The Global North media hateful agenda on Rwanda

As a Rwandan and a genocide survivor, I know what hate media means. I am not using this word in a very casual way.

We lived for about one year under the relentless propaganda of this extremist hate, which called for the extermination of the Tutsi and when genocide broke out, it was instrumental in telling the killers where the Tutsi were hiding, and the methods to use to exterminate them.

I remember the relentless propaganda in broadcast and print media spewing hatred against the Tutsi or anyone having sympathy for them from July 1993 to July 31, 1994. I remember all the stereotypes like “Inyenzi”, or cockroaches, it used to demean us. As a result, more than one million Tutsi were massacred in 100 days.

Today, as we mark the 27th Commemoration of the worst genocide of the last Century, one would have thought that humanity has learnt a lesson about what such hate propaganda did in Rwanda. Alas, it is not the case.  Rwandans have worked hard to overcome the aftermath of the terrible consequences of this propaganda. But the Global North media are keen on pursuing an agenda reminiscent of pre-genocide as far as Rwanda and its president Paul Kagame are concerned.

The saga about the arrest and trial of former hotelier Paul Rusesabagina, and the publication of the much-discredited book by former British journalist Michela Wrong, which has been decried as wholly racist, and made of a collection of hear-says, falsehoods, uncorroborated allegations, and racial stereotypes, exposed the moral bankruptcy of the Global North media.

The latter has embraced the lies and jettisoned any pretense to fairness and balance.  In this article I will focus on the complicity between the Western media and Michela Wrong to spread a bunch of poisonous propaganda against Rwanda and its President, Kagame.

There has been an avalanche of titles throwing shades on the current Rwandan government and the persona of President Kagame. Also, these publications have become the whirlpool of genocide revisionism and denial by uncaring journalists, or any self-styled expert on Rwanda.

It is as if these media groups are engaged in a war of attrition against Rwanda, its people, and its leadership. Titles such “Paragon or prison? The furious debate about Rwanda and its autocratic president,” based on Michela Wrong’s Book Do Not Disturb (Economist March 27, 2021) are a case in point.

The writer throws around unverified accusations that the Rwandan government might have killed a Rwanda National Congress (RNC) member exiled in South Africa called Seif Bamporiki. The journalist quotes as a source, an RNC official, Serge Ndayizeye, who runs an online radio called Itahuka. Does the journalist know that the RNC is an outfit of a terrorist group called P5?

The writer relies on testimony by a known anti-Rwanda government RNC operative, and feeds Michela Wrong’s vitriol against President Kagame. The Economist and the Guardian newspapers are competing in the race to spread Wrong’s smear agenda. Across the Atlantic, some of the US news media outlets like the Washington Post have aligned themselves with their fraternity in the United Kingdom. It is plain racist of Wrong to take Rwandans as stupid, that they have been short-changed by the current leadership.

The world knows, except for a few deniers, that the 1994 Genocide was prepared, and the downing of the plane carrying Habyarimana had nothing to do with it. Michela Wrong’s book is simply a biography dedicated to her old friend Patrick Karegeya, assassinated in South Africa in January 2014.

I tried to understand the way these different media outlets in the UK and the US are so fascinated about Rwanda while there are a lot of issues going on in their respective countries.  Why not busy themselves with the serious issues of rights, police brutality on African Americans and the rise of white supremacists in the US, and the glaring inequalities which continue to plague the British society?

Veteran British investigative journalist Linda Melvern objected to the hateful campaign against Rwanda and President Kagame. She said: “It is evident different standards are applied when it comes to Africa. Serious allegations contained in those books could not be leveled against any leader in Europe''.

Yet, they do it with President Kagame. It is high time they take their hands off our country.