representation or misrepresentation? the new york times 's framing...
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Representation or misrepresentation?The New York Times's framing of the1994 Rwanda genocideTendai Chari aa Department of Media Studies , School of Human and SocialSciences, University of Venda , Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou,0950, South AfricaPublished online: 20 Nov 2010.
To cite this article: Tendai Chari (2010) Representation or misrepresentation? The NewYork Times's framing of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, African Identities, 8:4, 333-349, DOI:10.1080/14725843.2010.513242
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Representation or misrepresentation? The New York Times’s framingof the 1994 Rwanda genocide
Tendai Chari*
Department of Media Studies, School of Human and Social Sciences, University of Venda,Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou, 0950, South Africa
(Received 7 July 2010; final version received 16 July 2010)
The western press is still considered the most authentic and authoritative source ofinformation about world events. Their technological wherewithal guarantees themunlimited access to every nook and cranny of the globe and they are able to be first withthe news much of the time. In spite of these advantages the western press’s coverage ofAfrican issues has been mired in controversy due to a number of alleged shortcomings.The Rwanda genocide of 1994 is one such issue where the western press has been foundwanting. The catalogue of accusations ranges from their lack of enthusiasm to report onthe genocide and failure to expose the underlying cause of the conflict, to distortions andignorance of the socio-economic context of the genocide. Underpinned by the framingtheory and employing textual analysis, this paper analyses the representation of the 1994Rwanda genocide in order to understand the ideological imperatives underpinningsuch framing and the possible impact of such representation on public opinion andperceptions. In particular the paper seeks to identify aspects of the genocide which thenewspaper accentuated and those that it sought to downplay. The paper argues thatthe New York Times’s framing of the 1994 Rwanda genocide is coloured by enduringnineteenth-century Eurocentric ideologies wherebyRwandan genocide is represented asyet another African tragedy signifying darkness and hopelessness.
Keywords: framing; Rwanda; genocide; representation; New York Times; westernpress; historical baggage
Introduction
A decade and a half after the 1994 Rwandan genocide the role played by the media during
that dark phase of that country’s history is an issue which continues to exercise the minds
of many in academia, media fraternity and civil society. A key talking point is the manner
in which the media, particularly the western media, reneged on their normative watchdog
role of shining their searchlights in the dark alleys of Rwanda during the period of the
conflict. Some critics allege that the few journalists who were in Rwanda at the time
inaccurately framed the crisis merely as a result of ‘ancient tribal hatreds’ between the
Hutu and the Tutsi (Melvern 2007, p. 192, Wall 2007, p. 253). Others have argued that the
western media failed to understand what was happening in Rwanda at the time and ‘that
failure has much to do with the importance or lack thereof that outsiders gave to Africa, the
way in which they thought of Africa and the language they used to describe it (Dowden
ISSN 1472-5843 print/ISSN 1472-5851 online
q 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2010.513242
http://www.informaworld.com
*Email: [email protected], [email protected]
African Identities
Vol. 8, No. 4, November 2010, 333–349
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2007, p. 243). Kuperman (2000, cited by Chaon 2007, p. 155) argues that: ‘Western media
blame the international community for not intervening quickly, but the media must share
the blame for not immediately recognizing the context of the carnage and mobilizing
world attention to it’. Dottridge’s revelation about the western media’s blind spots in
reporting the Rwanda situation is poignant. He argues that:
With the benefit of hindsight it is obvious that the terms of reference with which weapproached Rwanda, and consequently the human rights questions we raised, were far toonarrow . . . In terms of the broader field of human rights associated with political repression,we did not address the country’s structural problems. (Dottridge 2007, p. 236)
The objective of this paper is to examine the frames employed by the New York Times
in representing the 1994 Rwandan genocide in order to understand how the western media
read the situation in Rwanda and the symbolic meanings generated through such coverage.
Western media coverage of Africa
There is burgeoning literature on western media reporting of events and issues in Africa
(Stokke 1971, Legum 1971, Franks 2005). The common thread running through this
literature is concern about the western media’s negative portrayal of the continent, charges
of bias, misrepresentation and racial imagining of the continent. Alozie (2007, p. 207)
notes the concern by critics of western media who allege that these media portray Africa as
a continent ‘plagued with political socio-economic upheavals . . . prone to violent
conflicts and [one that] often suffers from natural disasters as well as disasters caused by
human beings’. Western media have also been accused of only paying attention to the
African continent when crises happen, thus failing to contextualise their stories resulting in
an image of Africa where nothing works. Widstrand (1971, p. 7) concurs with this
assertion adding that: ‘All too often Africa is discussed in terms of crises – Congo, Biafra,
Uganda – which sometimes precludes sensible treatment and sensible commentary’.
Legum’s observation on western press reporting of Africa is poignant. He notes that: ‘One
of the disturbing features of western press is what might be called “crisis journalism” – the
tendency to devote a large amount of space, resources to reporting the “abnormal” in home
and international affairs’ (Legum 1971, p. 203). The implication for this kind of reporting
is that it results in underreporting of ‘normal’ events after the crisis. British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) African correspondent George Alagiah (cited by Ankomah 2000,
p. 17) dramatises the western media’s biased reporting thus: ‘For most people who get
their view of the world from TV . . . Africa is a far-away place where good people go
hungry, bad people run government and chaos and anarchy are the norm’. Ankomah
(2000) argues that in their coverage of the African continent the western media are guided
by a four-point unwritten code thus:
. National interest or ‘follow the flag’; western media are guided by the interests of
their nation. This means that on foreign policy matters western media are guided by
their home governments.
. Ideological leaning; from time to time western media may attack certain domestic
government policies or expose certain government mistakes and corrupt practices
but they largely maintain good relationships with their governments. On domestic
issues western media are influenced by ideological leaning, meaning that they
support political parties according to ideological compatibility.
. Historical baggage; this is the twentieth-century view of Africa infected with the
prevailing wisdom of the nineteenth century whereby Africans are always portrayed
as subjects rather than masters of their destiny.
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. Advertisers/readers; advertisers and readers exert immense pressure on western
media forcing editors to pander to their whims (Ankomah 2000, p. 20).
Ankomah’s framework provides a useful guide towards understanding western media’s
coverage of African issues including the Rwandan genocide. The next section discusses
the framing theory in order to understand its centrality in news coverage of the Rwandan
genocide.
Framing theory
That the media play an important role in moulding public opinion and perceptions is a
matter of public record. The news media, through their display of news, determine which
issues members of the public think and talk about (Severin and Tankard 1992, p. 207).
Thus, the mass media influence what people talk about and how they think about those
issues. Through discourse, the news media force attention on certain issues, and build
images of certain personalities. Cohen (1963, cited by Severin and Tankard 1992, p. 209)
dramatises the agenda-setting role of the media by asserting that the press ‘may not be
successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful
in telling its readers what to think about’. It has also been pointed out that events and
activities must be framed or ‘given a field of meanings within which they can be
understood’ (p. 209).
The notion of framing or second-level agenda-setting, which involves persuasion, has
been defined by Melkote (2009, p. 549) as ‘the ways in which news media organize, treat
and present issues, events, and news objects such as news makers’. Framing may involve
ignoring or downplaying certain aspects of an issue, creating an artificial balance in
coverage, media and journalists speaking with the voice of the government, exaggeration
and lack of analysis of events and use of a narrow selection of experts (p. 549). Framing
influences how audiences think about issues by invoking certain interpretations of
information (p. 549). Parenti (1993, p. 200) on the other hand views framing more as a
technique of ‘inventing reality’ – a propaganda technique. He argues that:
Themost effective propaganda term is that which relies on framing rather than on falsehood. Bybending the truth rather than breaking it, using emphasis, nuance, innuendo, and peripheralembellishments communicators create a desired impression without resorting to explicitadvocacy andwithout departing too far from the appearance of objectivity. Framing is achievedin the way in which news is packaged, the amount of exposure, the placement (front page orback lead story or last) the tone of the presentation (sympathetic or slighting) the accompanyingheadlines and visual effects, and the labeling and vocabulary. One common framing method isto select labels and vocabulary designed to convey politically loaded images. These labels andphrases like the masks in a Greek dance convey positive or negative image cues regardingevents and persona, often without benefit and usually as substitutes for supportive information.(Parenti 1993, p. 200)
Agenda-setting in general, and framing in particular, provides useful ideas for
understanding the interaction between media, public agenda and policy agenda (Dearing
and Rogers 1992, Christie 2006).When an issue gets media attentionmembers of the public
may start talking about it (public agenda). If the issue is of public interest policy-makers
may take it or make some policy interventions, thus becoming a policy agenda. This paper
examines the framing of the Rwanda genocide in theNew York Times in order to understand
the ideological forces influencing such framing and the possible impact of that news
framing on public opinion and perceptions. The following research questions guided
this study:
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. How did the New York Times frame the Rwanda genocide of 1994?
. What was the possible impact of such news framing on public opinion and public
policy?
The main assumption in this study is that the manner in which the news media frame issues
has great potential to influence public opinion and public policy and may determine what
people will do or not do. It can be argued that media framing of the genocide in Rwanda
may have contributed to the manner in which the world responded to the situation in that
country in 1994.
Data
A textual analysis of the New York Times was conducted to examine the main frames
employed by the paper in its representation of the Rwanda genocide. Articles were
obtained from the newspaper’s online archives first by typing the phrase ‘Rwanda
genocide’ and then the word ‘Rwanda’ separately. The period covered was 1 April 1994
(five days before the outbreak of the genocide) to 31 December 1994. A total of 195
articles were retrieved. Articles which did not directly address the 1994 genocide were left
out and the remainder (170) were subject to textual analysis. All articles were read three
times; the first reading entailed classifying them into four pre-determined frames namely:
(1) Historical baggage
(2) Tribalisation
(3) Western benevolence
(4) Western indifference
The second reading entailed noting down key phrases, words, sentences, discursive
techniques while the third and final reading involved intensive analysis of selected articles
that best illustrate the four thematic frames identified above.
It should be noted that the four frames identified had a tendency of overlapping and
were not neat categorisations. Since this was essentially a qualitative study, these
categorisations were however useful in trying to understand the dynamics of news
representation in the New York Times.
Unit of analysis
Within the story the unit of analysis was the sentence and the headline was considered the
first sentence. Photographs were, however, excluded because the online stories did not
show photographs. Sentences were analysed according to their relevance to the four
frames identified above.
Why the New York Times?
The New York Times was selected for this study because it is regarded as one of the most
authoritative sources of news and information in the developed world. It is regarded as a
paper of record, meaning that it has immense influence on public opinion and sets the
agenda for other media globally. The New York Times is therefore regarded as the most
respected news medium.When an issue is newsworthy, other US news organisations take a
cue from the New York Times (Dearing and Rogers 1992, Melkote 2009). The next section
discusses the representation of the Rwandan genocide in The New York Times focusing and
the possible impact of the representation on public opinion and perceptions. Each of the
frames identified above are discussed in greater detail.
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Findings and analysis
Quantitative analysis
Astory count between 1April 1994 and 31December 1994 is shown inTable 1. Thefindings
are also graphically illustrated in Figure 1. Both Table 1 and Figure 1 show that the largest
number of stories on the Rwanda genocide was published in May 1994 followed by June
1994, and the least number of stories was published in December 1994.
What this means is that the actual genocide in April 1994 received less news coverage
than the refugee crisis which broke out inMay and June 1994.What this might imply is that
the actual genocide in Rwanda did not receive enough attention compared to the refugee
crisis in the subsequent months, suggesting that had the genocide killings received adequate
attention perhaps the scale of massacres could have been reduced. The slight increase in
stories in August is also linked to the upsurge in the number of refugees fleeing Rwanda as
the Frenchmilitary deadline forwithdrawal approached. Refugees,mainlyHutu, feared that
the new government in Rwanda would deploy troops into the safe zones.
Historical baggage
The New York Times representation of the Rwandan genocide is reminiscent of the
construction of Africa by western explorers, travellers, missionaries, and anthropologists
who viewed Africa as a dark continent (Mudimbe 1988). Rwanda is portrayed as yet
another hopeless African country. This is demonstrated through such headlines as ‘Africa
tries democracy finding hope and peril’ (21 June 1994), ‘Anarchy rules Rwanda’s capital
and drunken soldiers roam city’ (14 April 1994), ‘The nightmare in Central Africa’ (9
April 1994) and ‘The massacres in Rwanda: hope is also a victim’ (21 April 1994).
Attention is given to ‘horrific events’ in the country implying that Rwanda is a jungle
where ‘marauding gangs’ wielding machetes and clubs roam the streets in broad daylight
slitting the Achilles tendons of their victims with impunity. The anarchic nature of the
conflict is reinforced by headlines such as ‘Troops rampage in Rwanda: dead said to
include premier’ (8 April 1994). Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, is described as having
‘dissolved into terror and chaos’. These headlines connote that there is disorder and
someone must bring disorder.
Beyond the sensationalist headline the story does not furnish readers with details of the
genocidal killings that were taking place in the country, including the death of interim
Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a Hutu.
The obsession with the dark side of the African continent is also shown by the
accentuation of negative images such as refugees afflicted by disease, e.g. some ‘as thin as
Table 1. Genocide story count between 1 April and 31 December 1994.
Month Number of stories Percentage
April 36 21.2May 45 26.5June 39 23.July 14 8.2August 16 9.4September 5 3.0October 5 3.0November 8 5.0December 2 1.2Total 170 100
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the poles they used to support themselves’ and ‘a 10-year-old boy had wounds on his head
and a long scar on his right cheek, where he had been beaten with a club and cut’ (New
York Times, 1 July 1994). A news report in the New York Times of 28 June 1994, reports
about ‘a tiny girl with a vacant stare’ who ‘sucks her mother’s breast in vain. The girl is 18
months old, but she has the tiny hands and feet of a 3-month old. She has no strength to
cry’. This story evokes familiar images of pot-bellied, malnourished African children that
grace the front pages of western magazines. Such images tend to glorify the suffering of
ordinary Africans while promoting westerners as their saviours. This is shown in the New
York Times (21 April 1994) where the then USA ambassador to Rwanda, David Rawson
was commenting on the genocide in Rwanda saying:
It is heart-rending – the beauty of the whole place, the responsiveness of the people, theirdesire for a better life, for democracy and development set against this intense struggle todominate, a struggle for political power.
The statement rehashes the same old stereotypes of Africa as a continent ‘where good
people go hungry’ while ‘bad people run government’, thus projecting the Rwandan
conflict as yet another African dream which has become a nightmare. The use of hyperbole
to describe the conflict in Rwanda evokes images of Thomas Hobbes’s ‘state of nature’
where life is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’.1 For instance, the New York Times
(20 April 1994) suggests that ‘the humanitarian situation has spiraled out of control’ and
that the relief crisis is ‘staggering’. The paper reported that:
In the past 12 days more than 400 000 Rwandans have been forced to flee their home nearKigali. Relief officials estimated that as many as two million Rwandans, about 20 percent ofthe population, are displaced. (New York Times, 20 April 1994)
By dwelling on the horror stories – people dying from cholera, dysentery and refugees
with ‘deep gushes and machete wounds’ (New York Times, 30 July 1994) Rwanda is
projected as a strife and disease-stricken country. The newspaper could not explain the
origins and causes of the conflict nor did it shed light on who exactly were the main
protagonists in the conflict, and what their motives were. Some critics complain that in the
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Figure 1. News coverage of the Rwanda genocide in 1994 in the New York Times.
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western press, ‘there is too much of Africans as victims and not enough showing their daily
triumphs against impossible odds’ in the African press (Alagiah cited in Ankomah 2000,
p. 14). Myers et al. (1996, p. 35) note how some sections of the American media, including
the New York Times, ignored some positive news in Rwanda. For instance, interim Prime
Minister Agathe Uwilinginimana, who was one of Africa’s post-independence heads of
government, was never a subject of news in the main US newspapers.
Abrahams McLaughlin, a journalist with the Christian Science Monitor, concurs with
the view that there is too much obsession with negatives about Africa in the western media
noting that ‘there is more to Africa than hardship’ (cited in Jere-Malanda 2008, p. 38). The
western press’s obsession with negativity when reporting African stories could result in
afro-pessimism, the belief that nothing works in Africa, because news representation of the
continent makes Africans feel pity for themselves. The New York Times was also littered
with words and phrases that connote that the Rwandan conflict was a result of ancient tribal
hatred between the Hutu and the Tutsi. Consequently the killings are described as ‘tribal
bloodletting’, ‘convulsions’, ‘frenzy of killings’, ‘bloodthirsty’, ‘orgy’, ‘terror’, and
‘massacres’, images that are reminiscent of scenes in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
The height of this ‘savagery’ is demonstrated in the ‘slaughtering’ by the rebel army, the
Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), of three Catholic bishops and 10 priests in June 1994. Pope
John Paul is reported as having described the killing as ‘cruel death’. The killers are reported
to have tossed wounded, small children into mass graves. The weapons graphically
construct the people of Rwanda as savages. ‘Primitive’ weapons such as ‘machete’, ‘clubs’,
‘axes’, ‘stones’, ‘spears’, ‘hatchets’, ‘spears’, ‘hoes’, and ‘bows and arrows’ are repeatedly
listed in the New York Times in order to buttresses the image of backwardness and
irrationality of the conflict.
Myers et al. (1996, p. 35) argue that the repeated lists of ‘tribal’ and ‘primitive’
weapons of this nature underrepresents ‘the widespread use of ‘semi-automatic rifles,
mortars’ and other high-technology weapons used by the Rwandan army. Such discourse
also ignores the fact that in the previous decades the Rwandan government had been a
recipient of sophisticated weapons from countries like France, Belgium and apartheid
South Africa. Such framing assisted the New York Times in constructing the Rwandan
conflict as essentially a tribal conflict and therefore not worthy of world attention, thus
creating the impression that Africa is still trapped in the dark ages while its people are
considered subhumans and close to nature.
The view that Africans are close to nature is demonstrated in a story headlined
‘Gorillas still in Rwanda’s mist’ (New York Times, 31 August 1994) which compares some
sections of the Rwandese population, who have been spared by the genocide, to gorillas in
the Virunga Mountains. We are told that:
As Rwanda succumbed to the genocide this spring, dooming as many as 500,000 people, it
seemed sadly likely that the slaughter would also doom 60 rare gorillas that have drawn
tourists to the Virunga Mountains for the past fifteen years. For the moment, however,
Rwanda’s gorillas have escaped harm which is splendid news . . . Amid so ghastly a human
catastrophe in Rwanda; one may feel an uneasy twinge of guilt in worrying about the fate of
non-humans. In truth, all living things are bound together in this calamity, and gorillas are a
small evolutionary link away from Homo-Sapiens.
Comparing the Rwandese population to gorillas evokes Darwinist theories of human
creation and this dehumanises the Rwandese people and also reinforces the stereotype of
primitive people.
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Stereotypes and conflation
The New York Times’s stereotypical portrayal of Rwanda is shown through its tendency to
conflate the situation in Rwanda with the entire African continent. Thus, Rwanda is
Somalia, is Burundi, is Nigeria, and is Africa. For example, the New York Times often
alluded to genocide in Burundi and drew parallels between the two countries. We are told
that Burundi is also afflicted by an irreconcilable strife which has claimed thousands of
lives. The New York Times of 7 April 1994 reported that Burundi, like Rwanda, had been
plagued by war between Hutus and Tutsis after its president had died in a plane crash,
together with the Rwandan president. The word ‘plague’ evokes images of Africa as the
home of diseases, hunger and pestilence. An opinion piece in the New York Times of 9
April 1994 posited that:
What has happened in Burundi and Rwanda may reinforce a widely held view that democraticroots simply will not sprout in some African countries, which are often seen as hybrid politicalcreations throwing together tribes and cultures whose only common heritage, unless held incheck by a brutal dictatorship, is warfare against one another. (Wharton 1994)
By conflating Rwanda with Burundi the New York Times absolves itself from
explaining the underlying causes of Rwandan conflict and its peculiarities, thereby
creating the wrong impression that the scale and causes of genocide in Rwanda and
Burundi were exactly the same. Within the same breath Rwanda is compared with Nigeria
where we are told the presence of a ‘drug trafficking network run with the protection of the
government suggests that the label “democracy” cannot be used to cover up a corrupt
dictatorship’ (Wharton 1994, p. 1); and the word Somalia periodically crops up in the
context of the Rwandan genocide. For example, the then US ambassador to Rwanda
underscores the need for a cautious approach to the situation in Rwanda because of the bad
experiences in Somalia. He is reported to have said:
If you get into a stalemate and trench warfare in which the country totally exhausts itself thenwe could have taken a step backwards into Somalia. (New York Times, 21 April 1994).
Cappeliez (2006, p. 19) has observed the media’s tendency to extrapolate the Rwandan
conflict with the rest of Africa. He says:
The media aggregates the Rwandan genocide into a set of dominant images that affix the eventin time and relegate other aspects of the genocide to silence. These images are then used toevoke a larger and generalised impression of conflicts equated with ‘Africa’ or the ‘ThirdWorld’ . . .
The conflation of Rwanda with the whole African continent could have resulted in the
slow response by the international community because the Rwanda conflict was not
differentiated from other African conflicts. Myers et al. (1996, p. 38) argues that Rwanda’s
conflict, which consisted of highly localised struggles in one of Africa’s smallest political
units, was ‘extrapolated to an undifferentiated continental ruin’ thereby obliterating
geographical context, making Africa appear ‘placeless as well as timeless’. Such
representations create wrong perceptions among western audiences who end up viewing
Africa as one continuous block afflicted by the same maladies.
Tribalisation
Consistent with the historical baggage frame the New York Times also portrayed the
Rwanda genocide as a result of long-running tribal hatred between the Hutu and the Tutsi.
The newspaper is replete with a repertoire of images that accentuate tribalism. Examples of
such headlines in the paper include ‘Tribal fighting flares again around Rwandan capital’
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(16 May 1994), ‘Tribal battle for Rwandan capital; new massacres reported’ (16 April
1994), ‘Don’t write off Rwanda’s violence as ethnic; Uganda shares the blame’ (20 April
1994), ‘Hutu mustn’t flee charges of genocide’ (10 May 1994) and ‘A Hutu family tries to
build in Tutsi-led Rwanda’ (9 August 1994). There is a preponderance of ethnic and tribal
markers such as ‘tribal strife’, ‘tribal slaughter’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘tribal hatred’
‘mayhem’, etc. Every aspect of the Rwandan conflict is tribalised. Thus, the Rwandan
Patriotic Front (RPF) is described as pitted in a tribal war against the ‘Hutu dominated
government of President Habyarimana’. Hutu refugees (‘perpetrators’) are distinct from
the Tutsi ones (‘victims’). Tutsi refugees bear ‘machete’ wounds that symbolise their
victimhood while Hutu refugees – the ‘perpetrators’ – arrive in the refugee camps armed
with primitive weapons of war such as machetes and clubs. Differences in physical
appearances between the two groups are also emphasised; the Tutsi are described as ‘tall
and elegant Nilotic people also known asWatutsi’ while the Hutus are described as ‘a short
stocky people living in the forested hills’.
Tribalisation of the conflict relieves the New York Times of the burden of explaining to
its western audience the multilayered causes of the conflict. By describing the genocide as a
something beyond comprehension, The New York Times projected the Rwanda conflict as
something mysterious, a maze or labyrinthine jigsaw puzzle that is difficult to understand.
Thus the air crash that killed President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and his Burundian
counterpart, Ndadaye, is described as ‘mysterious’ or ‘suspicious’. An example of this
mystification is found in a story published on 1 May 1994 where we are told that:
Machetes are the common weapon in massacres that began with April 6, death of RwandaPresident in a still mysterious air crash. The killings are selective; highest on the target list areRwandans known to be educated or favour human rights; possession of eyeglasses can befatal. Thus to rampaging ethnic butchers who claimed as many as 250 000 lives, a diploma is adeath certificate.
Attributing the Rwandan conflict solely to tribalisation masks some critical factors that also
helped in precipitating the genocide. Some scholars attribute the genocide to a combination
of factors rather than tribalisation (Myers et al. 1996,Melvern 2007,Wall 2007).Wall (2007,
p. 259) notes how ‘man-made’ problems such as the western-dictated economic structural
reforms created the circumstances for the genocide as economic and social infrastructure
neared collapse. By implying that the plane crash on 6 April 1994 was the lightning-rod that
triggered the genocidal killings in Rwanda, no attempt is made to historicise the conflict and
the multiple factors that led to the genocide. Economic and political factors and the fact that
tribalism in Rwanda was an invention of the Belgians, who introduced identity cards
classifying people according to their ethnicity, were downplayed by the newspaper. The
newspaper hardly explains to its customers how the colonialists sowed the seeds of hostility
between the Hutu and the Tustsi by promoting the Tutsi as superior to the Hutus, supposedly
because physical features of the Tutsi were similar to those of whites (BBC 2008). We are
also not told how President Habyarimana, whose popularity was waning due to the economic
problems the country was experiencing, opportunistically used the ethnic card as a way of
clinging to power, much the same way the Belgians were whipping up tribal sentiments to
maintain power during the colonial period. The role of France in militarily propping up
Habyarimana’s government was also not fully explained and it is because of this that
France’s mediation role was contested by the rebel RPF.
Some scholars (e.g. Melvern 2007) argue that the tendency to portray the Rwandan
conflict as an ancient tribal grudge created the impression among western audiences that
Rwanda was uncontrollable and that nothing could be done about it. Melvern (2007,
p. 192) notes that:
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In reality, a planned annihilation was taking place. This was not a sudden eruption of long-simmering hatred. Genocide does not take place in a context of anarchy. What was happeningwas the deliberate slaughter of Hutu moderates and all Tutsis in carefully planned andclinically carried out massacres. There are daily deliveries of weapons to the roadblocks.
On the other hand some scholars argue that the tendency to attribute African conflicts to
tribalism is due to the western press’s failure to locate the underlying opportunism and
factors in these conflicts (Myers et al. 1996, p. 42).
Western benevolence
TheNewYork Times representedwestern governments and relief agencies which responded
to the refugee crisis in the country as messiahs. Examples of such images are found in
news headlines like ‘Rwanda disaster; the overview; president orders Pentagon action to
aid Rwandans’ (23 July 1994), ‘With French exit near, Rwandans fear the day’ (9 August
1994), ‘France is sending force to Rwanda to help civilians’ (23 June 1994), ‘Strife in
Rwanda; France andBelgium send troops to rescue but not to intervene’ (11April 1994) and
‘UN flies food and medicine into Rwanda’, (17 April 1994). The refugee crisis presented
western governments and donors with an opportunity for positive publicity and to recover
lost glory after widespread condemnation for their lackadaisical responses to the genocide
early enough.
As a result, the flight of Rwandan refugees into Zaire and Tanzania became a big story
and was covered with much hype by the international press in order to justify the
humanitarian interventions in which the main actors were westerners.
TheNew York Times, for instance, accentuated the deplorable sanitary conditions in the
refugee camps, the outbreak of diseases such as cholera, dysentery, the amounts of funds
donated by ‘well-wishers’, and the ‘wonderful work’ which was being done by western
relief agencies in the most possible circumstances. The enormity of the refugee crisis was
reinforced through hyperbole and sensationalism. For instance, the then President of the
USA, Bill Clinton, was reported to have referred to the Rwandan crisis as ‘the world’s most
humanitarian crisis in a generation’ while the then French Prime Minister, Edouard
Balladur, reportedly described it as ‘one of the most unbearable dramas of recent times’
(New York Times, 23 July 1994). The evocation of humanistic rhetoric was meant to wring
the sympathy of western audiences and to convince donors their donations were being
channelled towards a good cause. The urgencywith which the refugee crisis was confronted
starkly contrasts with the lethargic approach during the early phases of the conflict when the
majority of people are reported to have been killed. Thus, the USA is reported to have
described the humanitarian crisis as ‘a race against time’ and President Clinton is reported
to have ‘called the United Nations to move as quickly as possible’ because every minute
was ‘tolling another death at the cholera stricken camps’ (New York Times, 23 July 1994).
Some critics partly blame western governments, particularly the USA for failing to stop
the genocide in Rwanda (Livingston 2007, Melvern 2007). Others argue that western
powers used the Somali debacle as an alibi not to intervene in Rwanda and yet the actual
reason for not intervening militarily in Rwanda was that they did not have any strategic
national interests in the country. Smyth (1994, p. 1) reasons that:
Rwanda is ‘nobody’s idea of a choice colonial prize’ as The Economist tartly put it. It has fewresources, little industry and a lot of Aids. Like its neighbour Burundi it has been torn byethnic strife between the Hutu and the Tutsi. But French is an official language – even thoughone in six adults are fluent in it – and that counts for a great deal. France has invested heavilyin Francophone Africa and provides military and financial aid to a network of its owncolonies. Mr. Habyarimana was a friend of President Francois Mitterrand. France’s
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commitment to the Habyarimana regime was underscored by its subsidy of Rwanda’spurchase of $6 million in arms from Egypt.
Compared to France and Belgium, which have a close historical affiliation with
Rwanda, the USA’s association with Rwanda was when it superintended the Arusha
agreement of 1993, its interest being ideological, i.e. promoting democracy and a free
market economy in a post-Cold War era.
Livingston (2007, p. 189) has observed that the majority of CNN news stories during
the three months of the Rwanda genocide were not about the Hutu massacre of the Tutsi
but focused more on Hutu refugees who were fleeing from the RPF. Some scholars argue
that western media tend to emphasise humanitarian interventions rather than military
interventions when covering African conflicts (Hilsum 2007, Michira 2002). Examples of
news headlines that attest to accentuate the plight of Rwanda refugees in the New York
Times include ‘More Rwandan refugees begin the long, painful trek’ (30 July 1994), ‘Out
of Rwanda’s horrors into sickening squalor’ (8 May 1994), ‘Refugees flee into Tanzania
from Rwanda’ (1 May 1994), ‘Tutsi refugees reported in Rwanda’ (30 June 1994), and
‘French in Rwanda discover thousands of Hutu refugees’ (28 June 1994). The refugee
crisis is often described as a human tragedy with refugees on the move being described as a
‘slow moving column of refugees from Rwanda trudged into Tanzania today, stretching
across 10 miles of roads and fanning out over the hills of elephant grass’ (New York Times,
1 May 1994).
As objects of pity refugees become metaphors of suffering and their eyewitness
accounts of the horror back home have all the ingredients to regale a western audience.
Thus, in a story headlined ‘Refugees flee into Tanzania from Rwanda’ (New York Times,
1 May 1994) a refugee, one Rama Munyurabihizi, aged 27, is quoted as saying:
We fled the RPF . . . They are killing people. We hardly saw any Rwandan military on theroad. They all left before us. I had to leave everything behind. I do not know where my familyis. All my commune left. We were about 30,000 people.
In another story we are told about the sad story of one Anatalie Mukunkuusi, whose
predicament is described thus:
Her daily challenge, like that of most of the quarter-million refugees on this open plain nearthe Rwandan border, is finding water, adequate food and shelter from the battering rains. Thechildren, mostly boys in ragged, dirty clothes, huddle together and talk in hushed tones abouttheir families.
In another story headlined ‘Bodies from Rwanda cast a pall on lakeside villages in
Uganda’ (New York Times, 28 May 1994), we are told how Ngoga Murumba spent ‘seven
days pulling bodies from Lake Victoria, wrapping them in plastic and piling them into
trucks’. We are told that:
By midday almost 100 bodies, loosely wrapped in black and white plastic sheeting – somealmost intact and others nothing but skeleton with patchy pieces of flesh and skulls crackedopen – are staked at the entrance of this small fishing village waiting to be taken to a grave.
Michira argues that framing Africa as ‘dependent’, facing a crisis of grim proportions and
‘needing help’ or ‘needing re-colonization’ is used to justify ‘the galvanization of the
western humanitarian agencies and governments to “Intervene”’ (Michira 2002, p. 6).
Thus, a lot of attention was given to relief operations and other interventions by
western governments and donors. Headlines such as ‘US to supply 60 vehicles for UN
troops in Rwanda’ (16 June 1994), ‘Life-saving aid for Rwanda’ (30 July 1994),
‘The Rwanda disaster; the overview; president orders Pentagon action to aid Rwandans’
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(23 July 94) are all testament to the view that the New York Times sought to portray
western governments and relief agencies as philanthropic.
France, the only western power to send troops to Rwanda, was also portrayed as a
saviour of African lives, although its role was viewed as ambivalent. Its previous
entanglement in Rwandan politics was portrayed as her Achilles heel but her intervention
in Rwanda was all the same represented as useful if not messianic. News headlines which
show this representation include ‘France’s useful role in Rwanda’ (18 August 1994),
‘France is sending force to Rwanda to help civilians’ (23 June 1994), ‘France may move in
to end Rwanda killing’ (16 June 1994), ‘Strife in Rwanda; France and Belgium: France
and Belgium send troops to rescue but not to intervene’ (11 April 1994), and ‘French
paratroopers disarm Rwandan militias, saying they are allies of neither tribe’ (26 June
1994).
The messiah role of France was dramatised in a story published in the New York Times
(9 August 1994), headlined ‘With French exit near, Rwandans fear the day’. The story
partly read:
Although the number of dead has never been reliably computed, there is general agreementthat it is hundreds of thousands. The French arrived in June too late to prevent the worst of themassacres, Colonel de Stabenrath said, but pointed out that they came when no one else wouldand probably prevented further slaughter. Nobody will ask the people of this corner ofRwanda whether or not the 2200 French troops should leave. But if they are asked, the answerwould almost certainly be a resounding no. ‘If they leave, we shall die’ said a 34-year-oldpeasant woman, Marie Nyirahabiyarenge.
By projecting France’s benevolence towards the people of Rwanda the New York Times
ignored the meddlesome behaviour of France in Rwandan politics, particularly that she
supplied Rwanda with some weapons, some of which were used during the genocide, and
that on many occasions helped the Habyarimana government to fight off RPF rebels.
Some scholars argue that the western media do not generally get attracted to African
cries until the story becomes pitiful or when the strategic national interests of their
countries are affected. The New York Times’s coverage of the humanitarian crisis in
Rwanda shows that the newspaper was motivated by the desire to portray westerners as
saviours of lives.
Western indifference
Three months after the genocide in Rwanda had begun the Clinton administration in the
USA was still refusing to acknowledge that genocide was taking place in Rwanda. A story
published in the New York Times of 10 June 1994 reported that the administration had
instructed its spokesperson not to describe the killings in Rwanda as genocide but to say
‘acts of genocide may have occurred’ as this would ‘inflame public calls for action the
administration was unwilling to take’. Some critics blame this ‘political ping-pong with
terminology’ and ‘semantic fastidiousness’ for the indifference of western countries and
suggest that such inaction was rooted in racial theories of the west (Vaught 2007, p. 11).
Because of this ‘hands-off approach’ (Patrick, n.d.) the USA was projected as more
realistic while France’s military intervention was portrayed as a risky mission. Examples
of news headlines which show the cautious approach include ‘US backs troops for Rwanda
but terms bar any action soon’ (17 May 1994), ‘Officials told to avoid Rwanda killings
“genocide”’(10 June 1994), and ‘France’s risky Rwanda plan’ (24 June 1994).
The then United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali is reported to have
been exasperated by the international community’s indifference and is quoted by the
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New York Times (29 May 1994) as having said: ‘unfortunately, let us say with great
humility, I have failed. It is a scandal. I am the first to say it, and I am ready to repeal it’.
We are told that the major reason for theWest’s reluctance to intervene in Rwanda was
the so-called ‘Somali debacle’ where the US met its Waterloo, after 18 American soldiers
were killed, and the bodies of two soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu
(Oloya 2010).
An opposition member of the British parliament is reported to have quizzed the then
Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd why Britain was not sending peacekeeping troops to
Rwanda as it had done to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The MP’s question is described as
‘reflecting Europe’s rising horror’ over the killings in Rwanda while Mr. Hurd’s
lamentation that Britain did not have a clear mission in Rwanda was described as an
example of ‘the fear of European governments that active involvement there could lead
them into a bloody quagmire’ (New York Times, 25 May 1994). European governments are
described as concerned about the situation in Rwanda but are not willing to intervene
politically because ‘in this conflict between humanitarian impulses and a cold calculation
of national interest realpolitik is winning’.
A letter to the editor in the New York Times (15 June 1994) headlined ‘Shameful
dawdling on Rwanda’ accused the Clinton administration of dragging its feet while a
humanitarian disaster was unfolding in Rwanda. The administration was accused of
‘applying a semantic sponge to crimes against humanity’ while the Pentagon was
described as ‘paralyzed’ and ‘quibbling over nickels and dimes instead of rushing US
armored vehicles’ to save lives in Rwanda (New York Times, 15 June 1994).
An opinion column in the New York Times (25 May 1994) claimed European
governments feared ‘repeating the debacle of Somalia, where a United Nations force took
publicised casualties and was ultimately forced to withdraw from the country without
having pacified’ (Kinzer 1994, p. 1). Patrick notes how in the first few weeks of the
genocide some US newspaper editorials argued that nothing could be done about Rwanda,
thereby discouraging any form of outside involvement. He notes that:
The hands-off approach did not even deviate even amid reports of 100,000 dead. Instead, thepossibility of another Somalia-type was actively discouraged and Rwanda was underlined asan example of the problems endemic to Africa as a whole. (Patrick n.d., p. 4)
Former colonial powers are further described as ‘no longer willing to intervene quickly in
African lands’ while Denmark describes the Rwandan mission as ‘uncertain’ (Patrick,
n.d., p. 1).
When the US approved the deployment by France of 2500 troops to ‘quell the ethnic
massacres in Rwanda’ the New York Times described the action as ‘a risky plan’. Although
France argued that its troops would not occupy territory but was only interested in saving
‘threatened civilian lives’, an editorial in the New York Times (24 June 1994) argued that
‘as the Somali experience attests “humanitarian” mandates tend to expand very rapidly,
and to prevent another debacle. France needs to be held to its word’. The reluctance to
intervene militarily in Rwanda is also demonstrated by the fact that five out of fifteen
members of the Security Council abstained in a resolution authorising France to deploy its
troops in Rwanda. US officials were described by the New York Times as ‘skittish’ while
the US government’s non-intervention stance was hailed as ‘realism’ since the country did
not have any strategic national interests to protect in Rwanda. The newspaper reasoned
that:
Realism is not the same as heartlessness. America has no vital interest in Rwanda, and primaryresponsibility for stopping the killings rests with Africans. What America can do is to provide
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more vigorous logistical support to peacekeepers promised by African states. (New YorkTimes, 24 June 1994)
An opinion piece in the New York Times (31 July 1994) made a spirited defence of the US
stance on non-intervention, arguing that:
Increasingly those demanding armed action against genocide have made the United Nationstheir chosen instrument. The urge to defend innocent victims reflects humanity at its best. Butthe task is rarely as simple as it looks. And UN military intervention is, in most cases thewrong tool. (Unger 1994)
This shows that the western media regard national interests as an overriding imperative in
foreign policy issues; regardless of whatever differences they may have with their
governments there is always convergence of opinion on national interests.
On the other hand, the New York Times poured cold water on France’s military
intervention in Rwanda, often describing it as a ‘risky’ undertaking, ‘tricky’, ‘complex’,
‘dicey’, ‘precarious’ or ‘ambivalent’.
Examples of news headlines to that effect include ‘France’s risky Rwanda plan’ (24
June 1994), ‘As the French aid the Tutsi backlash grows’ (2 July 1994), ‘Tense times for
France-Africa tie’ (9 November 1994). ‘The French don’t look neutral in Rwanda’ (6 July
1994). France’s past affiliation with and bias towards the Habyarimana government
disqualifies her as an arbiter in the Rwanda conflict.
For instance, in a letter to the editor (New York Times, 6 July 1994) the writer points
out that France was biased in favour of the Hutu government, having previously sent
troops to prop it up when it was facing pressure from the RPF, suggesting it would have
been more rational for France to take a back seat as well. France’s decision to deploy 50
troops in the Biserero mountains of Rwanda to help Tutsi refugees is described as certain
to ‘inflame the government, which is dominated by the Hutu tribe and had expected the
French, who have come to their aid in the past, to help them defeat the Tutsi-led rebels’.
A radio station controlled by the militant Hutu was reported to have accused the French of
‘collaborating with the Rwandan Patriotic Front’, further reinforcing the view that
France’s undertaking in Rwanda was complex and potentially disastrous. We are also told
that the French were consistently criticised by relief organisations for being ‘too partial
toward the Hutu government’. The description of ‘French flags everywhere’ in Bisesero
evokes the image of French neo-colonialism in Rwanda, further reinforcing the view that
France was the least qualified country to intervene there. If this is juxtaposed to the US’
‘realism’ it becomes clear that the New York Times followed the lead set by its government
as far as the Rwandan genocide was concerned.
Although the general approach by western countries was to take a cautious approach
on Rwanda, sometimes this caution became indifference if not resignation. Since Rwanda
was framed as yet another ‘hopeless’ African conflict about which nothing could be done,
a general sense of resignation pervades the news discourses in the New York Times. For
instance, in a story headlined ‘World turns its attention to Rwanda’ (New York Times, 20
May 1994) a US official is quoted as saying that diplomatic efforts to end the Rwanda
crisis have only yielded a whirlwind resulting in the ‘wringing of hands’ by the
international community. Also, in a story headlined ‘Double tragedy for Africa’ (New York
Times, 10 April 1994) the Rwanda crisis is described as a ‘conflict without end’ adding
another failed state to a long list including ‘Bosnia, Somalia and Liberia’. We are told that:
Neighboring states, the Organisation of African Unity, and the UN, all have a primaryresponsibility to provide emergency relief and keep open doors for peacemaking. But at some
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point the world may need to ask, if these efforts fail, whether or not to stand aside if thebelligerents cannot agree.
The newspaper’s view was that Rwanda would be better left alone and western countries
would be better off keeping at arm’s length rather than getting entangled in the cobweb of
a fruitless and endless African conflict.
It was often speculated that instead of getting better the crisis in Rwanda would get
worse. This view is demonstrated through such headlines as ‘Rwanda’s very long haul’
(New York Times, 8 April 1994), ‘Group aiding Rwandans stops, citing terror’ (New York
Times, 15 November 1994). This sense of hopelessness and resignation could have
resulted in the United Nations succumbing to pressure from the US government to scale
down troops in Rwanda in May 1994, at a time when the genocide was at its peak.
Significantly, humanitarian and relief organisations such as Doctors Without Borders also
temporarily stopped operations citing security threats. The then Secretary General of
Doctors Without Borders, Alan Destexhe, wrote in the New York Times (23 May 1994)
complaining about the UN’s decision to cut the number of troops in Rwanda. He lamented
the fact that his organisation was forced to ‘stand helplessly by and watch the massacre of
at least 100 of our local Rwanda workers in acts of unspeakable savagery’, resulting in the
organisation abandoning its mission in some areas.
Some scholars argue that the world’s indifference to Rwanda might have contributed
to the fact that the industrialised world has come to the conclusion that African countries
are hopeless cases (Alozie 2007).
Conclusion
This paper has discussed framing of the 1994Rwandan genocide in theNew York Times and
the possible impact of such framing on public opinion and perceptions. The paper has
identified and discussed four main frames, namely those of ‘historical baggage’,
‘tribalisation’, ‘western benevolence’ and ‘western indifference’. It was argued here that
the New York Times’s representation of the Rwandan genocide is laden with historical
colonial baggage where conflict is regarded as endemic in and emblematic of the continent.
The Rwanda conflict was simplistically and stereotypically represented as rooted in ancient
and primitive tribal hatred between theHutus and the Tutsis in a hopeless and dark continent
which the western audience of the New York Times could not easily understand.
The representation strikes a chord with the observation of a former correspondent of
some western news agencies who notes that:
Although a vital question could be that why they believe what they believe, what they read, seeand hear in their media the real issue is that western audience are rarely offered an alternativeview of Africa. Positive Africa is dry news and dry news does not sell. What sells is PIDIC-Poverty, Instability, Disease, Illiteracy, and Corruption. (Jere-Malanda 2008, p. 36)
Framing the genocide this way also resulted in over simplification of a multifaceted and
complex dispute whose causes go beyond tribalism. Consequently the newspaper failed to
account for the impact of socio-economic, political and historical factors that contributed to
the genocide in Rwanda, such as the impact of the structural adjustment programme
introduced in 1990 and the meddlesome role of France and Belgium in Rwanda’s internal
affairs. It has also been argued that the misrepresentation of the Rwandan conflict was
critical for decisionsmade particularly by the powerful countries of the west in that Rwanda
was conflated with the whole African continent meaning that the genocide in that country
was reduced to a ‘normal’ African tragedy about which nothing much could be done. Other
than the refugee crisis, which presented an opportunity for westerners to present themselves
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as benevolent life-savers, the genocide itself did not receive the attention it deserved.
Because western countries did not have any strategic national interests, military
intervention was discouraged and projected as realism while intervention was portrayed as
misguided enthusiasm.
As noted by Miller (2004, p. 4) the coverage of Rwanda demonstrates the need to
challenge hegemonic and ‘mechanistic interpretations’ of conflicts inAfrica and to disabuse
the western press of the numerous stereotypes which they unjustifiably ascribe to the
continent.
Note
1. See Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, Chapter 13, p. 3. Available from: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-c.html [Accessed 4 June 2010].
Notes on contributor
Tendai Chari is a Media Studies Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media Studies,School of Human and Social Sciences, University of Venda, South Africa. His research interests aremedia representation, political communication, media ethics, media policy and media, music,popular culture, and democracy and development. His other publications have appeared in EcquidNovi: Journal of African Media Studies, Muziki, and African Identities.
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