Academics tell head of BBC that it is not legitimate to promote genocide denial
London (October 13) - Thirty eight prominent academics, historians, politicians and journalists have sent a letter to the Director-General of the BBC, Tony Hall, complaining about the way an hour-long TV documentary on October 1 left viewers with an impression that the majority Hutus, rather than minority Tutsis, were the main victims of 100 days of ethnic slaughter that resulted in over a million deaths in Rwanda in 1994.
The lead signature belongs to Professor Linda Melvern, author of ""A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda''s Genocide; Conspiracy to murder." (NAEP, Cape Town / ZED Books, London 2000).
The letter says: "We accept and support that it is legitimate to investigate, with due diligence and respect for factual evidence, any crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and to reflect on the contemporary political situation in Rwanda. However, attempts to examine these issues should not distort the reality of the 1994 genocide. It is not legitimate to use current events to either negate or to diminish the genocide. Nor is it legitimate to promote genocide denial."
It says that claims made in the documentary called "Untold Story" that it was 800,000 Hutus rather than the same number of Tutsis who were killed in three months of slaughter are "old claims" adding: "For years similar material using similar language has been distributed far and wide as part of an on-going ‘Hutu Power' campaign of genocide denial. At the heart of this campaign are convicted genocidaires, some of their defence lawyers from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and their supporters and collaborators. These deniers continually question the status of the genocide and try to prove -- like the programme -- that what it calls the ‘official narrative' of the 1994 genocide is wrong. The BBC programme ‘"Rwanda''s Untold Story'" recycles their arguments and provides them with another platform to create doubt and confusion about what really happened.""
It went on to say that the BBC programme attempted to minimize the number of Tutsis murdered.