Researching stuff, one thing of course can lead to so many others.Researching what happened in and around Fallujah in April 2004 and November 2004 I came across this article from Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches describing Operation Vigilant Resolve - of which more will sometime soon appear in the Research Forum.But also extremely interesting in this and other contexts is this attached comment from 'garda - editor, www.worldproutassembly.org:<snip>
On December 3, 2003, three members of the mass media in Rwanda were convicted for “incitement to genocide, conspiracy, and crimes against humanity, extermination and persecution” by the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR), which was held in Arusha, Tanzania. Ferdinand Nahimana, founder of Radio Television des Mille Collines, was sentenced to life in prison. Hassan Ngeze, chief editor of the ‘Kanguara’ newspaper was also sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide which left nearly one million people dead. Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, another member of Radio Television des Mille Collines, was sentenced to 35 years in prison. All three were found to have played a major role in preparing the people for genocide.
On April 25, 1994, Nahimana said in a radio interview that the “war of media, words, newspapers and radio stations” were a complement to bullets. The judge, when sentencing him, said: “You were fully aware of the power of words, and you used the radio –- the medium of communication with the widest public reach –- to disseminate hatred and violence …. Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, you caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.” The judge further told Nahimana: “You were a known academic, a professor of history at the national university of Rwanda and you used the radio to disseminate hatred and violence…. Instead of using the media to promote human rights, you used it to attack and destroy human rights.”
In sentencing the editor, Mr. Ngeze, to life imprisonment, the judge told him that while he agreed Ngeze had rescued several Tutsi, he told him, “Your power to save was more than matched by your power to kill. You poisoned the minds of your readers, and by words and deeds caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians.” Ngeze used his magazine, Kangura, “to instill hatred, promote fear and incite genocide.”
To Barayagwiza, the assistant editor at RTML, the judge said that he “violated the most fundamental human right, the right to life.”
ICTR Prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow, from Gambia, said in reaction to the verdict:
The tribunal has established an international precedent that those who use
media to target a racial or ethnic group for destruction will face justice…. Much remains to be done, but this tribunal is well on its way to completing its mission of trailing those who bear the greatest responsibility for genocide.