Home Inventors Book Store Kwanzaa Ankh Queens Kings Names

Today's News Headlines

 Have Comments to share?
Discuss this topic and more with other people.
[Join the Conversation]

More 'positive reporting' needed for Africa

Analysis by Independent Online, South Africa

Nairobi - Rwanda's president has accused Western media of portraying Africa as a continent racked by poverty, war and disease, and he has challenged Africans to change that image.

"One of the reasons Africa is unable to attract enough foreign direct investment, which we need for our development, is the constant negative reporting," President Paul Kagame said in an address to the International Press Institute World Congress on Sunday.

Kagame said it was a common belief on the continent that the international press gave Africa only negative coverage and ignored positive developments on the continent.

"I believe that we in Africa must take responsibility for the sorry state of affairs in our continent, most of which form and generate the kind of reporting that we have witnessed," Kagame said.

'We must take responsibility for the sorry state of affairs'
He said in his own country, the international media had portrayed the 1994 genocide as the result of primitive tribal killings, rather than an organised campaign perpetrated by the former government.

"Constant reference by the media to tribal killings, civil war, anarchy and chaos obscured and minimised the genocide that was taking place and the complicity and indifference of some powers," he said.

"As a result, the UN member states were not called upon to recognise the genocide that was under way and did not feel compelled to take the appropriate action."

Paris-based press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders says Rwanda's government has harassed and arbitrarily detained several journalists in recent years, undermining press freedom in the tiny Central African country.

Kagame urged the media to highlight efforts by the continent to come up with African solutions to the conflicts in Burundi, Sudan, Somalia and Ivory Coast.

The International Press Institute, a group of journalists, editors and media executives from more than 120 countries, is meeting in Nairobi to discuss press freedom, with a particular focus on Africa. - Reuters