One Monday last December, a stranger presented himself at the office of Sanford Ungar, the president of Goucher College, located in a suburb of Baltimore. He introduced himself as Charlie Ebersol, a television producer. A handsome, affable, and royally confident young man--he was sometimes pictured in the gossip pages with his girlfriend, the tennis star Maria Sharapova--Ebersol explained his visit by saying he was doing research for a new prime-time show on NBC. Beyond that, he was cryptic, Ungar recalls. "He said, 'We're going to come back tomorrow and tell you about somebody who works here who's done some very, very bad things.'" The meeting, Ungar says, left him totally baffled. Ebersol remembers the encounter somewhat differently. "Literally five minutes into my going into conversation," Ebersol told me, "he said, 'Are you talking about Leopold Munyakazi?'"
Ebersol was producing a new documentary series called "The Wanted," about international fugitives from justice, and he was exploring an explosive charge: that Munyakazi, a Goucher professor of French, had taken part in a genocide. The day after their first meeting, Ebersol returned to Ungar's office with his co-producer, Adam Ciralsky, an investigative journalist who'd once worked as an attorney for the CIA. They were in possession of what, at first glance, appeared to be a devastating collection of facts. Munyakazi had been living in his native Rwanda in 1994, when many thousands of his countrymen took up guns and machetes against their neighbors at the urging of a vicious government, killing a minimum of 500,000. After the fall of the genocidal regime to a rebel army, Munyakazi was imprisoned for four-and-a-half years. He'd been provisionally released, but then he'd fled to the United States, where he'd asked for asylum. (The appeal was still pending.) The producers told Ungar that the Rwandan government wanted Munyakazi back and had more than 70 pages of sworn affidavits from witnesses who attested to his participation in the genocide. Then they told the president that they'd return the next day with a Rwandan prosecutor, whom they'd flown in for the purpose of a dramatic confrontation.
Ungar, a white-haired ex-journalist with a leonine voice--he had once been the host of NPR's "All Things Considered"--considered himself well-prepared to assess the seriousness of NBC's accusations. His resume prior to taking the top post at Goucher included a stint as director of Voice of America. He had visited Rwanda several times, and, in the 1980s, he'd written a 500-page book about Africa.
Though he oversaw a large faculty, Ungar was slightly acquainted with Munyakazi, a new adjunct who had been placed at the school just that year by the Scholar Rescue Fund, a nonprofit that arranges financial support for exiled academics. He'd heard that Munyakazi had some controversial political views, but, to Ungar, the professor came off as "a very polite, formal person of the old school." "I find it hard to imagine," Ungar would later reflect, "that he's a mass murderer."
Journalistically, Ungar also didn't know what to make of the NBC producers' approach, particularly the suggestion that they were working in concert with a foreign prosecutor. Indeed, the producers had conceived of "The Wanted" as a radically different approach to news-gathering. The stars of Ebersol's show were members of an experienced team he'd assembled to track down fugitives, including terrorism experts and a former war-crimes prosecutor. To Ungar, it all sounded like tabloid television. He got even queasier when Ebersol and Ciralsky returned to his office the next day, December 10, with a camera crew and Jean Bosco Mutangana, the head of Rwanda's genocide fugitives tracking unit. Ungar recalls that the producers asked him to sit for the cameras while Mutangana presented the details of the indictment. He refused. "Having worked in the media myself," he says, "I wasn't about to be fooled."
Those on the other side of the camera recall the scene another way. Ungar was relaxed, even flippant, the NBC producers say. They claim that his employees offered the jet-lagged Rwandan prosecutor eyedrops, so that he didn't look bloodshot on camera. Though Ungar initially wouldn't tape an interview, he did allow the NBC crew to remain on campus to pursue their questioning of Munyakazi. (As a former journalist, Ungar told me, he felt it would have been "hypocritical" to kick them off.) He went so far as to send the NBC crew, accompanied by a Goucher P.R. officer, down to the classroom where the professor was just finishing a French lesson.
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COMMENTS (7)
It's unfortunate that such a long paper is invalidated by the great amount of inaccuracies that could be checked out.
It's unfortunate that such a long paper is invalidated by the great amount of inaccuracies that could be checked out.
Great article, Andrew! Having watched the first episode, I must say that NBC should be embarrassed putting this on the air. They take an extremely sensitive issue and try to market it as "Jason Bourne". Is that a joke? Perhaps they should not have put so much faith in a producer simply because his father is chairman. It is a shame because the show really could have been eye-opening had kept ANY journalistic integrity.
Great article, Andrew! Having watched the first episode, I must say that NBC should be embarrassed putting this on the air. They take an extremely sensitive issue and try to market it as "Jason Bourne". Is that a joke? Perhaps they should not have put so much faith in a producer simply because his father is chairman. It is a shame because the show really could have been eye-opening had kept ANY journalistic integrity.
Dr. Leopold Munyakazi wrote: "It's unfortunate that such a long paper is invalidated by the great amount of inaccuracies that could be checked out."
Given the ambiguity of the subject matter, I thought the piece did a fantastic job of remaining neutral in its presentation of both specific anecdotes and the larger narrative. Very little seemed to be put forth as being concrete "fact".
This being the case, I would be intrigued to get Dr. Munyakazi's take on what some of the inaccuracies may have been.
I do hope that this isn't misinterpreted as "challenging" his post, I simply think it would be interesting to get something more specific than the broad-stroke statement alleging inaccuracies.
Dr. Leopold Munyakazi wrote: "It's unfortunate that such a long paper is invalidated by the great amount of inaccuracies that could be checked out."
Given the ambiguity of the subject matter, I thought the piece did a fantastic job of remaining neutral in its presentation of both specific anecdotes and the larger narrative. Very little seemed to be put forth as being concrete "fact".
This being the case, I would be intrigued to get Dr. Munyakazi's take on what some of the inaccuracies may have been.
I do hope that this isn't misinterpreted as "challenging" his post, I simply think it would be interesting to get something more specific than the broad-stroke statement alleging inaccuracies.
wow, really great article. i almost never read long-form reportage-like articles these days, especially not on the interwebz. i see some 5000-word thing on afghanistan in the nyt magazine and to even passingly scan it would be rather more a chore than a delight. but this article suddenly made me care more about the rwanda as both a living, still-troubled place as well as a complex news story that TV is sadly too stupid to do justice to (esp. in a TV "news" show proudly molded on the A-Team).
@ Christopher Hodges: "the piece did a fantastic job of remaining neutral in its presentation of both specific anecdotes and the larger narrative. Very little seemed to be put forth as being concrete "f ... view full comment
wow, really great article. i almost never read long-form reportage-like articles these days, especially not on the interwebz. i see some 5000-word thing on afghanistan in the nyt magazine and to even passingly scan it would be rather more a chore than a delight. but this article suddenly made me care more about the rwanda as both a living, still-troubled place as well as a complex news story that TV is sadly too stupid to do justice to (esp. in a TV "news" show proudly molded on the A-Team).
@ Christopher Hodges: "the piece did a fantastic job of remaining neutral in its presentation of both specific anecdotes and the larger narrative. Very little seemed to be put forth as being concrete "fact" " -- exactly, and the quoted academics understood that, whereas the TV journalists (even the former CNN guy) refused to acknowledge those confusing layers.
the article is good; a nice compilation of all the players, and a good detailing of the issues. only one side is weak: it leaves understated the politicization of the judicial system, along with the entire public side of rwandan society. true, we might still be dealing with a genocidaire; but indubitably, we are dealing with a govt that has now turned its power into mechanisms for repression of oppositional voices, and uses the gacaca and judicial systems to squelch all such voices. that is why alison des forges said we will never know the truth: the rwandan govt has made a neutral examination of the facts of this, and any other politicized case, impossible.
the article is good; a nice compilation of all the players, and a good detailing of the issues. only one side is weak: it leaves understated the politicization of the judicial system, along with the entire public side of rwandan society. true, we might still be dealing with a genocidaire; but indubitably, we are dealing with a govt that has now turned its power into mechanisms for repression of oppositional voices, and uses the gacaca and judicial systems to squelch all such voices. that is why alison des forges said we will never know the truth: the rwandan govt has made a neutral examination of the facts of this, and any other politicized case, impossible.
Dr. Munyakazi seems clearly unaware of the statutory definition of the crime of genocide, found both within the Genocide Convention and within the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The crime of genocide is committed when one acts, with the intent to destroy in whole or in PART, any national, racial, religious or ethnic group. The genocidaires need not target every Tutsi to commit the crime of genocide, but rather must simply have the intent to destroy in whole or in part a defined group. Clearly what happened in Rwanda in 1994, when up to 800,000 Tutsi were killed, meets that definition. Any position to the contrary is sheer idiocy and is based either on pure ignoran ... view full comment
Dr. Munyakazi seems clearly unaware of the statutory definition of the crime of genocide, found both within the Genocide Convention and within the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The crime of genocide is committed when one acts, with the intent to destroy in whole or in PART, any national, racial, religious or ethnic group. The genocidaires need not target every Tutsi to commit the crime of genocide, but rather must simply have the intent to destroy in whole or in part a defined group. Clearly what happened in Rwanda in 1994, when up to 800,000 Tutsi were killed, meets that definition. Any position to the contrary is sheer idiocy and is based either on pure ignorance or self-serving contrariness.
Munyakazi may well we innocent or just 'not guilty' but the attempt to use a dubious prosecution against him to undermine the demonstrated and real facts of the Rwandan genocide is totally disgusting.
This is how it starts. Demonize the victims, rationalize the acts of the perpetrators. Cast doubt on the numbers. We see this with the Nazi Holocaust and Obama's birth certificate. No amount of proof will ever be enough for these people.
And just because not all Tutsis were targeted and because Hutus were also targeted doesn't make it not a genocide. And the Hotel Rwanda was protected because the people there were well connected and the press knew of their existence, not because or in spite of ... view full comment
Munyakazi may well we innocent or just 'not guilty' but the attempt to use a dubious prosecution against him to undermine the demonstrated and real facts of the Rwandan genocide is totally disgusting.
This is how it starts. Demonize the victims, rationalize the acts of the perpetrators. Cast doubt on the numbers. We see this with the Nazi Holocaust and Obama's birth certificate. No amount of proof will ever be enough for these people.
And just because not all Tutsis were targeted and because Hutus were also targeted doesn't make it not a genocide. And the Hotel Rwanda was protected because the people there were well connected and the press knew of their existence, not because or in spite of their Tutsi/Hutu identity.
My all-time favorite passage of the story:
"They had been infiltrating the country, to convince and persuade some Tutsi people to be their members," Munyakazi said. He claimed that it was these "infiltrators" who were targeted by the interahamwe. Moderate Hutus, he said, were also targeted. "Whoever was considered as a collaborator, as an accomplice, of the RPF was killed."
I guess those many hundreds of thousands of 'infiltrators' got what they deserved. The interhamwe were patriots and justified in killing unarmed women and children. As bad as Kagame has come, Rwanda is better off with him than Munyakazi's ilk.