There is a beautiful country of steep mountains and deep valleys that sits in east-central Africa by the name of Rwanda. The highest lake in Africa sits in the northwest corner of the country, and the beautiful Virunga Mountains extend to the north. However, hidden in this beautiful country is one of the most tragic tales ever told of the inhumanity of mankind, a tale of genocide.
In order to understand this tale and, more importantly, the causes that brought about this tale, it is necessary to know a little about the history of Rwanda. As long as 35,000 years ago, there were people in Rwanda. They were pygmy people known as the Twa, people who now make up less than one percent of the population. It is unclear as to when the Bantu-speaking Hutu (Bahatu), who were agriculturalists, arrived in Rwanda, but probably sometime between the 7th and 10th centuries. When the Hutu arrived, the Twa moved deeper into the forests as the Hutu began to clear the land to make permanent settlements. In the late 13th century, the Tutsi (Batutsi), a pastoral people who were also Bantu-speaking, arrived from the south.
By the 16th century, the Hutu and Tutsi had organized themselves into small states. A political and economic imbalance began to emerge between the Hutu and Tutsi as the Tutsis formed a hierarchy ruled by a king or "Mwami" who was considered semi-divine and who controlled large estates of banana trees and large herds of cattle. Everyone in Rwanda was expected to pay taxes to the king, and a Tutsi administrator collected these taxes. It is important to note, however, that Hutu who were able to obtain cattle would sometimes be considered Tutsi, and Tutsi who lost their cattle would sometimes be considered Hutu, and thus social mobility did occur. Also, the military was composed of both Hutu and Tutsi, and this helped to keep the population unified.
In the 1600's, the Tutsi kingdom was presided over by King Ruganza Ndori who extended the kingdom to include most of modern day Rwanda. King Kigeri Rwabuguri established a unified state in 1860, but in 1890 Rwanda was annexed as a province of German East Africa. The country was occupied by Belgian forces in 1916, and the country became Ruanda-Urundi. From 1925, Ruanda-Urundi was linked with the Belgian Congo. However, administration of the Congo was headquartered in Brussels while administration of Ruanda-Urundi was left in the hands of the Tutsi aristocracy.
Among Europeans, race had become an important consideration, and it was the attitude of the Europeans about race that set the stage for this tragic tale. Because the Tutsis were considered more European than the Hutu, the Europeans felt the Tutsis were therefore a superior race which led to their giving administrative jobs to the Tutsis. These positions turned into the governing body of Rwanda. Although the residents of many other European occupied African countries were subject to forced labor, in Ruanda-Urundi it was the Hutus who labored and the Tutsis who supervised.
Two more actions by the Belgians would seal the future fate of Rwanda and be the next causative factors in this appalling story. In 1926, the Belgians stripped the Hutu of any control they had of land and forced the northwest Hutu kingdoms that owned land not subject to the King to put this land under the control of Tutsi royalty. Second of all, in 1933, racial identify cards were issued to all the population of Ruanda-Urundi defining them as Hutu or Tutsi. The next causative factor was the part played by the Roman Catholic Church who, as the main educators in the country, reinforced the differences in the Hutu and Tutsi, considering them separate ethnic groups, and in fact segregated the two groups in their schools.
Although before the colonial period most of the ruling class was Tutsi, there were also many poor, peasant Tutsis, and there were some Hutu in the ruling class as well. However, since the Europeans had decided that the Hamitic Tutsis were racially superior, they decided they should make up all of the ruling class and that the Hutu should be permanently classified as an underclass. At this same time, there was also a eugenics movement occurring in Europe and the United States. Scientists came to measure the skulls of the Hutu and Tutsi. Tutsi skulls were bigger so it was believed their brains were bigger as well. Add to this the fact that they were taller and their skin lighter, and the scientists were convinced they must be a superior race as they must be descended from the Caucasian race. Thus the course was well set for genocide by these outsiders. Of course later scientific studies that took place long after this tragic tale was done showed no more difference in the Tutsi and Hutu traits than those that would have been found among different social classes in any country and pointed to, in fact, more of a difference in diet-induced traits than any definite racial traits.
Once these causative factors had been put in place by the Europeans, all it took to finish the story was the gaining of a feeling of independence by the Hutu. In the 1940's, King Rudahigwa, a king with democratic policies, redistributed cattle and land, and the Hutus began to have a hope of independence. Since the Tutsis were no longer in total control of cattle, the Hutus status began to change. Furthermore, the Catholic Church finally began to speak out against Tutsi treatment of Hutus. In 1954, King Charles divided the land between the Hutu and Tutsi. This made the Tutsis unhappy which in turn led to the assassination of King Charles. King Charles' son, King Kigeri V, came to power, but he was overthrown in a revolt in 1959, and he fled to Uganda. The Tutsis then attempted to assassinate the leader of the Mouvement Democratique Republican, the largest Hutu political party. This resulted in large-scale massacres with 20,000 to 100,000 Tutsis being killed by Hutus.
The 1959 revolution caused the exile of 150,000 Tutsis to neighboring countries, and those that remained were prohibited from having any political power. In 1962, Rwanda became independent. Gregoire Kayibanda became president. Under President Kayibanda, Tutsis were allowed only nine percent of school and university seats and only nine percent of civil service jobs.
In 1990, Tutsi rebels who were in exile in Uganda attempted to overthrow the Rwandan government but did not succeed. After the crash of a plane in 1994 that killed the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, violence ensued. The presidential guard began murdering Tutsi opposition leaders, and in turn a movement began among policemen and soldiers to murder the entire Tutsi population. In 100 days, an estimated 800,000 Tutsi were slaughtered, the massacres being conducted for the most part by a militia group, the Interahamwe. However, many Hutu civilians, led on by radio propaganda, joined in the slaughter. No country came to the Tutsis assistance.