Editor,

A former ORINFOR employee, Dismas Mukeshabatware was, last month, sentence to 19 years in prison for his role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Imprisonment as a punishment, is about the restriction of certain rights that, otherwise innocent individuals take for  granted.

However, the management at ORINFOR has stunned the Rwandan public, by continuing to air numerous programs featuring Mr. Mukeshabatware, ranging from commercial advertisements to Radio theatre.

It is beyond my imagination that, in fact, the voice of a genocide convict should be dominating the airwaves of a national broadcaster.

The last time the survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi were subjected to this kind of mental torture was a few years ago, when the British Broadcasting cooperation BBC aired interviews featuring Rwandan Genocide criminals in a Malian prison.

The program was roundly denounced in Rwanda and abroad and the government of Rwanda summoned the BBC managers to explain this frontal attack on the survivors.

To the surviving relatives of Mukeshabatware’s victims, who are now subjected to his voice on Radio Rwanda, day in day and out, it is such a traumatic experience that nobody should have to endure.

That the BBC chose to rub salt in the wounds of the survivors was outrageous and obscene enough, however, it is even worse that ORINFOR within our midst is doing it with abandon.

This is beyond me, and may be someone can help me to find an appropriate language to describe this insensitity towards  the survivors.

Betty Higiro
Kimironko