ABSTRACT
Language is a double-edged sword. It can heal or kill. In the case of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the effect of language was lethal. It is generally believed that the hate media, such as the RTLM1 and the Kangura newspaper, played a key role in the instigation of genocide and other crimes against humanity committed in this small central African country. There exists a wide range of research on the hate media which paved the way for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.2 A number of judgments rendered by the ICTR, in particular the so-called “Media Trial,”3 have brought into the limelight the powerful role which language can play in the commission of crime. However, in a number of ICTR genocide cases, the debate around some recurrent polysemic Kinyarwanda key terms which were used during or even before the 1994 Rwandan genocide is not only to determine whether these words belong in the hate media, but also what they actually mean. Since the use of such key words relates directly to the offenses of genocide and instigation to commit genocide, the TC has to determine their meaning.
