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Newspaper of the Ten Genocide Commandments

17 07 2007  (from the Rwandan Media Case Trial of Hassan Ngeze)

Summary of presentation by Tatyana Vaksberg

Don’t get married to the enemy, don’t make love with him, don’t make him your protégé. Don’t feel mercy towards him. Don’t do business with him or buy any of his goods. Unite against him with your people. When you are together, be firm and vigilant.

These are not SS orders, but rather a newspaper manifesto. And they were not released at the end of the 1930’s, but in the last years of the twentieth century. They were printed in the first issue of the private Rwandan newspaper Kangura. The newspaper’s founder, who is also its publisher and editor-in-chief, was sentenced for genocide in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Not for incitement to genocide, not for participation in it, but precisely for carrying out the actual genocide. With that, Hassan Ngeze became the second journalist in the world, sentenced for the most serious crime known to justice. The first was Julius Streicher, editor-in-chief of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer.

A Portrait of Hassan Ngeze

Unlike his dark predecessor, Ngeze became the megaphone for the genocidal ideology at a very young age – he was not even 28 years old when he founded Kangura. Before that, he worked as a conductor in the city buses, a driver and a newspaper vendor. He wrote “informational notes about the street life in the capital” for some of the papers he sold. Suddenly, he declared himself a business man and in December 1990, he began issuing Kangura.

Background on the ethnic conflict

The victims of the 1994 genocide are the dark heroes of Rwandan fairytales. Over more than a century, folktales told of a ‘handful of people,’ called the Tutsi, who considered themselves the caste of nobles and on these grounds, ‘crushed’ the majority, made up of the Hutus. Historical facts show that, despite being few in numbers, the Tutsi ruled Rwanda until the mid-twentieth century, when Belgium withdrew from the country and the ethnic conflict took a turn – the majority began attacking the minority. The Tutsis’ houses were set on fire and their inhabitants – killed or chased away. This was also the time when the existent family tales and folklore were augmented. The tale of the slave-owning Tutsi was supplemented with two new elements: the first said that historical justice had already been achieved and the second – that Tutsis should never be allowed to get to power in Rwanda, so that they don’t avenge for the revenge of the majority.

Political context

Kangura came out on the wave of wide-spread hopes of democratic change in Rwanda. Private papers had recently become allowed. After a few decades of ethnic clashes, the country entered a calmer phase of development. The Tutsi minority was granted the right to own private businesses, to participate in politics, to live without hassle. Political pluralism was introduced in the country; the institutions were relatively stable; the economy, albeit slowly, was developing; and the healthcare and education systems were considered functional. The coming out of Kangura was seen as the first conquest in society’s fight for freedom of speech.

The language of the newspaper

In the Kinyarwanda language, ‘kangura’ means ‘awakening’. The slogan in the newspaper’s head explained this choice: “The voice that awakens and defends the majority.” In the articles on historical themes, the authors explained that until that moment, the majority (Hutu) had not had the chance to know its authentic history, full of hardship and suffering, caused by the Tutsi. From that point on, the word ‘awakening’ got interpreted in two contexts at the same time: an ‘awakening’ to avenge the Tutsi, and the ‘awakening’ of the national identity. In the tribunal for Rwanda, Hassan Ngeze’s lawyers asserted that he meant only the latter. The Court dismissed this claim, and said that it only masked the genocidal message of the media.

In its first issue, Kangura published the “Hutu Ten Commandments.” Under this headline, for the first time, what was being said on the street was published. “The enemy is still there, among us, and is biding his time to try again, at a more propitious moment, to decimate us. Therefore, Hutu, wherever you may be, wake up! Take all necessary measures to deter the enemy from launching a fresh attack!”

Each one of the commandments showed the name of an ethnic group, to be eliminated from social life: “1. Do not marry a Tutsi, (…) because the women are the chief spy weapon of the Tutsi.”

A change in language

For his publications, like the ‘Ten Commandments’ one, Ngeze ended up in prison for a short time. He was sentenced based on Rwandan law, for ‘national treachery’. One of his defenders at the time was Amnesty International. It saw in Ngeze’s arrest a violation of the freedom of speech.
After Ngeze’s relase, Kangura altered its dictionary and no longer spoke of the Tutsi, but rather of ‘the enemy’. Later, he substituted the word ‘enemy’. In an editorial, a new word was introduced, to “compensate a lack in the Rwandan language.” This word is ‘inyenzi’ and from that point on, it was used to describe a person who is simultaneously a thief, a murdered and a pathological liar. It was made clear that the combination of these evil characteristics is possessed only by the ‘enemy’.

Later on, on the eve of the genocide, a third word was introduced – ‘cockroach’. It was pointed out that it is synonymous with ‘enemy’ and ‘inyenzi’.

The Genocide in Rwanda and the Tribunal

The genocide was carried out over less than three months in 1994 and its victims were almost one million Tutsis.

According to the Court, Kangura had openly called for the extermination of the Tutsi, going as far as naming the weapon with which to carry out the extermination. “With what weapon can we defeat the inyenzi once and for all? Only with machete.” “Let’s crush the cockroaches!” Hassan Ngeze was found guilty of direct involvement in the genocide. The Court decided that an incitement to violence was the actual aim of the newspaper Kangura.