Jean Bosco Gasasira
The blog airwaves have been filled with fabricated news reports claiming that so called journalist Jean Bosco Gasasira is nowhere to be seen since last month from his hiding place in Sweden. To a reader looking around for news, it sounds like Gasasira is the Bob Woodward of Rwanda missing in action.
For the moment let us take these reports on face value. People with vested interests have linked Gasasira’s fate to the Rwandan embassy in Sweden – when actually he himself has avoided the diplomats there. At The Exposer, we are taking the allegations seriously because they connect people of differing calibre. The reports position Gasasira as this ‘God-sent journalist whose disappearance marks the end of the media’. WOW! What a martyr!!
Let us look through some of the allegations:
Gasasira’s missing caused by Rwandan authorities: OK! If Rwanda’s leadership had wanted Gasasira dead, that is no waste of anybody’s time. When his friends attacked him on February 09 2007, leaving him for dead, nobody would have bothered to make any payments for him to have the numerous surgeries that allowed him to live!! Gasasira was visited by officials including President Kagame personally.
Gasasira’s medical bills in Rwanda and in Europe were covered by the state! By the way, it had nothing to with who is, but because he had that right as a Rwandan in dire need. Let us assume the government wanted him dead; that could have been the exact moment to leave him to die on the hospital bed; AS SIMPLE AS THAT!
Gasasira himself testified at a presidential press conference sometime later that had it not have been for the intervention of the highest levels of government, he could be no more. But wait! Perhaps the people who would want Gasasira dead are those he owed money, or the teenage girls he abused here before he run away!
When you read the reports – by now not confirmed by any competent authority, Gasasira is seen as the wonderful journalist. Surely give us a break. Gasasira did not write many of the stories he published in his 12page ‘newspaper’.
He did not have the skill and depth of understanding to actually weigh what might be a story that is both responsible and constructive. To him, there were no distinctions between gossip, hate speech, and valuable criticism.
The international critics did not consider the complexity of this context before issuing blanket statements about censorship and violations of media freedoms – statements that have done little to actually improve media in Rwanda.
Speak privately to representatives of the so called media rights groups about their take on Rwandan journalists. They will tell you a different story of what they think about the Gasasiras.
Except for articles translated from foreign media (for purposes of filling up the pages), all the stories in Gasasira’s newspaper were paid for by individuals seeking to fight own wars; mainly disgruntled who have failed to convince a competent authority. In Gasasira’s case, because he could not convince the advertising community of due to a small circulation, he could not get advertising.
This, however, has created the impression that the government is violating freedom of the press. Such an accusation is overly simplistic, not considering the particularities of the media environment in Rwanda, and the fact that much of what is “reported” is in fact unsubstantiated and facile.
Nobody is celebrating Gasasira’s disappearance - if at all it happened; The Exposer is only concerned that the news is one of those publicity stunts sought by these fame-searching journalists.
Source:The Exposer, Published: 13-02-2012 at 19:20
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