Table Of Contentp
Radio Propaganda and the
Broadcasting of Hatred
Historical Development and
Definitions
Keith Somerville
Radio Propaganda and the Broadcasting of Hatred
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Radio Propaganda and
the Broadcasting of Hatred
Historical Development and Definitions
Keith Somerville
UniversityofKent,Kent,UK
©KeithSomerville2012
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21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
Contents
Preface vi
Acknowledgements xi
1 Propaganda:Origins,DevelopmentandUtilization 1
2 TheAdventofRadio:CreatingaMassAudiencefor
PropagandaandIncitement1911–1945 33
3 TheColdWarandAfter:PropagandaWarsandRadioin
RegionalConflicts 55
CaseStudies
4 NaziRadioPropaganda–SettingtheAgendaforHatred 87
5 Rwanda:Genocide,HateRadioandthePoweroftheBroadcast
Word 152
6 Kenya:PoliticalViolence,theMediaandtheRoleof
VernacularRadioStations 208
7 Conclusions:Propaganda,HateandthePowerofRadio 238
Bibliography 247
Index 259
v
Preface
ItwaslateeveningonWednesday,6April1994instudioS36inBushHouse,
the home of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service.
My Newshour team was coming to the end of a long shift and there were
about 15 minutes of programme time to go. And then came the moment
when a newsflash both set my pulse racing and also set off alarm bells in
myhead.
The breaking news came in on the BBC newsgathering system, from
Agence France Presse. It said that the plane carrying presidents Juvenal
Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi had crashed
near Kigali – all on board were presumed dead. It’s not every day that you
get two presidents killed in the same crash, so that alone meant that it
would develop into a big story for the World Service audience. But these
twomenwerefromRwandaandBurundi,twoofthemostvolatilestatesin
Africa.TheywerereturningfromArusha,fromasummitatwhichpressure
was put on Habyarimana to proceed with implementing the Arusha Peace
Accords designed to end four years of war in Rwanda. His death would at
theveryleastputtheaccordsindoubtbutcouldleadtofull-scalecivilwar
orworse.
As I sought more information from BBC newsgathering and the African
service at Bush, and checked incoming news wires, I was simultaneously
assessingwhatweactuallyknewandcouldthereforereporttotheaudience
andwhetherwecouldcoverthestoryaccuratelybeforetheprogrammecame
offair.Icheckedwithmytrustedstudioproducer,FredDove,ifwehadroom
fortheRwandastoryand,professionalasever,hesaidhecouldmakeroom.
SoIhadtodecide.
While not an expert on the minutiae of Rwandan politics, I had been
there, reported stories from there, followed the four-year civil war and
had good background knowledge of the decades of conflict, massacres and
repression of the Tutsi minority by the Hutu majority. I knew very well
how unstable the ceasefire was between the government and the opposing
Rwandan PatrioticFront(RPF), and how an event like this and any sugges-
tion that the Tutsi-led RPF was responsible for Habyarimana’s death could
lead to not just renewed fighting but the mass killing of Tutsis. I did not
wanttoriskhavinganyroleinstartingrumoursorbroadcastingsuggestions
that could have catastrophic results – and I knew our programme was lis-
tenedtobyEnglish-speakersinEastandCentralAfrica.Alljournalistswant
to report the news and report it now, but it is better to be a bit late on the
newsandgetitrightthantojumpinfast,perhapsspeculateandthenhave
totakeresponsibilityfortheconsequences.
vi
Preface vii
I opted for safety and caution. When we had confirmation of the crash
andthedeathsofallthoseaboard,westillhadtimewithintheprogramme
tobroadcastashortnewsflash.IdecidednottotrytogetholdoftheAfrican
service stringers in Rwanda, not all of whom broadcast in English anyway,
ortogotoourregionalofficeinNairobi,asthecorrespondentstherewould
knowlittlemorethanIdid.TheprioritywastobroadcastonlywhatIcould
confirm and avoid potentially inflammatory speculation. When the pro-
grammecameoffair,wewerenonethewiseraboutthecause–acrash,shot
downand,ifso,bywhom?Butspeculationwasalreadybeingairedinsome
follow-upnewsagencyreports,includingaccusationsfromRwandathatthe
Tutsi-ledRPFhadbeenresponsible.
Ididn’tgetthechancetofollowupthestoryonsubsequentprogrammes.
As it did for most of the continent of Africa and much of the world, my
focusswitchedtoSouthAfrica.Withindays,IwasinJohannesburgleading
the World Service news programme team reporting the elections that were
to bring the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela to power and
transformSouthAfrica.Buteveninthehecticrunuptothestartofvoting
on27April,thehorrifyingnewsemergingfromRwandawasbeingdiscussed
inSouthAfrica–ofthekillingoftheprimeministerandseveralministersin
thecoalitiongovernment,andreportsoflarge-scalemurdersofTutsis.Days
beforetheofficialannouncementoftheelectionresultbytheelectioncom-
missionon6May,itwasclearthattheAfricanNationalCongress(ANC)had
wonandthatinternationalleadersanddiplomatswerebeginningtosound
outANCleadersaboutaSouthAfricanrole–politicalandmilitary–inend-
ing the Rwandan violence. The man soon to become South Africa’s deputy
defenceministerandakeyfigureintheANCmilitaryandintelligencesetup,
RonnieKasrils,toldmethathewasalreadyhavingtofendoffsuggestionsof
aSouthAfrican-ledAfricanforcetokeepthepeaceinRwanda.
BythetimeIwasbackinLondonandrunningprogrammesagain,Rwanda
was one of the lead stories for the World Service, despite being ignored by
much of the rest of the British and international media. They seemed only
to be able to cope with one African story at a time and they already had
South Africa. For many news editors across the world, the main questions
were, ‘Where the hell is Rwanda?’ and ‘Why should we care enough to
reportit?’Ourprogrammesweredifferent.Wehadcorrespondentsthereand
I despatched one of our best radio documentarymakers, Hilary Andersson,
toRwandaandTanzaniatogetusmoredepthonthestory–whichwasstill
patchyandunclear.Thousands,perhapstensofthousands,werebeingkilled
butbywhomandtowhatend?
Overthenextcoupleofmonthstheextent,intentandsheerhorrorofthe
attemptedgenocidebecameclear.Whatalsobecameobviouswastheroleof
themedia inRwandain incitinghatredofandviolenceagainst Tutsis, and
againstHutusseenasopposedtoHutuchauvinism.Thephrase‘hateradio’
became synonymous with Rwanda – ‘radio that killed’ and ‘radio machete’
viii Preface
werejustacoupleofthephrasesusedregularlytodescribeRadioTelevision
LibredesMilleCollines(RTLM),theHutustationthatencouragedandaided
thekillings.
Thatradioshouldplaysucharolewasanathematosomeonelikemewho
had worked for years in the World Service and was wedded to the motto
ontheBBCcoatofarmsthat‘nationshallspeakpeaceuntonation’–even
though I knew well that, in its way, BBC World Service output was, like
most other news, a form of propaganda even if it was a soft, benign and
well-intentioned one. I was also aware that there was a wide spectrum of
broadcasting,fromtheWorldServicenearoneendtostationslikeRTLMat
theother.
Beforeworkingasaradioproducer,reporterandeditor,Ihadspenteight
years at the BBC Monitoring Service directly monitoring Soviet, Czech,
Israeli,Afghan,apartheidSouthAfricanand,duringtheFalklands/Malvinas
War, Argentinian news and propaganda broadcasts. I’d selected and edited
for publication news and propaganda output from across Africa, the Mid-
dleEastandLatinAmerica–andforabriefperiodNorthKoreaandChina,
too–fortheBBC’sSummaryofWorldBroadcasts.Ihadfewillusionsaboutthe
purityofthebroadcastmedia.Butthefirsthalfofthe1990sbroughthome
withviolentforcethewaysthatbroadcasting,primarilyradio,couldbeused
to encourage, justify, incite and support violence, particularly in regional
orcivilconflicts.EvenbeforetheghastlyexampleofRTLM,SerbandCroat
radioandTV,especiallylocalstationsliketheSerboneinKnin,hadshown
howradioandothermediacouldbeusedforotherendsthaninformingpeo-
pleofnewsandinformationthatcouldenablethemtomakesenseof,and
makerationaldecisionsin,theworldinwhichtheylived.Thatradiocould
be used to incite hatred, to sanction, justify or encourage communal vio-
lence, was becoming clearer. Politicians, non-governmental organizations,
journalists and academics were aware of this and were starting to call for
waysofjammingorcombatingthehatebroadcasts.Buttherehadbeenlittle
attempttodescribe ordefinewhereandhowthissortofhatebroadcasting
began, and where what one could call ‘mobilizing propaganda’ ended and
incitementtohatredandviolencebegan.
OtherprioritiesasaBBCjournalistmeantthatatthetimeIwentnofur-
therintothedarksideofbroadcasting.Imovedintoacademiain2008and
started research on radio; this coincided with the investigations into the
post-electionviolenceinKenyain2007–2008andthesuggestionsthatonce
again radio had played a role in inciting violence and hatred. This rekin-
dledmyinterestand,onfurtherinvestigation,Ifoundthattherehadbeen
littleprogressindefininghateradioorprovidinganysortofrealisticguide
as to how or whether one could identify where propaganda morphed into
somethingeven more sinister.Aresearch triptoKenyain 2010,andsubse-
quentdealingswiththeInternationalCriminalCourtinTheHagueoverthe
indictmentofaKenyanradiojournalistwhomIhadinterviewed,confirmed
Preface ix
that an examination of Kenya’s experience could throw a new light on the
usesofbroadcastingintimesofconflict.
Research into the role of radio in the events in Kenya inevitably threw
upcomparisonswithRwanda.IalsorelatedittowhatIknewofthebreak-
upofYugoslavia–whichIhadbeeninvolvedincoveringexhaustivelyasa
programme editor at the World Service in the early 1990s. My research led
mebacktoColdWarpropaganda,theroleofradiointheMiddleEast,andto
theSecondWorldWarandNaziGermany,andthenfurtherbacktotheearly
uses of radio for the purpose of propagandizing and the career of the ‘hate
priest’, Father Coughlan, as an early exponent of bigoted and racist radio
commentary. I found more and more material but struggled to put it into
context,tofinddefinitions,todelineatethedifferentformsandmotivations
of propaganda, and to decide where, how and why propaganda developed
intoanopenengenderingofhatredandincitementtoviolence.
That is the basic purpose of this book – to tease out the strands of
propaganda and present a more coherent analysis of how and in what cir-
cumstancespropagandabecomesincitementandthentofinddefinitionsof
hatemediaand,inparticular,hateradio.Thesubjectsunderparticularstudy
arethoseperpetratorsofhatepropagandawhopropagatetheirideasopenly–
whathasbeencalled‘whitepropaganda’,whichcomesfromanidentifiable
sourcethattriestobuildcredibilitywiththeaudience,whetherornotitdoes
sothroughdistortion,outrightliesoramanipulationoffactsorinterpreta-
tions(JowettandO’Donnell,2006,pp.16–17).‘Black’or‘covert’propaganda
isnotthesubjectofthisbook,noristheattemptbyradiostationsorother
mediatoinfluencethebeliefsorideologyofforeignaudiences–asboththe
USAandtheSovietUniontriedtodothoughtheirbroadcastingduringthe
ColdWar.Thefocusisonthosebroadcastersandmediathatsoughttoinflu-
encetheirownpopulations–toincitethemtohatredandviolenceagainst
domesticorexternalenemies.Ihaveomitted,aftermuchresearchanddelib-
eration, analysis of the American Shock Jocks, such as Rush Limbaugh, Bill
O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Don Imus. Bigoted and biased they might be but
there is no evidence of a specific agenda of hate or incitement; rather just
a stream of right-wing prejudice and abuse of perceived liberals and social-
ists, or mindless abuse of groups within American society. Under the First
AmendmentoftheUSConstitution,thisisalllegal.
Thestructureofthebookreflectstheoriginsofhatebroadcastinginpro-
pagandaandhowincertaincircumstancesnationalist,politicalparty,racist
or other forms of propaganda move into the area of incitement. Chapter 1
charts the development of propaganda as a weapon in conflict over his-
tory and the use of hate as the most deadly propaganda weapon of all.
Chapter2followsthedevelopmentofpropagandainthe20thcenturyand
charts how radio as a means of mass and targeted communication became
such an effective propagandatooland its utilizationan extremely effective
medium for inciting hatred. The first two chapters are also used to set out
