Rwanda was one of the last of Africa to be reached
by Europeans during the colonial expansion in the late 1800’s. Before this, the Tutsi, cattle raising
people, came down from the Nile and immigrated into the area and won the
territory over the Hutu, agriculturists.
Rwabugiri gains the throne in 1860 and controls a region that is almost
as large as present day Rwanda. This
reign is focused on feuds between the aristocrats of the Tutsis and the Hutus
as their bondsmen. [1]
Tutsi-Hutu is divided by work and stature. The Tutsi are upper class and are
cattlemen. The Hutu are lower class and
usually farmers. A German man, Count von
Gotzen, comes to visit the President in 1894, the first European to enter Rwanda. The president of Rwanda dies the next year,
so the Germans move in and claim the area for the Kaiser. The
Germans only are in power until World War 1 breaks out in 1914. They lose their
control and Belgium takes over. The League
of Nations, in 1924, grants the Belgians to oversee the colony. The Belgians
allow the race distinction and have the Tutsis in charge of the Hutus that are
being forced into working for the colonies.
This division of the
two groups, one receiving favor and the other working hard for next to nothing,
is the beginning of the end. [2]
Hutu leaders in 1957 print a book called Hutu Manifesto, this is to prepare for
future conflicts within politics dealing with ethnic lines. Violence is flared when in 1959, a group of
Tutsi activists, beat up a Hutu rival, this incident results in all out violence
of Hutus against Tutsis; known as “the wind of destruction”. [3]
During the political elections in 1960, Gregoire
Kayibanda, co-author of the Hutu
Manifesto, leads the provisional government to a period of independence. Rwanda became independent in July 1962. Gregoire
Kayibanda won the first presidential election in newly independent Rwanda. His party, (party for Hutu Emancipation),
centralizes their governmental policy around this topic. [4]
1963, December, several hundred Tutsi soldiers enter
Rwanda from Burundi; they get close to the capital, but are eliminated by the
Rwandan army. The government calls a
state of emergency, which they need to destroy any subversive actions. During just a few days 14,000 Tutsis are
murdered to show other Tutsis not to try to rise up against the government.[5]
Kayibanda loses power in 1973, by a group of army officers,
which replace him with Juvenal Habyarimana. He runs a self-serving military dictatorship
for the next twenty one years. 1986,
Habyarimana declares that he is making a new policy and refugees will not be allowed
to return to Rwanda. [6]
The Rwandan Patriotic Front committed to fight
against Habyarimana. The main people in
the RPF were Tutsi officers. They organized
an attack, October 1990, where they eventually put an end to Habyarimana’s rule. Habyarimana is able to prevent the RPF’s beginning
attacks in October 1990, but this starts a new war on the Tutsi people. 1991, a new name comes about Hutu Power, in
which they want to wipe out the Tutsi people.
Habyarimana starts to recruit Hutu youth into militia. By 1992, Habyarimana is disappointing the
public by his inability to stop RPF guerillas.
He begins negotiations in August to cease fire, which then starts a new
attack on the Tutsi people. Throughout
the next year the president tries to negotiate peace, which further alienates
his followers. August 1993, Habyarimana signs a peace treaty with the RPF,
which then brings the war to an end. [7]
Arusha Accords, are what the peace treaty are
called, bring about changes to Rwanda.
The refugees are granted access again to the country, and merging of the
RPF into the Rwandan armies. A
provisional government is setup including the RPF, which outrages the old regime. April 6, 1994 a rocket is launched at a plane
taking it down, most likely by Hutu extremists, killing two presidents; Habyarimana
and the president of Burundi. This starts war, people are encouraged to go out
and do their duty to the country by ridding the world of Tutsi’s and their supporters. The state radio declares May 5th,
1994 the official cleanup day, in which the capital, Kigali, needs to be rid of
Tutsi’s. [8]
During this time the UN sent in forces to help with
the terror happening but it seemed they were powerless to intervene with the
situation. April to July 1994,
approximately 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered. The tool that caused most of this genocide
was the everyday machete. The terror
that happened is followed by massive fleeing of refugees to Zaire, Burundi, and
Tanzania, the figure around two million people.
By July 1994, a provisional government is formed and by the end of
August most of the country is under control.
The RPF wants racial equality and is what they were committed to from
the start. One of the major problems is
the refugee camps in Zaire, as the majority of the Rwandans there are Hutus, which
some are extensions of the Hutu Power, which fled to avoid the advancement of
the RPF. [9]
The refugees begin to come back to Rwanda in 1996,
but it not an easy adjustment. When the
refugees were beginning to return to Rwanda, the government started the long anticipated
genocide trials. Approximately 130,000
suspects were held in Rwandan prisons after the genocide, and the judicial
system was not in a great position to deal with all of these trials. Only 3,343 cases were dealt with during
1996-2000. Of these cases only 20% received
the death penalty, 20 % were acquitted, and 32% received life in prison. Not including the people still at large, it
was figured that it would take over 200 years to do the trials for the suspects
in prison. [10]
[11]This video discusses what some went through with the genocide.
Rwanda has had struggles since the genocide to
rebuild and develop economically. The
majority of exporting markets are China, Germany and Belgium. Belgians have come into the country to help
rebuild the agriculture. There are many
nations helping Rwanda come back from these horrifying events. [12]
References
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