Radio Télévision Libre de Mille Collines

Radio Télévision Libre de Mille Collines (RTLM) was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from 8 July 1993 to 31 July 1994. It played a significant role during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.

Widely listened to by the general population, it disseminated hate propaganda against Tutsis, moderate Hutus, Belgians, and the United Nations mission UNAMIR. It is widely regarded as having played a crucial role in creating the atmosphere of charged racial hostility necessary for the genocide to have taken place. At the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, three men associated with the station have been convicted of genocide and incitement to genocide. Their convictions are currently (as of 2005) being appealed.

As the genocide was taking place, the United States military drafted a plan to jam RTLM's brodcasts, but this action was never taken because of the cost of the operation and the legal implications of interfering with Rwanda's sovereignty.

The station's name is French for "Thousand Hills Independent Radio and Television", deriving from the description of Rwanda as Le pays de Mille Collines (Land of a Thousand Hills).

External link

• "Hate Radio:Rwanda" – part of a Radio Netherlands dossier on "Counteracting Hate Radio"