The Voice of America

Anybody paying attention notices the similarity between the genocide that happened in Rwanda and the violence running rampant right now in Kenya (see post below). VOA says this:

Media monitors in Kenya say inflammatory statements and songs broadcast on local language radio stations have contributed significantly to the surge in post-election ethnic violence that has killed nearly 900 people and displaced 255,000 others during the past month. As VOA correspondent Alisha Ryu reports from Nairobi, the broadcasts bear a striking similarity to 1994 broadcasts in Rwanda that helped whip ethnic Hutus into a killing frenzy that resulted in the genocide of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis. The broadcasts that incited Rwandan ethnic Hutus to commit genocide used dehumanizing language against ethnic Tutsis.

According to the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, which monitored hate speech before the December 27 national elections, local radio stations in Kenya also aired opinions that used dehumanizing language and obscure references to make negative, sometimes genocidal, comments about other ethnic groups.

Check out “Hotel Rwanda” and see this viciousness as it happened. And as it’s tragically happening again.

And what will the voice of America – and other developed nations – be?

One of the little known or hardly remembered highlights of the recently deceased Congressman Henry Hyde’s government service was his efforts to build VOA into something much bigger and stronger, with television broadcasts along with radio. Why? Because he strongly believed that the the truth about human dignity and freedom had the power to change hearts and minds.

Kenya needs that urgently, but first the forces of law and justice have to stop the violence. And get humanitarian relief to those people in desperate need.