If Rwandan Government Can Stifle International Media, what is it doing to common Rwandans?
picture; Tom Ndahiro
by Felicien Kanyamibwa, PhD
AfroAmerica Network, June 11, 2008
The renowned and mighty British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) is facing an unlikely foe in an unlikely place: a rogue journalist in a tiny country of Rwanda. How media professionals spearhead the fight again one of the most respected media channels in the World may appear odd but is really nothing else than a symptom of a regime running amok. The outcome of the war of words between BBC and the rogue journalist will determine how and whether BBC can resist to blackmailing, underside coups, backstabbing and other threats to remain an independent and objective news organization.
UNLIKELY FOES IN AN UNLIKELY PLACE
BBC is the World’s largest broadcast corporation. Since its creation in 1922, BBC has braved dictators, warlords, militants, mass murderers, and the likes by providing relatively objective, timely and sometimes challenging news around the world, from unlikely places overtaken by wars, diseases, tsunamis, torrential rains, systematic crimes and genocides. Following the 1990-1994 tragic events in the tiny country of Rwanda, when a group of Tutsis extremists, regrouped under the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded Rwanda, and eventually assassinated its president in an terrorist attack on his plane and toppled the government, BBC covered the events. BBC followed the masses of Hutu fleeing the new RPF regime to the former Zaire and as they settled in makeshift camps. BBC was also there when the RPF followed the refugees in DRC, destroying the camps, and massacring more than 200,000 Hutu refugees. At that time, as BBC followed the RPF conquests, its reportages focused on RPF achievements. The new RPF regime encouraged BBC to be close to the action by opening a service in Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, the Bantu languages spoken in Rwanda and the neighboring countries. For years now, BBC Great Lakes has been the undisputable new references for Rwandese and Burundian speaking people in the Great Lakes Region. That group of bantu speaking people extends fromTanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and DRC. According to various sources, Kinyarwanda/Kirundi is spoken by more than 30 millions people in and around the Great Lakes region of Africa.
BBC GREAT LAKES REDISCOVERS BBC
At the beginning, BBC Kinyarwanda had a series of programs, shows, and news favoring the new Rwandan regime. Objectivity was sacrificed at the altar of empathy with the new regime. Hutu and Tutsis exiles started criticizing BBC-Great Lakes for being the mouthpiece of the new regime or, at the best, providing subjective, unbalanced and blatantly biased news in support of the RPF regime. Then, for some reasons, probably related to the core mission of BBC “to be free from both political and commercial influence and to answer only to its viewers and listeners, ” BBC started to give voice to everybody, including the opposition to the Rwandan RPF regime. BBC Great Lakes had rediscovered BBC. That did not please the Rwandan government.
BBC AND THE SPECTER OF DICTATORS
That the change of heart by BBC Great Lakes management did not please the dictator of Rwanda General Paul Kagame was not a surprise. Many wondered what was the hidden deal between General Paul Kagame and BBC Management and Editors to allow such blatant news biases in favor of RPF, in the first place. Paul Kagame started an underground charm to allure the BBC Management with all sorts of business incentives. He could not succeed. Then he remembered the trick he used with the German broadcasting corporation, Deutche Welle. By using threats against Deutche Welle and corruption, he had managed to have Deutche Welle fire a renowned journalist Paul Mbaraga, but also to get Paul Mbaraga to apologize. In return, Paul Mbaraga was promised a position in Rwanda. In BBC, Paul Kagame identified Ally Yusuf Mugenzi, a respected and long serving reporter and the editor of Great Lakes Service, as a potential. However, Ally Yusuf Mugenzi could not be corrupted. And Paul Kagame, given the support he receives from the British Government, could not overtly and headily confront the BBC. It would be a suicide. As he usually does in his military campaigns in the Great Lakes region, he decided to use proxies, with his notorious criminal intelligence services manning the scheme in the background. They assigned a Department of Military Intelligence (DMI) officer, Mr. Tom Ndahiro, who, under cover, worked as a member of the government-supported Human Rights Commission and hosts a political talk-show on Contact FM. Using the scheme, Mr.Ndahiro launched the diversion against BBC, by attacking its Great Lakes program, Ally Yusuf Mugenzi.
NOT BBC REGULAR DICTATORS.
Mr. Tim Cooke, Head of French and Great Lakes Services with the BBC World Service may initially have thought that the attacks against Ally Yusuf Mugenzi were regular attacks from unhappy listeners. That is perhaps why Mr. Tim Cooke dared to ask for visa for Ally Yusuf Mugenzi to attend an event to launch a partnership between Radio 10 and BBC held in Kigali in April 2008. Ally Yusuf Mugenzi, a Rwandan, was refused entry to his home country Rwanda by the RPF government and the event was almost cancelled, until the DMI realized Radio 10 belonged to one of the main financial backers of the RPF, Mr. Eugene Nyagahene. The magnate Eugene Nyagahene has been a member of the Economic and Social Development Advisory Council of the Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame since 2002. That is when Mr. Tim Cooke may have realized BBC was the victim of a well coordinated attached.
He fired the following open letter to Mr. Tom Ndahiro:
“Dear Mr Ndahiro I have grown increasingly concerned by your attacks on the integrity of the BBC Great Lakes Service, and its editor, Ally Yusufu Mugenzi,and I am writing to put the record straight. I do not know the sources for your claims, but you have been misinformed and you are publishing and broadcasting allegations which are absolutely untrue.
You say the BBC is “very comfortable hosting convicted Rwandan genocide criminals on its airwaves”, and yet the only concrete example you produce is former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, from a programme which was broadcast four years ago. The Rwandan authorities complained at the time, and the BBC carried out a full investigation, as we always do when a complaint is received. And indeed the BBC issued a formal apology for this programme. Raising the subject again now can serve no purpose other than to attempt to tarnish the BBC’s reputation.
I would also take issue with your use of language. As a serious broadcaster, we have a duty to cover all aspects of any story, giving our listeners access to a wide range of opinions. This means that we often have to interview people with whom we profoundly disagree. I don’t think any journalist feels `comfortable’ doing this, but the alternative would be to restrict our interviewing to people we agree with. That would not be acceptable to any journalist of integrity. The BBC always challenges the opinions of interviewees, whether they are from the government, the opposition, a rebel group, an NGO, or the United Nations.
The Great Lakes Service, like every other part of the BBC, follows this principle. The BBC does not have an editorial position, does not support or oppose governments, does not campaign on behalf of any organisation; we have a set of standards which all journalists are expected to respect, and against which ourperformance is judged. A fair and balanced programme, which we always seek to produce, will contain a range of opinions, challenged firmly but politely by the interviewer. It is not for the BBC to decide who is right and who is wrong: we trust our listeners to reach their own conclusions, and accept that not all the audience will reach the same conclusion.
Are there people whom the BBC should not interview at all? This is a very interesting question, and in fact a seminar will be taking place here in Bush House later this month to discuss it. The BBC Editorial Guidelines do not prohibit interviews with criminals or convicted terrorists, although there are clearly defined situations where journalists are instructed to seek advice from senior editors before carrying out interviews. One such case is “any proposal to approach an individual or an organisation responsible for acts of terror for an interview”. On behalf of Great Lakes Service, I made such a referral in the case of IgnaceMurwanashyaka, and was given approval to go ahead with the interview.
The BBC will always be criticised for its programmes, and for the decisions it takes on controversial issues. The Great Lakes Service has been criticised by the Rwandan authorities for interviewing Murwanashyaka; it has also been criticised by the Congolese authorities for interviewing Laurent Nkunda. Here inEngland, the BBC is frequently a target of criticism from the British government. We are a serious broadcasting organisation: we expect such criticism, we take complaints seriously, and we respond to them in full. However, I find utterly unacceptable your personal attacks on Ally Yusufu Mugenzi and VenusteNshimiyimana.
First of all, to put the record straight, Mr Nshimiyimana is not “a long serving reporter” for Imvo n’Imvano – he has not worked for the Great Lakes Service forseveral years, and is a journalist with BBC Afrique, broadcasting in French. Mr Mugenzi is the editor of Great Lakes Service. I know both these men well, and they are journalists of the highest integrity, well respected in the BBC. To accuse them of being part of a campaign to `minimise the genocide’ is outrageous and of course completely untrue.
I was in Rwanda in April to launch the partnership between BBC and Radio 10, and to celebrate the good relations we have with Rwanda: three BBC FM relays, our new partnership, and a trainee scheme through which Rwandan journalists spend time with us here in London. I was extremely surprised to hear that you had been running a campaign to try to stop our partnership with Radio 10, asking journalists not to attend the launch, and calling on Radio 10 tobreak off the deal. I have absolutely no idea what is motivating you to do this, but I am glad to say that there was an excellent attendance at the press conference, and I was very well received.
The BBC Great Lakes Service has a very large audience in Rwanda, most of them listening because they regard us as a reliable source of information. We take our responsibility to these listeners very seriously: we have a duty to them and to the BBC to remain fair, balanced and impartial. Freedom of the media is an important element of any democratic society, but that freedom must always be justified by professional and responsible journalism. Mr Ndahiro: I am totally committed to maintaining such standards; I would like to believe that you are too.”
©AfroAmerica Network, June 2008.
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