Full multimedia story on https://themicroscope.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/the-1994-rwanda-genocide-an-everlasting-impact-on-rwandas-media-environment

The media in Rwanda still faces major challenges in accessing press freedoms, despite constitutional and legal frameworks established to protect them. One of the reasons for this is because of its history, characterized by the genocide in 1990’s.

Steven Mayombwe looks at the link between this dark history of the country and its current media freedoms.

The Rwandan media have often been blamed for being a major cause of the genocide which began on 6 April 1994 and caused the death of about 1,000,000 people in three months (https://create.piktochart.com/output/29964279-new-piktochart).

Romeo Dallaire, Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, during the genocide recounts in his Rwanda memoir that the genocidaires used the media like a weapon.

“The haunting image of killers with a machete in one hand and a radio in the other never leaves you,” recounts Dallaire.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, ICTR noted that the voice of the Hutu power was the private radio station, RTLM and that this was an echo of the other extremist media, notably the newspaper of Kangura. Entire ruling can be accessed on www.unmict.unictr.org/sites/unictr.org/files/legal.../150731-annual-report-en.pdf.

The 1994 genocide has been used as a reference by the Rwanda government and its media related authorities to craft media laws that demand Journalists to publish content that they say must further unity and development first (www.global.asc.upenn.edu/projects/media-law-and-policy-in-rwanda).

“In August 2005, the 3 or 5 papers that were still being printed in those days, I saw congratulatory messages from different corporate companies, the boards and management sent to President Kagame on his re-election but there no other article that highlighted what was achieved, challenges and critique of the President`s former term of office, ” Albert Rudatsimburwa, owner and founder of Contact FM Rwanda says of the media environment in the country (https://soundcloud.com/user-128776382/voice-note-of-mr-albert-owner-of-contact-fm).

The recent report of 2017 released by Reporters without Borders highlight that the 1994 genocide is still used to brand Rwandan journalists critical of the government as divisionist and enemies of the state.

This can be traced in 2015 when the government banned BBC radio broadcasting in the local Kinyarwanda language after a BBC TV documentary on the 1994 genocide. The country claimed that the documentary tried to undermine the known facts about the genocide.

For Freedom house (www.freedomhouse.org ), an international agency that works to defend human rights and media freedom, Rwanda is so far away from the checklist of a free media environment and free press even with a new media law of 2010 and visible efforts to make the internet accessible across the country.

Great Lakes post on Media Freedoms in Rwanda: https://youtu.be/yPQwpyme5mg