Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from July 8, 1993 to July 31, 1994. It played a significant role during the April–July 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
The station's name is French for "Thousand Hills Free Radio and Television", deriving from the description of Rwanda as "Land of a Thousand Hills". It received support from the government-controlled Radio Rwanda, which initially allowed it to transmit using their equipment.
Widely listened to by the general population, it projected racist propaganda against Tutsis, moderate Hutus, Belgians, and the United Nations mission UNAMIR. It is widely regarded by many Rwandan citizens (a view also shared and expressed by the UN war crimes tribunal) as having played a crucial role in creating the atmosphere of charged racial hostility that allowed the genocide to occur. A study by a Harvard University researcher estimates that 9.9% of the participation in the genocidal violence was due to the broadcasts. The estimate of the study suggests that approximately 51,000 deaths were caused by the station's broadcasts.
And you people who live... near Rugunga... go out. You will see the cockroaches' (inkotanyi) straw huts in the marsh... I think that those who have guns should immediately go to these cockroaches... encircle them and kill them..."
RTLM was established in 1993, primarily railing against on-going peace talks between President Juvenal Habyarimana, whose family supported the radio station, and the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front. It became a popular station since it offered frequent contemporary musical selections, unlike state radio, and quickly developed a faithful audience among youth-aged Rwandans, who later made up the bulk of the Interahamwe militia.
Félicien Kabuga was allegedly heavily involved in the founding and bankrolling of RTLM, as well as Kangura magazine. In 1993, at an RTLM fundraising meeting organized by the MRND, Felicien Kabuga allegedly publicly defined the purpose of RTLM as the defence of Hutu Power.