ABSTRACT
When a defendant is charged with incitement to mass atrocity crimes, such as genocide, understanding the culture-specific resonances and impact of communications on the perpetrators can determine the ultimate issue in a trial. As Cassese noted, “even implicit messages or utterances may amount to incitement, as long as the addressees immediately grasp the implications of the message in light of its cultural and linguistic content.” In this regard, one of the most complex and controversial international criminal trials has been the case of Simon Bikindi, a Rwandan singer-songwriter whose music played a significant role in Rwandan society prior to as well as during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The prosecution at the ICTR has, however, failed to prove the charges relating to Bikindi’s music in the conditioning and execution of the genocide. In this chapter, Évariste Ntakirutimana and Marie-Claire Uwamariya offer the final authoritative interpretation of three of Bikindi’s songs in Kinyarwanda from the perspective of two expert native speakers. Their analysis is focused on the linguistic aspects of the evidence introduced during the ICTR trial. The particular emphasis is placed on the cognitive and linguistic but also historical, political, social and culture-determined manifestations of propaganda concealed in the messages communicated by Bikindi’s music to the génocidaires. The authors thus offer firsthand expert evidence of, and new insights into, the content and role of Bikindi’s music lyrics as culture-determined contributing factors to the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide.
