The murderous power of propaganda, or How "Thousand Hills Radio" became a catalyst for genocide

We have all heard that propaganda is a deadly weapon. At the same time, many believe that this is an exaggeration. But the history of the station "Radio thousand hills" says the opposite. In just a year of her work, she raised the degree of ethnic hatred in African Rwanda to an incredible height. In this country, representatives of the Hutu people exterminated their fellow countrymen from the Tutsi people. In those areas where there was a confident reception of radio broadcasts, the murders were especially brutal.

On April 6, 1994, a genocide began in Rwanda, which would later be called the most terrible and effective in recent history. In just 100 days, Hutu militias killed from 500 thousand to 1 million representatives of the Tutsi people. It is impossible to name the exact figure today.

The massacre was initiated and strongly encouraged by major government officials and businessmen. It so happened that the power in Rwanda was in the hands of Hutus, and Tutsis were considered superfluous in their native land. The massacres took place in front of the UN peacekeeping contingent present in the country.

Imagine illiterate people, exhausted by poverty, hunger and disease, for whom the only channel of communication with the world is the radio. And it accepts only 2-3 stations that tell around the clock who is to blame for their troubles and how best to deal with these people. The "Free Radio of a Thousand Hills" (RTLM — Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines) was the most aggressive propaganda radio station.

Human rights activist Dismas Nkunda talks about how the station broadcast:

The radio station "Radio of a Thousand Hills", owned by Hutus, did not just call for killing and maiming Tutsi neighbors. Its announcers read out the names and addresses of people who were "enemies of the people." Many of those whose data was broadcast were killed, maimed or raped.

This is what radio host Habimana Cantano said on the morning broadcast on May 23, 1994. And he wasn't alone. Hutu processing was carried out 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The poison of hatred permeated everyone, from children to the elderly. The same announcer taught to recognize the enemy by external signs:

In 2012, economist David Yanagizawa-Drott of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government investigated the relationship between the broadcasts of "Radio Thousand Hills" and the intensity of violence in the villages of Rwanda. It should immediately be clarified that the name for the station was not chosen by chance. This African country has a very difficult terrain and is covered with hills. Because of this, the level of reception of the radio signal even in neighboring villages can vary greatly.

In some places, the reception of the propaganda radio was excellent, and in others there was no signal at all. In this regard, the impact of radio on the population could be determined very accurately. Yanagizawa-Drott built a model that showed a terrible result. It turned out that in the areas where the radio was working, there were 10 percent more Tutsi victims. Therefore, if we assume that the number of victims of the genocide was 1 million, 100 thousand of them were on the conscience of "Radio thousand hills".

Justice has prevailed, and although the hatred has not gone away, the massacres have been stopped. During the International Tribunal for Rwanda, thousands of perpetrators were called to account. There were among them the presenters of the "Thousand Hills Radio". They all feigned remorse, blaming the government and their own ignorance. Most of the "journalists" received long prison sentences. Some people, for example, announcers Bernard Mukingo and Valerie Bemerici received life sentences.

At the trial , Valerie Bomerici in her last word said the following:

Unfortunately, the main propagandist, Habimana Cantano, managed to escape from justice. The "star" of the disgusting radio station was not at all a dark, downtrodden and deceived person, like the Bomerici. Cantano was from a wealthy Hutu family close to government circles. He graduated with honors from a school in the capital of Rwanda, Kigali, and then studied.

Habiman mastered the art of propaganda at the Journalism Faculty of Leningrad University. After returning home, the certified specialist published a nationalist newspaper for some time. On the "Thousand Hills Radio" he immediately became a key figure. Cantano skillfully manipulated listeners, using jokes, excursions into history and quotes of the great ones in his broadcasts.

Although the propagandist managed to escape to the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo and even took with him the savings made on blood and grief, fate overtook him anyway. The bastard, prone to promiscuous sexual relations, burned down from AIDS in just a few years.

October 10 , 2022 before the court in Rwandan businessman and politician Felicien Kabuga appeared in The Hague. This man was the founder of the "Thousand Hills Radio" and fully funded it. Kabuge, as well as Cantano, managed to get away in time. He fled to Europe and successfully hid from justice for 23 years. He was arrested in 2020 near Paris — the criminal lost his vigilance, believing that he had been forgotten.

In 1997, at the International Tribunal for Rwanda, Kabuga's place in the cage for the defendants was empty. Rwanda's richest man and confidant of President Juvenal Habiarimana has cowardly fled, abandoning his puppets. Despite this, he was convicted in absentia of several charges. Among them is direct and public incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.  Such atrocities are not forgotten and, most likely, 89-year-old Kabuga will end his days behind bars.