The demons cast by angry Rwandan women and genocide survivors must be tormenting BBC’s newsroom in London.
On October 24, tens of hundreds of bitter women abandoned their gardens, shops and offices, wrapped babies on their backs and matched into the parliament, taking over lawmakers’ seats.
There was not enough space left inside and some protestors stood in the corridors, others stood outside and surrounded the building, chanting in angry and patriotic slogans.
The parliament looked like it had been hijacked, yet demonstrators were organised, peaceful, but verbally and emotionally furious. Business at the parliament was put on hold as protestors demanded lawmakers force government to shut down BBC channels in Rwanda.
The reaction of the women followed that of hundreds of students two days earlier. Nearly five thousand gathered at spot in Kigali, and matched on Parliament with a petition asking lawmakers to act on the British broadcaster. They had a letter for the BBC director general, demanding the broadcaster apologizes to the survivors.
They had been enraged by BBC’s controversial documentary, ‘Rwanda: The Untold Story, aired earlier this month, that questions whether the 1994 genocide in Rwanda was indeed against the Tutsi and not the Hutus instead.
Two American researchers interviewed in the documentary claim that out of the 800,000 people killed, only 200,000 were Tutsis and the rest were Hutus. They claim the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), and then a rebel group, that was being commanded by President Paul Kagame, committed a Hutu genocide.
No genocide survivor was interviewed. The research of these two Americans has never been published or gone through the rigorous review process for published works.
Meanwhile, women protestors later walked and dumped their placards at BBC office in Kigali. Some placards, many written in grammatically incorrect English asked, “[BBC why are you supporting genociders, don’t confuse the world].”
The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA) announced on Friday it had switched off BBC’s Kinyarwanda channel and suspended its license. It had reviewed thousands of survivors’ complaints and accusations, and concluded they “warranted the immediate temporary suspension of all BBC Kinyarwanda programs” for denying and revising the history of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
BBC which represents the position of powerful Britain is clearly playing with the history of Rwanda and thus deserves such a strong response from Rwanda over the documentary.
President Kagame, who is personally subject of the accusations in the BBC documentary, was never interviewed. He has also commented about it. “BBC has changed us into Killers…and the genocidaires into victims,” he said.
The suspension of BBC is government response to pressure from genocide survivors who have for years been angered by BBC’s Kinyarwanda program, listened by tens of thousands of listeners in the Great Lakes Region.
Views on the broadcaster are strong. Listeners accused the channel for giving airtime to killers and people who call for war and mass-slaughter of Tutsi.
One Facebook post said, “Every day, the very people who deny genocide have hours to repeat their evil message.” “The BBC…is no longer the great Auntie, it is highly politicised…with no balance.”