Rwanda has a rich history recorded through oral tradition until the time of its colonization and maintained in writing in more recent centuries. It was originally settled by three main tribes: the Hutus, Tutsi and Twa people, which occupied different roles in Rwandan society. From approximately 1000AD, Rwanda was ruled by a line of Tutsi kings in a system comparable to feudalism. Hutus were generally peasant farmers who were subjected to the law of their Tutsi chiefs. Tutsis, who were traditionally cattle-owners, formed the ruling class and held a superior status. The Twa people, a pigmy population of hunter-gatherers, served different roles in the royal courts, such as potters, dancers and singers. Unlike the European system of feudalism, the Hutu-Tutsi divide was less rigid: if a Hutu earned enough cattle through purchase, war or marriage, he could become a Tutsi and marry a Tutsi woman if he so wished. Just the same, if a Tutsi lost a substantial amount of cattle through any of these circumstances, he would be classified as Hutu and may marry as such. This same rule did not generally apply to the minority Twa people, who seldom intermarried or changed their social status. For this reason, the Hutu and Tutsi people of Rwanda and Burundi experienced hundreds of years of intermarriage and social integration, speaking one unified language, until the time that the Germans arrived to colonize Rwanda and Burundi in 1885.
Recognizing the effectiveness of the feudal system of Tutsi chiefs already in place, Germany invested its energy in promoting the leadership of the Tutsis through indirect rule. It is important to note that the Germans and later the Belgians, who acquired Rwanda and Burundi as colonies in 1919 after Germany lost WWI, adhered to the social Darwinist philosophy predominant in Europe at the time. They viewed the ruling Tutsis as characteristically taller, leaner and of lighter skin, descendants of Ethiopia and more “civilized” parts of Northern Africa. In conjunction with their more European physique was the assumption that they were genetically predisposed to a higher level of intelligence, presumably why they had ruled without objection for so many years. The Hutu people, descendants of Bantu tribes that inhabited central Africa, were characterized as shorter, stockier and darker in skin. Given their physique, they were deemed less intelligent on average and therefore merited their second-class citizenship, so to speak. To establish order, the Belgian colonists in the 1930s mandated that each Rwandan be issued an identity card based on their physical appearance, neglecting to consider that the actual lineage of most people had been blurred substantially over hundreds of years of intermarriage and changes in hierarchy. These identity cards were maintained up through the time of the 1994 genocide, and served as a primary way to identify the race that was to be slaughtered.
By the time of Rwanda’s independence, the Catholic Church, in accordance with the Belgian government, had sent hundreds of missionaries to Rwanda to establish schools in a francophone context. The Belgians had also set up infrastructure in the form of hospitals, roads and local administration. More Hutus were educated than ever before, and Hutus became more vocal about taking their rightful place as leaders of a country that was Hutu by majority. When Rwanda achieved independence in 1961, Hutus took power in governance, and in the so-called spirit of democracy, was endorsed by Belgium and the Catholic Church as the rightful ruling party. In light of what appeared to be hundreds of years of oppression from power, the Hutu ruling party took control with a vengeance from the start. Under the leadership of President Gregoire Kayibanda, quotas were implemented in order to restrict Tutsi participation to 9% in schools, jobs, government and various other roles in society. Between 1959 and 1973 over 700,000 Tutsis exiled Rwanda to escape the sporadic “ethnic cleansing” of Tutsis that had been taking place since the rise of the PARMEHUTU (Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement) faction ruling party and Kayibanda’s 1957 “Hutu Manifesto”.
In a military coup, another prominent Hutu named Juvenal Habyarimana took office as president of Rwanda in 1973 under the auspice of the MRND (Mouvement Revolutionnaire et Nationale pour le Developpement), but the persecution and sporadic killings of the minority Tutsis continued. In the meanwhile, ethnic Tutsis continued to flee Rwanda to neighboring Zaire (now DRC), Uganda and Tanzania and in many cases form communities. In 1986, a group of ethnic Tutsi Rwandan exiles in Uganda formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), under the leadership of Paul Kagame and Fred Rwigyema. Disheartened by their forced exile and Habyarimana’s failure to maintain a multi-party democracy, this party invaded Rwanda in 1990 but was quickly suppressed by the French, German and Zairean troops summoned to augment the Rwandan army in its defense. Habyarimana used the attack as a justification to increase the Rwandan army from 5,000 to 35,000 troops between 1990 and 1993, and his regime was supported in arms by many nations including the US, France and South Africa. In this same period, Hutu power philosophy increased tenfold with the publication of the Hutu Ten Commandments and other anti-Tutsi propaganda which spread through all official media. Government-sanctioned killings of Tutsis and Tutsi sympathizers occurred with numbers in the thousands, and all the while, the Rwandan Hutu Power militia (Interahamwe) grew in size and lists of names of Tutsis and Hutus who did not support the cause of the Hutu Power militia were compiled. In April 1994, the plane of Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down, signifying the start of the genocide.
Although the source of the presidential assassination has never been determined, it is known that the planning of the Rwandan genocide occurred over many years time. Major foreign governments were aware that Tutsis were being targeted in the early 1990s and prior, but elected to turn a blind eye and in many cases continued supplying the Interahamwe with its arms. In January 1994, UN Secretary –General Kofi Annan received a fax from UN General Romeo Dallaire, stationed in Rwanda, informing him that a huge massacre of Tutsis was planned and that killings had been taking place already. In spite of this message and Dallaire’s urgent recommendation to send in reinforcements of peacekeeping troops, the UN opted not to act on the tip. In the 100 days following the plane crash, Rwanda became a frenzied bloodbath. Tutsis were hunted and killed by the Interahamwe like birds of prey, and along the way, anyone who did not participate in the search and destroy of Tutsis was also subject to slaughter. Over 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the months of terror, with an estimated 500,000 women victimized by rape and countless others subjected to physical and emotional torture. In additional to the physical and mental trauma that plagued survivors of the genocide, many surviving rape victims awaited a long and arduous death sentence after being infected with AIDS or other fatal STDS. There was also the very real possibility that they would have to deliver and raise a child that was conceived in an act of violence. As a result of the genocide, over 300,000 children were orphaned and 85,000 became heads of households. More than 2/3 of the population of Rwanda was displaced within the country, and over 2 million people fled to refugee camps in Burundi, Tanzania, Zaire and Uganda.
For more information on the successful invasion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the end of the genocide, please refer to the third paragraph of my entry on Lake Kivu (February 20).
Since 1994, Rwanda has made great strides in rebuilding itself as a nation and forging into the 21st century as a unified nation of Rwandans. Identity cards designating ethnicity have been outlawed and it is not even legal to refer to people as Hutu or Tutsi. President Paul Kagame has a vision for the economic development of the country which includes a push to make the landlocked country an African hub for the services industry. Changing the official language of schools, government and business from French to English is one manifestation of this development in which I feel privileged to participate. Although it could take decades or longer for Rwanda to recover from the wounds of its past, the current leadership seems to be doing everything in its power to enable citizens to move forward while honoring the memory of the dead.
References: Dallaire, Romeo. Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005
Kigali Memorial Center and Genocide Museum, Kigali, Rwanda
Powers, Samantha. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. “Chapter 10: Rwanda: Mostly in Listening Mode.” New York: Harper Perennial, 2002
Additional references as included in my senior thesis, “Modern Genocide and Its Effect on Women: An African Case Study,” completed at GW University ESIA in May 2007.
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