Hutu Propaganda

Both Finding Beauty in a Broken World and “Ghosts of Rwanda” point out the widespread propaganda used by the Hutu to spread their radical views toward the Tutsis. The “hate media,” including Radio Télévision Mille Collines and the Kangur newspaper, encouraged the genocide of 1994. The Kangur newspaper fueled ethnic hatred and published critical articles on the Rwandan Patriotic Front and Tutsis. The magazine held close ties to the government of President Juvénal Habyarimana, a fellow Hutu, which provided Kangura with inside information. Propagandized slogans included “A cockroach gives birth to a cockroach…the history of Rwanda shows us clearly that a Tutsi always stays exactly the same, that he has never changed.” One Kangura article titled “Hutu Ten Commandments” declared that any Hutu who interacted with a Tutsi was a traitor. The “Hutu Ten Commandments” insisted that Tutsis were dishonest in business and held the sole aim of ethnic supremacy. Propaganda insisted that Hutus should feel no mercy for Tutsis and must unite to spread this ideology. After the president’s plane was shot down, Radio Mille Collines called for a final war to exterminate all the “inyenzi” or cockroaches. The radio broadcasted lists of people to kill and provided the locations where Tutsis hid.

Note: In Nazi Germany, Nazi leadership were concerned about Germans who did not accept anti-Semitism. Similar to the “Hutu Ten Commandments,” the Nazi party issued a propaganda pamphlet with ten arguments to counter common objections to anti-Semitic measures.

Sources: http://www.trumanwebdesign.com/~catalina/commandments.htm

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/responses.htm