Hassan Ngeze is a Rwandan journalist best known for spreading anti-Tutsi propaganda and Hutu superiority through his newspaper, Kangura, which he founded in 1990. Ngeze was a founding member and leadership figure in the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic, a Rwandan Hutu Powerpolitical party that is known for helping to incite the genocide. Ngeze is best known for publishing the "Hutu Ten Commandments" in the December edition of Kangura in 1990, which were essential in creating and spreading the anti-Tutsi feeling among Rwandan Hutus that led to the Rwandan genocide.
Biography
Early life
Ngeze was born in Rubavu commune, Gisenyi prefecture, in Rwanda. He is a Muslim, of Hutu ethnicity. In addition to working as a journalist in 1978, Ngeze allegedly also earned money as a bus driver.
Kangura, the "Hutu Ten Commandments" and RTLM
Ngeze was the Editor-in-Chief of the bimonthly Kangura magazine, which was initially intended as a counterweight to the popular anti-government newspaper Kanguka, and was financed by high-level members in the ruling MRND party of Hutu dictator Juvénal Habyarimana. Ngeze and his magazine had extensive links to the Akazu, the network of officials surrounding the President and his wife; this group included supporters of Hutu Power and the architects of the Rwandan genocide. In December 1990, Ngeze published the Hutu Ten Commandments in Kangura, which made disparaging remarks about Tutsis in general and Tutsi women in particular. With the Hutu Ten Commandments, Ngeze revived, revised, and reconciled the Hamitic myth and the rhetoric of the Hutu revolution to promote a doctrine of militant Hutu purity. The "Hutu Ten Commandments" were essential in creating and spreading the anti-Tutsi feeling among Rwandan Hutus that led to the Rwandan genocide. In 1993, Ngeze became a shareholder and correspondent for the newly founded Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, which was largely a radio equivalent of Kangura. He was interviewed approximately eight times on RTLM.
Genocide
During the Rwandan genocide, Ngeze provided RTLM with names of people to be killed in his prefecture, which were broadcast on air. He was interviewed by RTLM and Radio Rwanda several times between April and June 1994, and in these broadcasts called for the extermination of the Tutsis and Hutus in opposition to the government. At the same time, Kangura published lists of people to be eliminated by the military and the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi militias during the genocide. Ngeze is alleged to have personally supervised and taken part in torture, mass rape, and killings in his native Gisenyi Prefecture. He was also an organizer of the Impuzamugambi militia.
