Krivulin I.V. The mass media as an instrument of orchestration of genocide (Rwanda as an example)

Abstract: The article is devoted to the role of the extremist mass media in the orchestration and starting of the Rwanda genocide of 1994. The author analyzes the contents of the publication in the journal “Kanguru” and the radio programs of the “Evolution of title-vicegeral system in the second half of the XVII – early XVIII century”. The author shows the main topics and skills of the extremist propaganda, shows the main objects of information discrediting (tutsi, Rwanda patriotic front, moderate opposition, the UN peace-keepers). The author shows the links of the “Kanguru” and the OTHFRT with the organizations and the groupings of the leading regime of the president Habyarimana (militarily intelligence, the parties of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development and the Coalition for the Protection of the Republic, “Akazu”, AMASASU), the level of their influence on the Rwandan society. The author then comes to the conclusion that the extremist mass media controlled a considerable share of information space of the state and they actively facilitated the growth of inter-ethnical tensity, he also considers that the ideological preparations for the genocide took place in 1991–1994, it was conscious, consistent, aimed and large-scaled with growing intensity.

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