Twenty years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom

Conflicts compromise media’s
autonomy, but some can rise above it
By Marie Soleil Frere
Marie Soleil Frere is a researcher
at <strong>the</strong> Département des Sciences de
l’Information et de la Communication,
Universite Libre de Bruxelles, and
author of “The Media and Conflicts in
Central Africa”. Her new book “Votes
and Voices for Peace? The Media and
Elections in Central Africa” is being
published by Zed Books in 2011.
146 | Media in Africa - 2011
In 1991, journalists and editors
ga<strong>the</strong>red in <strong>Windhoek</strong> and proclaimed
how <strong>the</strong> emerging press
freedom in many African countries
could be a new chance for <strong>the</strong> continent.
The <strong>Windhoek</strong> <strong>Declaration</strong>
insisted that all <strong>the</strong> barriers to a fully
free activity for <strong>the</strong> media should
be removed. The new private press
was viewed as participating in “<strong>the</strong>
worldwide trend towards democracy
and freedom of information and
expression”, which was said to be
“a fundamental contribution to <strong>the</strong>
fulfilment of human aspirations”.
This enthusiasm didn’t last long
everywhere, however, and two
decades later <strong>the</strong> equation “free
press = consolidation of democracy”
has been widely challenged on
<strong>the</strong> continent. This especially in a
number of countries which have
faced an armed conflict or political
instability, and where <strong>the</strong> media
have often been directly involved in
spreading violence, nurturing wars
and fuelling hatred and tensions.
In Burundi, as early as 1993, <strong>the</strong>
words “hate press” were used to
describe a range of private newspapers
violently clashing with each
o<strong>the</strong>r during <strong>the</strong> first democratic
presidential elections. When <strong>the</strong>
newly elected Hutu president was
assassinated four months <strong>after</strong> <strong>the</strong>
polls by his Tutsi presidential guard,
<strong>the</strong> people in Burundi and <strong>the</strong> international
community witnessed <strong>the</strong>
potentially murderous chemistry of
political pluralism and ‘free’ press.
A couple of months later, in Rwanda,
a private radio station, RTLM
(Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines),
using music and <strong>the</strong> vernacular
language Kinyarwanda, went
even fur<strong>the</strong>r in injecting hatred in
<strong>the</strong> minds of <strong>the</strong> people. The radio
actively collaborated in <strong>the</strong> practical
implementation of <strong>the</strong> genocide,
inflaming <strong>the</strong> local militias called
<strong>the</strong> “Interahamwe” and broadcasting
orders as well as directions to
facilitate <strong>the</strong> killing of more than
a million Tutsi people and Hutu
democrats, including more than 50
journalists.
In December 2003, nine <strong>years</strong> later,
<strong>the</strong> International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Arusha,
Tanzania, sentenced four of <strong>the</strong>
staff members to long jail terms, as
well as financial backers and ideologists
of this hate medium. For <strong>the</strong>
first time in <strong>the</strong> history of humanity,
individuals were convicted for having
established and participated in
“hate media”: a sad record for Africa.
In both Burundi and Rwanda, <strong>the</strong>se
new ‘free’ African media – whose aim
was to serve political propaganda
more than to inform professionally
– led to murderous consequences.
The lack of training of journalists
who were newcomers in <strong>the</strong> job and
had no specialised background was
not <strong>the</strong> main factor explaining <strong>the</strong>
hateful content.