Rwandans living in The Netherlands and friends march through a street in the Hague to commemorate the 1994 genocide against Tutsi. Exiled politicians are said to be using the media to air provocative content
Rwanda Senate has established that the press is one of key tools currently being used by exiled politicians to vehicle denial and revisionism of the Genocide against the Tutsi.
A new report by Rwanda Senate being disseminated among universities on strategies to counter different forms of denial and minimization of the Genocide against the Tutsi in foreign countries revealed that the politicians have already gone astray from the traditional role of the media.
“It has turned out that some radio and television stations were founded by leaders of political parties in exile with intent to broadcast an ideology of denial and revisionism of the Genocide against the Tutsi,” read a statement from the Senate.
“There are international radio and television stations that sometimes broadcast information negating and revising the Genocide against the Tutsi.”
Apart from radio and television, reads the statement that was disseminated today, the research asserts that deniers and revisionists of the Genocide against the Tutsi also use print media, magazine, caricatures/cartoons, open conference, demonstrations and modern means of information through social media.
In this research, the Senate found that most deniers and revisionists of the Genocide against the Tutsi use provocative language against Tutsi, in general, to confuse people’s thoughts, especially of those who do not know Rwanda and its history.
The research has shown that denial and revisionism of the Genocide against the Tutsi are currently a way of rejecting the positive transformation in the country after the genocide and also a way to reinforce the idea that the politics that masterminded the genocide are appropriate for Rwandans.
“These deniers and revisionists also adhere to a conservatism that rejects any idea of politics that eradicates or revises the divisive politics according to which they lived for a long time,” the statement reads in part.
The research into different forms of and strategies to counter denial and revisionism of the Genocide against the Tutsi in foreign countries was published in October 2019.
