President Juvenal Habyarimana faced significant challenges when RPF launched its armed struggle. In order to survive, his regime adopted a strategy of mobilisation that brought together intellectual resources aligned with its objectives.
ALSO READ: Habyarimana's role in planning, implementing 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi
The regime sought out whistle-blowers and encouraged the creation of competing newspapers deeply engaged in ethnic issues and the struggle against internal and external enemies. The aim of these newspapers was to project a louder and stronger voice than other media outlets, leading to the emergence of a wide range of extremist publications.
These newspapers were involved in the same "business” of spreading ethnic hatred. They ensured an explicitly ethnic focus, which in turn helped sustain an effective and prolonged resistance against RPF.
Historian Innocent Nsengimana wrote: "The aggression against Rwanda, which began in October 1990, was unlawful; it was driven by feudal nostalgia armed to fight democracy. It was an attempt to revive the historical dream of restoring the hegemony of the minority Hamites over the Bantu masses.”
The selective and asymmetrical use of strong language gave the war an ethnic dimension and ideologically politicised the composition of Rwandan society. It rationalised particular interests in broader, more general terms. Martin Bucyana, the president of CDR, an extremist party, denounced what he described as the weak attitude of certain Hutu leaders. He said these were "leaders concerned only with satisfying personal and egoistic ambitions, instead of uniting the popular majority faced with a threat from feudalists seeking revenge.”
The Umurwanashyaka newspaper editorial called on everyone to declare the camp to which they belonged, urging them to recall the events of 1959 and 1973. The editorial stated: "The Tutsi are bloodthirsty and power-hungry. They seek to impose their hegemony on the Rwandan people through the barrel of a gun.”
The extract also echoed Habyarimana’s speech. On November 1, 1990, he declared: "Rather than abandon any part of our territory, however small, we would prefer to fight to the last man rather than allow our country to be destroyed and an elitist, feudal, and monarchical regime to be installed. They [RPF] want to reinstate a feudal system from the past and force us into a super-regional entity.”
Articles published in one newspaper were often reproduced in others under different signatures. By repeatedly circulating the same content on the same subject, the newspapers revealed what truly mattered. In effect, they imposed a particular version of reality to which both public authorities and the population were expected to respond.
The use of terms such as "ambition,” "Tutsi provocation,” "peasant suffering,” "popular anger,” "return to feudalism,” and "Hima-Tutsi invasion” created a sense of urgency and justified the need for self-defence. Hassan Ngeze, one of the journalists actively involved in intensifying ethnic tensions, wrote: "What we know is that, thanks to the revolution, the majority was able to reclaim its country, which had been taken by a group of Tutsi who exploited it for more than 400 years. If things continue in this way, we will need another revolution, like that of 1959, for the majority to reclaim what is rightfully theirs.”
By contrasting the effects of what was portrayed as Tutsi domination, the press sought to give meaning and coherence to ongoing events. By directly opposing concepts such as democracy versus feudalism, majority versus minority, and natives versus foreigners, the ideological construction of identity became highly visible and seemingly rational.
In March 1991, the extremist newspaper Kangura relied on supposed scientific and cultural arguments to further intensify this opposition of identities.
The writer is a historian based in Kigali.