World

dealt with the impact on the tourism industry. Forexample:Reporter: This is Uganda’s web-site, sold as the Pearl ofAfrica, tourism is a crucial part of her economy. (BBC11300-1330)But statements such as these were generallyinsubstantial in nature. Only Sky News covered the issuein any depth, this focused on how tourism had helpedrebuild East Africa’s economy ‘20 years after Idi Amin’sblood-drenched tyranny’. We are told that tourism, aftercoffee, is Uganda’s ‘biggest dollar and pound earner’ andthat the ‘massacre has done untold damage to the imageof one of East Africa’s emerging economies’. Forexample:John Kayihura, Tour Operator: …it’s going to be ayear or so before we can really get back in line, but thegorilla viewing and gorilla safaris are going to be affectedtremendously.Reporter: Kampala’s tour offices are busy only withcancellations, what normally are the peak sessions forsafaris. It’s estimated that the stay-away could cost over£100,000 a month. And that’s money this country couldill-afford to lose and after coffee production and priceshave financially become volatile, overseas visitorscontributed the biggest amount of foreign currency,accounting until Monday at any rate, for 5% of the entirenational wealth. Last year, there was a year’s waiting listfor permits to track the rare Silver-Backed Gorillasthrough the Bwindi Hills, now the Impenetrable Forestlives up to its name, swept only by helicopter gunships insearch for the elusive killers who were bringing a slowdeath to Uganda’s tourism. (5.3.99 Sky News 1838)There was only one report which referred to theconsequences on conservation in the region.Shaun Mann, Tourism Advisor to the UgandanGovernment: From a conservation perspective, it’s verydamaging because the gorilla permits bring a lot ofrevenue, about 70% of the revenue required to kind ofkeep these protected areas staffed and operating andwithout that revenue we’re going to struggle to paysalaries next month. (3.3.99 Channel 4 1900-1955)Although many of the explanations did attempt torelate the murder of Western tourists to the history ofthe region, the quality of these accounts variedsubstantially. Most of the 31 explanations provided littlemore than a basic allusion to the 1994 genocide inRwanda and in most cases, the economic or politicalstructure that yielded the violence is not discussed. Thegenocide is represented simply as the result of‘trouble…between…tribes’ and ‘rebel groups’:Reporter: It’s been increasingly volatile, ever since thetrouble in neighbouring Rwanda, between the differenttribes there… (1.3.99 BBC1 1800-1830)Reporter: Those responsible for the kidnapping areRwandan Hutus, known as the Interahamwe. They wereresponsible for the genocide against the Tutsi four yearsago when one million people died in just 100 days. Sincethe killing they’ve linked up with other rebel groups in theBwindi National Park area, known also as theImpenetrable Forest. (2.3.99 Channel 5 1200-1230)Explanations which attribute responsibility for thekidnapping to the Interahamwe gave little sense of thepolitical conflict that precipitated the violence andcontinues to furnish rebel activity. We are told repeatedlythey are ‘bitter, murderous men’ who ‘slaughteredhundreds of thousands of men, women and childrenduring the Rwandan civil war of 1994’ but with noreference to the history of the nature of Rwandan society.The genocide is little explained, as this Channel 5 reportdemonstrates:Reporter: Tourists have been coming to these jungles foradventure and to see the famous mountain gorillas, butnow this area known as the Impenetrable Forest, hasclearly been infiltrated by the notorious killers, theInterahamwe.Facts intended to contextualise the events, are socompressed that they render the informationmeaningless. Juxtaposed against the visual of a crowd ofpeople pushing and pulling, the graphic appears:Graphic: INTERAHAMWE‘Those who kill together’Genocide left more than half a million deadLost control of RwandaIn exile on the bordersReporter: They caused havoc in their native Rwanda.The name Interahamwe means ‘Those who kill together.’In 1994, those extremists from the Hutu ethnic groupkilled more than half a million people. They lost out torivals from the ethnic group, the Tutsi, who now controlRwanda, but it’s thought tens of thousands of Hutu nowlive in exile on the borders of Uganda. And tonight it’semerged that these killers may have singled out Britishvictims in particular.Professor George Kirya, Ugandan HighCommissioner: There was a message which was left by50 DFID – July 2000