Hutu Power - Voices of Hutu Power

Voices of Hutu Power

Hutu Power acquired a variety of spokesmen. Hassan Ngeze, an entrepreneur recruited by the government to combat the Tutsi publication Kanguka, created and edited Kangura, a radical Hutu Power newsletter. He published the "Hutu Ten Commandments", which included the following:

• Hutu and Tutsi should not intermarry;
• the education system must be composed of a Hutu majority (reflecting the population); and
• the Rwandan armed forces should be exclusively Hutu.

Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines broadcast radio shows suggesting the end to toleration of the Tutsi, repeating the Hutu ten commandments, and building support for the Hutu Power ideology. It was an attempt to mobilize the population to help eradicate the Tutsi, who were portrayed as threatening the social and political order achieved since independence, and as envisioned by the akazu. Politician Léon Mugesera gave a speech: "Do not be afraid, know that anyone whose neck you do not cut is the one who will cut your neck...Let them pack their bags, let them get going, so that no one will return here to talk and no one will bring scraps claiming to be flags!" The radio programs frequently referred to the Tutsi as inyenzi, a Kinyarwanda word meaning 'cockroach'.