MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - Rwanda's parliament has accused the BBC of genocide denial, claiming their documentary film “Rwanda: The Untold Story” allegedly misinterpreted historical facts and distorted real states of affairs, BBC reported on Thursday.
The Rwandan genocide was a horrific event and had an enduring and overwhelming negative effect on Rwanda and its neighboring countries. The Hutu community has always been held responsible for the mass slaughter of Tutsi population in 1994, when 500,000–1,000,000 people were murdered. As numerous studies have said, the Hutu-led government allowed and sanctioned the militias under its control to conduct mass-killings and atrocities, resulting in the elimination of 20% of the country’s total population.
The BBC is reported to have falsified these facts and figures, considered by Rwanda's parliament members and a number of internationally recognized scientists a “genocide denial”.
As reported by the New Times, a group of prominent researches and experts called on the BBC to apologize for the documentary, which, according to their opinions, “tarnishes the BBC’s well-deserved reputation for objective and balanced journalism.”“We urge the BBC to apologize for the offence this program has caused for all victims and survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda,” experts said.
The documentary producers are accused of attempting to acquit the Hutu militia and reduce the number of Tutsi victims. According to the experts, the film-producers tried to decrease the number of Tutsi killed from 1 million to 200,000 and raise the number of Hutu victims.
“They even claim that in 1994 more Hutu than Tutsi were murdered – an absurd suggestion and contrary to all the widely available research reported by Amnesty International, UNICEF, the UN Human Rights Commission, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, Africa Rights, a UN Security Council mandated Commission of Experts and evidence submitted to the ICTR and other European courts who have successfully put on trial several perpetrators,” the experts claimed.
The BBC, in its turn, has denied such accusations and announced that any part of the documentary does not compose a "denial of the genocide against the Tutsi".
