In May 2000, Georges Ruggiu, a Belgian journalist formerly with Radio television libre des mille collines (RTLM) in Rwanda, pleaded guilty to inciting killings during the genocide of 1994. At the time of writing, three more Rwandan journalists also face genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda. [1] This is hate speech at its most extreme.

The role of RTLM in the Rwanda genocide has been widely discussed. But how relevant is it for election administrators trying to wrestle with the problem of hate speech in an election campaign?

The first point to note is that RTLM was not an ordinary radio station reporting the extreme views of others. It was an instrument of Hutu extremists who planned and instigated the mass killings of Tutsi. Hence it is not directly relevant to the issue of campaign reporting, where extreme statements may be made and then relayed through the news media.

Second, RTLM played two quite distinct functions at different stages of its existence. In its early months, up until the beginning of the genocide in April 1994, it broadcast a form of subtle and entertaining anti-Tutsi propaganda. (The evidence for the proposition that it was entertaining is that the Tutsi guerrillas of the Rwandan Patriotic Front preferred listening to RTLM than to their own radio station.) But once the genocide started, the character of RTLM's broadcasts changed. Then it began giving details of those who were to be hunted down and killed - right down to individual descriptions and car number plates. [2] This was not so much hate speech as direct involvement in the killing. It is not exactly clear why Ruggiu pleaded guilty before the International Tribunal, but it is more likely to relate o the latter part than the former.

Thirdly, the Rwanda genocide was, of course, unique and its circumstances are highly unlikely to recur elsewhere. However, the experience of the radio in the genocide does hold an important lesson. In 1989, the Rwandan government embarked on a reluctant democratisation under international pressure. One of the many institutional reforms it failed to carry out was of the broadcasting system. Hence there was no independent publicly-funded broadcaster reflecting the views of all communities - instead there was the virulently pro-Hutu Radio Rwanda. There was no independent and transparent process for licensing private broadcasters. Instead the only private broadcaster was RTLM, with its propaganda for genocide. Of course, reform of broadcasting would not have stopped the genocide. But the existence of a variety of viewpoints over the airwaves would have helped to neutralize the effect of RTLM and Radio Rwanda. That is the most useful lesson of Rwanda for election administrators and broadcasters elsewhere. [3]

[1] Richard Carver, "Broadcasting and Political Transition: Rwanda and Beyond", in Richard Fardon and Graham Furniss (eds), African Broadcast Cultures: Radio in Transition, James Currey, Oxford, 2000, pp. 188-197.

[2] International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, The Prosecutor vs. Georges Ruggiu, Case No. ICTR-97-32-I, Judgement and Sentence, 1 June 2000; "Blow for Rwandan journalists", BBC News Online, 19 September 2000.

[3] ARTICLE 19, Broadcasting Genocide: Censorship, Propaganda and State-Sponsored Violence in Rwanda 1990-1994, London 1996, pp. 120ff.