example, part of an article from February 1993 talks about the RPF attack on
Ruhengeri, and (when translated personally from Kinyarwanda to English) states
that the inyenzi who were dead after the attack lived amongst the local people
(Kangura, 1993). This perpetuates the message that Tutsis live amongst you and
will fight with the RPF against you. RTLM and Kangura using this language so
casually is dangerous. It normalises categorising Tutsis as these disease
spreading creatures that need exterminating. In hindsight this presents a clear
early warning sign of genocidal violence under Neilsen’s toxification model. As I
will explore in more detail in the implications section, it is important to study this
for the prevention of future genocides. However, it is not plausible to conclude
the actual impact this had on the genocide without analysing the influence it had
on perpetrators’ motivations.
This segment will highlight the damaging impact of toxifying propaganda
in motivating perpetrators, somewhat unconventionally, to engage in genocide.
Achieving this by analysing first-hand accounts of perpetrators, on the impact
the toxifying propaganda had on their participation. In previously conducted
research, Scott Straus (2013) conducts interviews with genocide perpetrators on
their motivations. Straus asked 176 perpetrators whether the radio led them to
go into the attacks, only 15% responded yes, most stating that other things
motivated them (p. 148-149). Furthermore, Straus asks perpetrators if they had
heard of the notorious ‘Hutu Ten Commandments’, with 97.2% responding no
(p.130). Where despite the commandments not including toxifying rhetoric, it is
still a good measure of how non-widespread Kangura’s propaganda was.
However, in Straus’ questions lots of respondents give answers casually referring
to Tutsis as inyenzi. For example, one respondent after admitting to wrongdoing
still carelessly refers to the Tutsis as inyenzi (p.160). This is extremely relevant to
the report as despite Straus downplaying the significance of perpetrators using
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