian peacekeepers. Hutu extremists used their radio station to ridicule those in the local administration who called for calm. From April to June 1994 RTLM helped mobilize the Hutu population in support of the killing of the Tutsi minority. The radio station even dared to name the Tutsis who remained to be killed. For the first time in history radio was used to directly perpetrate genocide.

The role of radio in the killings must not be overestimated, however. Numerous massacres were committed without the direct influence of RTLM. Military officers, militia leaders, and mayors who supervised Hutu peasants on the ground played a crucial role in organizing the population to kill. Nevertheless, it is evident that radio, the main media in a country where newspapers are hardly read and television remains in short supply, played an important role in the diffusion of racist anti-Tutsi ideology. RTLM provided Hutu extremists with a useful communications tool that reinforced their political influence over the people. Radio can be a most formidable weapon, in particular when introduced to a population already weakened by fear. Words conveyed over the radio may thus turn deadly.

SEE ALSO Incitement; Propaganda; Radio Télévision Libre Mille-Collines; Rwanda; Television

Jacques Semelin