Several journalists and personalities Tuesday evening took part in a vigil to commemorate the death of some 53 identified Rwandan journalists killed in the country’s genocide of
1994.
According to the Media High Council (MHC), most journalists who were victims of the genocide were killed either because they were Tutsi while others put their lives at risk by denouncing the genocide ideology of the former regime before 1994.
Testimonies gathered Saturday night in Kigali have also confirmed the culpability of certain media in the genocide, including the Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) and the newspaper, Kangura (meaning Wake him up in the Kinyarwanda language), an extremist Hutu magazine in circulation at the time of the killings.
Three former Rwandan media executives have been sentenced to long
term-imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, in the trial called the “hate media”, for having played a role in inciting Hutus to exterminate Tutsis.
People sentenced included Ferdinand Nahimana and Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, the principal founders of RTLM, as well as Hassan Ngeze, former editor of the Kangura newspaper.
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 mass slaughter still remember their acts as courageous.
CU/as/APA