1) HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE GENOCIDE
The massacre of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, which took place in Rwanda in 1994, was not an
unexpected explosion of violence, rather the ‘logical’ consequence of years of tension and violence
between Hutus and Tutsis in the country. This section will illustrate the main historical events that
eventually led to the genocide, starting with the end of the nineteenth century, when Rwanda was
going to become a German colony for the first time in its history.
1.1 Pre-colonial Rwanda
Rwanda’s population (as well as Burundi's) comprises of three main social groupings: the Hutus,
the Tutsis, and the small minority Twa
3
. Hutus and Tutsis (the hatred between the two was the cause
of the genocide) are most certainly not ‘tribal’, as it is erroneously pictured in some superficial
analysis of the events of 1994. In fact, the two main groups (the Twa represent a minority living
predominantly in the mountain forests) speak the same language (Kinyarwanda), profess the same
religion (Christian, mainly Roman Catholic), belong to the same clans and share the same cultural
practices, myths and traditions. Finally, also they live in the same regions, often in the same
neighbourhoods and intermarriage is a common occurrence (with reference to, Lemarchand, 1970;
Pottier, 2002 and Fusaschi, 2009).
The clans in Rwanda before the arrival of the colonizers were said to have shared a common
3
The ethnic name in Kinyarwanda is mu-Hutu, mu-Tutsi, mu-Twa in the singular, ba-Hutu, ba-Tutsi, ba-Twa, in the
plural (Fusaschi, 2000, p.23).
9
ancestry, a point that is unproven and likely to be a legend. Those clans (úbwōko in Kinyarwanda)
defined the identity of Rwandans and their socio-economic status. The ethnic identity was not an
important part of the society, instead, every clan included all the various components of the
population: Tutsi, Hutu and, in some cases, also Twa (d'Hertefelt, 1987). Pre-colonial Rwanda was a
monarchical political system and it had one of the most powerful and sophisticated kingships in
eastern Africa. The highly centralised Kingdom presided Tutsi kings who had hailed from one
ruling clan. The king ruled through three categories of chiefs: cattle chiefs, land chiefs and military
chiefs. The chiefs were predominantly, but not exclusively, Tutsi, especially those who were chief
of cattle and military.
Often, as remarked by Pottier (2002), 'an idealised representation of Rwanda's pre-colonial
resurfaced' (p. 110) after the genocide. In such representation, pre-colonial Rwanda is portrayed as
an idyllic society where no ethnic division and tension existed, where status was negotiable and
social mobility between occupational categories possible. It is true to the contrary instead, that 'the
vast majority of the population, Hutu and Tutsi, had virtually no control over their land and labour
power' (ibid., p.110). A central social and economic distinction of pre-colonial Rwanda was that
between farming and animal husbandry, with the latter assuring greater status and power and this is
where Hutu and Tutsi appear to have their distinctions. In general, Hutus were farmers of lower
social status, while Tutsis were traditionally cattle-keepers by trade of higher social status.
However, not all Tutsis were royal aristocrats, and not all Hutus were poor farmers; there was
variation within the categories (Straus, 2008; Pottier, 2002).
The prevailing patron-client relationships bound most people together in a close-knit social
hierarchy. It was customary for the patron to give the client a cow in return for services performed
and so, over a long period of time individuals from both the Hutu and Tutsi groups acquired cattle.
In the absence of currency, cattle became the medium of trade and the more cows that a person had,
the higher their social status. However, the social mobility offered through cattle clientship 'never
affected upwardly more than a small percentage of Rwanda's population' (Newbury, 1998, p.134)
and 'affected mainly (though not exclusively) those of Tutsi status' (ibid., p.140). In sum, 'pre-
colonial reciprocity involving wealth in the form of cattle had been mostly an affair between elites'
(Pottier, 2002, p. 117)
4
.
4
More common in pre-colonial Rwanda was the practice of ubuhake. In this type of contract, the shebuya (ʻthe
ownerʼ), richer and more powerful, allowed the garagu (ʻthe clientʼ) to make use of his cows in order to obtain milk
10
1.1.1 The Rwabugiri kingship
Mwami (‘King’ in Kinyarwanda) Rwabugiri, was the last king to rule over Rwanda (from 1853 to
1895) before Germany reached the country. Its kingdom is very important in the understanding of
the evolution of relationships between the Hutus and the Tutsis. In fact, it was King Rwabugiri who
first 'institutionalised ethnic divisions mainly, though not exclusively, through the mandatory labour
service known as uburetwa, from which Tutsi were excluded' (ibid., p.110). The European colonizers
would later adopt this central institution for their own political purposes.
Moreover, King Rwabugiri's administration promoted a process of self-consciousness among
groups of Tutsi, ideologizing the ʻTutsi identityʼ. Before the rising of Rwabugiri, ʻHutuʼ, ʻTutsiʼ and
ʻTwaʼ may have denoted flexible relations of superiority and dependence; after his reign their
meanings changed significantly when ethnic identities rigidified. As Newbury (1988) highlights,
Rwandan elites 'largely determined the ways in which colonialism influenced the transformation of
clientship ties' (p.59).
It is difficult to say if ethnic friction already existed at the end of the nineteenth century, but the
ethnic divisions and the ‘obvious hatred’ towards the Tutsi overlords, was well embedded by 1898,
the time that Germany colonized Rwanda. It was a period of great turmoil during which social and
ethnic divisions began to crystallise.
1.2. Colonial period in Rwanda
1.2.1 The German colonization
In his research on the reasons which drove the Hutu population of Rwanda into taking part in a
genocide, Straus (2008) repeatedly highlights the role which a 'culture of obedience' (p.205) and the
capacity that the Rwandan state had/has 'to gain, sometimes coercively, the compliance of the rural
citizenry' (p. 222), had in the spreading of the violence in 1994. However, contemporary Rwanda is
and food from them. In return, the garagu had to provide him with payment in kind or services. Moreover, the
shebuya assured the garagu his support and protection (Fusaschi, 2000, p. 89).
11
undoubtedly the legacy of an old state, a pre-colonial kingdom. In fact, Germany, Rwanda's first
colonial ruler,
5
was immediately impressed with the monarchical institutions they found and opted
to reinforce, rather than destroy, the pre-colonial system of rule (Louis, 1963). The Europeans
'incorporated, and in some instances reinforced, Rwanda's pre-colonial institutions into the
colonial state, and versions of those institutions persisted into the post-colonial state' (Straus, 2008,
p.207). Germany had an almost invisible-like presence in Rwanda (only some missionaries and
administrators lived in the country), and limited its intervention to consolidating the pre-existing
monarchy. However, German troops did at times intervene in rebel movements, especially in the
peripheral regions (Straus, 2008). After almost thirty years of German domination, the Rwandan
state had not changed extensively from how it used to be under the rule of King Rwabugiri.
1.2.2 The Belgian domination
As a consequence of Germany's defeat at the end of World War I, Rwanda, together with Burundi,
was declared by the League of Nations as a mandate territory to be governed by Belgium. The
Belgians initially decided to administrate the country as the Germans had done before them,
reinforcing Rwanda's monarchy, which was already well developed. But they also decided to
'modernize' and 'civilize' (Straus, 2008, p. 210) the existing administrative system.
As reported by Lemarchand (1970), Rwanda had for long consisted of a central nucleus, directly
administered by the mwami and his court, peripheral zones under the nominal control of the
mwami's representatives and zones whereby the central government exercised a certain influence
but without having effective control
6
. This diversity of levels of control and influence meant that at
the beginning of the European rule, the legitimacy of the central court was particularly weak in the
regions of the north and the northwest. During the 1920s the Belgians abolished this administrative
system in favour of a single chief, in charge of a specific territory. Such a decision had the meant a
significant increase in the state's arbitrary power. Rwandans became completely under the
governing institutions’ control. Furthermore, the Belgians significantly reduced the king’s authority,
5
Rwanda was assigned to Germany during the Berlin Conference of 1884, as part of Ruanda-Urundi. Then, Rwanda
was united with the German territory of Tanganyika as a part of ʻGerman East Africaʼ. However, Germans
effectively began to explore the country only in 1994.
6
The central areas of Rwanda, stricly under control of the government, were called banyanduga, and bakiga was the
name used to define the peripheral zones of the country (Fusaschi, 2000).
12
instead elevating Rwanda's aristocracy, which was exclusively Tutsi, and therefore increasing
further the differences between Hutus and Tutsis (d'Hertefelt, de Lame, 1987; Straus, 2008).
In relation to what is stated above, it is obvious that the Europeans did not invent the terms ʻHutuʼ
and ʻTutsiʼ, but they did radically change what the categories meant and how they mattered. The
Belgians saw the Tutsis as a superior race, which was naturally born to rule over the country
(Pottier, 2002). Some anthropologists even gave a ‘scientific’ explanation for the superiority of
Tutsis, stating that they were a Hamitic population that had emigrated from northern Africa to
Rwanda and had then started to dominate the ʻlowerʼ Hutus, an inferior race of Bantu ʻnegroidsʼ.
The evidence of such a theory was the fact that Tutsis not only were more intelligent, but also more
beautiful, taller, with a good posture and noble facial features; on the contrary, Hutus were short,
rounder in comparison, with bigger heads, flat noses and huge lips (see, Prunier, 1997). As a
consequence of all these elements, the Belgians made the Tutsis superior and the Hutus inferior,
with the Twas becoming the bottom group in the hierarchy.
Next, in the 1930s, the Belgian colonial officers introduced identity cards that labelled all
Rwandans according to their ethnicity. Moreover, they created schools for training Tutsi
administrators as well as native tribunals headed by Tutsis. A cash crop economy based on the
cultivation of coffee was introduced in the country from 1932 and was administered through harsh
methods that further alienated the King and his chiefs (all Tutsi) from the rest of the population.
Finally, a number of institutions of labour mobilization (similar to the post-colonial practice of
umuganda
7
), existed in colonial Rwanda. Mandatory labour mobilization was widespread, highly
exploitative and deeply disliked by the majority of the population (Kagame, 1952). All these
initiatives were sustained by the colonial regime and dramatically changed the relationship between
the Hutus and the Tutsis. '[…] under colonial rule, “race” became the central determinant of
power; as a consequence, “race” became a symbol of oppression' (Straus, 2008, p. 121). Race was
now the country’s central political idiom.
7
In post-independence Rwanda, as well as in Rwanda at present, the most common practice was the umuganda
(literally meaning ‘contribution’). On the last Saturday of each month, there is a mandatory work fest from 7 a.m till
noon. During the umuganda, every able bodied person over the age of 18 years is required to participate in the
unpaid communal service. These include activities such as, building houses or clearing land.
13
1.3 The Rwandan Revolution: 1958-62
As discussed in the previous paragraphs, under Belgian domination, Rwanda had become a country
dominated by indirect rule and the changes introduced by the colonizers 'were sufficiently deep and
extensive to cause a major alteration of traditional relations between the chiefs and their subjects'
(Lemarchand, 1970, p.119). The chiefs were responsible only to the European authorities and
several obligations were imposed in the name of administrative efficiency, making life for the
(Hutu) peasantry unbearable. Especially the abolition of the clientage ties, which had for so long
been the base of the Rwandan society, 'was the symptom rather than the cause of the
disorganisation of the traditional social system' (ibid., p.132).
These unfair living conditions led to a social revolution, which eventually made Rwanda
independent from Belgium and permanently changed its society. The revolution is often called the
‘Hutu Revolution’, in an attempt to describe it as the result of an insurrection of the Hutu population
in order to overthrow the ruling Tutsi monarchy. However, the situation was far more complicated.
According to Straus (2008), 'on the eve of independence, [in Rwanda] there were four principal
political actors: (1) the Belgian colonial authorities' who, under pressure from the newly
established United Nations, eventually introduced some reforms that benefited Hutus; (2) 'an
emergent Hutu counter-elite' which, with the support of some Catholic missionaries, claimed
democratisation as well as more power for Hutus
8
; (3) 'Tutsi traditionalists', who did not believe in
ethnicity as a political factor, demanding independence from European rule; and 'Tutsi and Hutu
moderates', calling for a progressive change at a political level (p. 177). The role of the Church was
especially remarkable due to the inculcation of Christian ethics, which promoted the kind of social
change Hutu leaders were demanding
9
(Fusaschi, 2000; Crétien, 1997b). Moreover, the rising
number of Hutus who had access to higher education increased the awareness of the need for the
Rwandan society to radically change.
8
Its position was manifested in the ‘Bahutu Manifesto’, published in 1957, where sixteen major requests for reforms
were outlined. Michela Fusaschi, in “Hutu-Tutsi. Alle radici del genocidio rwandese” (2000) describes the relations
between the ʻManifestoʼ and the Hutu ideology which originated the genocide.
9
Curiously, previously the Church itself had strongly supported the Belgian colonizers in the process of ethnicization
of the Rwandan elites. The Catholic Clergy agreed with the idea that schools, which were at the time mainly under
the control of missionaires, had to train the youngsters of the Tutsi elite (due to their natural superiority in
comparison to the Hutus) to become leaders of the country (see, Prunier, 1995; and Fusaschi, 2000).
14
Before analysing the events that took place during the 1958-1962 period, it is important to stress
that the social revolution in Rwanda was not aimed at the Tutsis, but at Tutsi aristocracy (Linden,
1977 and Pottier, 2002). Moreover, it was not the Hutus on one side and the Tutsis on the other with
contrasting ideas regarding Rwanda (the democratisation of the society for the former, and the
maintaining of the status quo for the latter). Cross-ethnic solidarity among the leaders of the
revolution, especially among the clergy, was fundamental in the attempt (eventually successful) in
bringing down the Tutsi monarchy.
1.3.1 The jacquerie of November 1959 and the ‘Hutu Revolution’
At the beginning of the year 1959, Rwanda was a country still waiting for the changes and
advancements in living conditions as promised by the Belgians (which were never effectively
carried out), where the access to the mwami's council was still allowed exclusively to the Tutsis, and
in which a group of Hutu intellectuals was increasingly claiming for an integral and collective
promotion of the Hutus. In January, Belgium declared the intention to grant independence to the
Congo, strengthening the expectations of Rwanda for a similar destiny. On July the 25
th
, the
Rwandan king (Mutara III of Rwanda), died unexpectedly, allegedly poisoned (Lemarchand, 1970).
His death caused a serious political and social crisis in the country. In fact, Hutu leaders called for a
republic whilst Tutsi traditionalists installed a successor monarch, Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, without
consulting the Belgian authorities.
As a consequence of the increasing instability throughout the country, four main political parties
were formed for the first time in Rwandan history: 'the Party of the Movement for Hutu
Emancipation (P ARMEHUTU) and the Association for the Social Promotion of the Masses
(APROSOMA), both of which represented the Hutu counter-elite; the Rwandan National Union
(UNAR), which represented the Tutsi traditionalists; and the Rwandan Democratic Assembly
(RADER), which represented the moderates' (Straus, 2008, p. 178). UNAR soon began to intimidate
Hutu and Tutsi opponents and its militants assassinated some influential Hutu leaders. The situation
quickly degenerated and in November 1959, violence started to spread throughout the country. Hutu
crowds began to attack Tutsis and their properties. Meanwhile, UNAR partisans along with Hutu
and Tutsi supporters of the monarchy carried out tortures, arrests and assassinations of the
15
opposition parties' political leaders. The Belgians interpreted the popular insurrection against Tutsis,
called jacquerie, as the exteriorization of several generations of anger. On the contrary, the UNAR
and monarchy attacks were seen as an open contravention of the Belgian authorities' will.
Consequently, Belgium decided to back what they considered a Hutu insurgency and launched a
military operation to stop the violence (Fusaschi, 2000).
The Belgians interpreted all the events that took place in November 1959 in strictly ethnic terms
and decided that once the violence was over they would restructure the ethnic composition of
Rwanda's local administration to include more Hutus (Straus, 2008). In June and July 1960, national
elections were called; PARMEHUTU (on account of the boycott by UNAR) obtained more than
70% of the votes (Lemarchand, 1970). Eventually, Rwanda was declared a republic, although
formal independence was not granted until July 1962. Now, 'a one-party racial dictatorship was
replacing an oppressive regime' (Willame, 1995, p.64).
Two main lessons can be learnt when considering the so-called ‘Hutu Revolution’: first, from 1959
onwards, violence became a central pattern in the attempt of the various parties and groups to assert
power in Rwanda; second, Belgium, having established a system of rule based on ethnicity and
having then interpreted the violence of 1959 as strictly ethnic, further consolidated the political
relevance of race in the country.
However, the most tragic consequence of the November riots around the country was undoubtedly
'the forced exodus of thousands of Tutsi families from their native homelands, with all the material
hardships and emotional pangs that such a massive uprooting is liable to entail' (Lemarchand,
1970, p.171). Such a situation contributed significantly to the deterioration of the Hutu-Tutsi
relations in Rwanda and in the following six month an estimated number of 22,000 Tutsis found
refuge in camps, mission stations and government buildings. Only a small percentage of them
eventually returned to their homelands with the rest of them preferring to resettle in the
neighbouring countries Burundi, Tanzania, Congo and Uganda. As we shall see in the following
paragraphs, 'approximately 130,000 Tutsi had left the country by the end of 1963' (ibid., p.172).
16
1.4 Post-independence and Ethnic massacres in Rwanda
After the jacquerie of 1959, the tension in Rwanda did not ease and the contrasts between
PARMEHUTU and its opponents worsened. However, in September 1961, legislative elections took
place, confirming the supremacy of PARMEHUTU (considered by the other Rwandan parties as
racist, racial and anti-democratic). At the same time, the referendum on the question of the mwami,
officially abolished an already overthrown regime. In 1962, Rwanda was separated from Burundi
and officially gained independence from Belgium under its first elected president, Grégoire
Kayibanda (Fusaschi, 2000).
Meanwhile, UNAR leaders in exile began developing plans for terrorist actions against the Hutu
government. The first attacks are dated to have occurred around 1961, but the more substantial ones
were then launched in February and March 1962, in Byumba, northern Rwanda. The attacks took
place at night and the killers were called inyenzi (‘cockroaches’ in Kinyarwanda), a term that was
also used from 1990 to 1994 to despise the RPF and the Tutsi people in general (Lemarchand,
1970). A few civil servants and policemen were killed without any substantial gaining of territory.
In response to these attacks, killings of Tutsi civilians spread throughout the country. One to two
thousand Tutsis were killed in raids that lasted a couple of days though there is little detail to
present an accurate number.
However, much more is known about the ethnic massacres, which took place between 1963 and
1964. By the end of 1963, in Rwanda, PARMEHUTU officials were fearful of the thousands of
Tutsis living abroad. At the same time, the intra-Hutu divisions as well as the decline in the
exportation of coffee were increasing the sense of instability throughout the country (Prunier, 1995).
On the morning of December the 21
st
1963, some Rwandan Tutsi exiles invaded the country from
Burundi. They killed several government soldiers, recruited men to for their cause and began
marching towards Kigali. The PARMEHUTU reaction was not immediate as military officials also
feared internal attacks aimed at overthrowing the regime and restoring the monarchy. Eventually,
government soldiers intercepted and defeated the Tutsi attackers before they could reach the capital.
The next step decided by the government was fatal for many Tutsi civilians. In fact, after having
arrested and executed prominent political leaders from UNAR as well as some Hutu opponents of
17
the regime, President Kayibanda chose to mobilize civilian self-defence committees at the local
level. Hutu civilians set up roadblocks throughout the country and the killings of Tutsis began on
Christmas day, lasting three weeks. Violence was greater in some areas of the country, more
specifically, in Gikongoro (where the estimated number of victim varies from 5,000 to 10,000),
Bugesera, Kibungo and Cyangugu (Fusaschi, 2000; Clark, Kaufman, 2008). It is difficult to say
why the violence was greater in some areas and did not spread to others, but a possible explanation
for this is that the population decided to react to the killings of Tutsi civilians in the territories
where they were feeling much more threatened by the Tutsi leaders and exiles. In fact, all of these
areas were close to the Burundian border and incorporated the old monarchy's heartland, a core area
of the Tutsi opposition to the Kayibanda regime (Straus, 2008).
It needs to be underlined here that the entire Hutu population decided to attack the Tutsis, with the
clear intent to eliminate all of them. Moreover, this is how Lemarchand (1970) describes the cruelty
of the violence of 1963-1964:
'Never before – not even during the worst period of the revolution – had the killings reached such
frightening proportions. Never before had racial hatred led to such bestial cruelty. The scars
which the events left on the political institutions of Rwanda have yet to heal' (p. 216).
Moreover, it has to be highlighted that 'the genocide in 1963 was never officially acknowledged and
no one was punished, but a pattern and method were established for future violence against Tutsi'
(Melvern in Clark, Kaufman, 2008, p. 24).
In conclusion, it is acknowledged that the first Rwandan Republic, under President Grégoire
Kayibanda, institutionalised discrimination against Tutsis and periodically used massacres against
this targeted population as a means of maintaining the status quo. From 1959 onwards, the
population of Batutsi was targeted causing hundreds of thousands. Cycles of violence would
continuously take place over the following years to come, with rebel exiled Tutsis attacking from
neighbouring countries and Hutu armed forces, now more confident and better organized, retaliating
with large-scale slaughter and repression of Tutsis in Rwanda.
18
1.5 The 1973 events
The stability of Rwanda (which was based also on the use of violence) lasted only for a few years.
In fact, at the beginning of the 70's, the situation began to get worse. President Kayibanda knew that
after the presidential elections that were scheduled for 1973, he could not serve for another term.
Meanwhile, the economic and social tensions in northern Rwanda began to run out of control, with
peasants increasingly protesting against the national authority. Besides, in 1972, a military-led
massacre against Hutu elites took place in Burundi. The violence originated as some Burundian
Hutu dissidents attempted to overthrow the Tutsi government. In fact, in Burundi the political
situation had not changed after the independence and Tutsis were still dominating the State, the
economy and the military, oppressing the Hutu population. Approximately 100,000 to 200,000 Hutu
civilians were killed in the violence and thousands of refugees fled to Rwanda, increasing the anger
and sense of insecurity of the Rwandan Hutu elites.
In January 1973, seemingly with no specific trigger, anti-Tutsi persecutions began in Rwanda,
initially aiming only at ‘purging’. The reason for such initiatives was that, according to the ethnic
quotas established by President Kayibanda, Tutsis were supposed to occupy only between 10 and 20
percent of the posts in schools and administrative offices (Fusaschi, 2000). However, especially in
schools and with regards to education in general, the situation was very different with
approximately half of teachers and students being Tutsi. Hutu extremists began to verify the quotas,
'purging to create “ethnic proportionality”' (Straus, 2008, p. 190). Eventually, violence turned into
attacks against Tutsis living in rural areas, causing further deaths and another exodus of Tutsi
civilians to neighbouring countries. Once again, the violence against the Tutsi population originated
from the insecurity amongst Hutus who were in positions of authority, which was in turn related –
though not directly originated by – with the events which were taking place in the neighbouring
Burundi.
As stated above, the situation in the country was also characterised by increasing anger towards
President Kayibanda who was perceived as responsible for favouring southern Hutus
(Banyanduga), traditionally closer to the central government. As a consequence of such a tension,
some military officers from the northwest began preparation for a coup which was to take place on
19
July the 5
th
1973. Kayibanda was overthrown by his National Defence Minister, Juvenal
Habyarimana, and subsequently arrested (he then died under house arrest in 1976). About fifty-five
other prominent politicians were arrested and killed, exterminating most of the southern political
elite.
Rwanda’s second president, Juvénal Habyarimana, who ruled from 1973 to 1994, claimed to be
sympathetic towards the Tutsis and effectively diminished anti-Tutsi discrimination. Even so,
Habyarimana maintained strong impositions on Tutsi advancement through a system of regional
and ethnic quotas. In the years that followed, under the leadership of a one-party system namely, the
National Revolutionary Movement (MRND), Rwanda experienced a period of economic growth
and political stability. As we shall see in the next pages, this stability came to an end in the late 80s.
Prior to explaining the events between 1990 and 1994, it is important to highlight some significant
lessons, which can be learnt from the analysis of the main events which took place in Rwanda after
1959.
First, as Buckley-Zistel (in Clark and Kaufman, 2008) highlights, 'Rwanda's historical discourse
has essentially been a top-down political project either to establish group cohesion or separation'
(p. 131). The Belgian colonizers introduced the idea of a Hamitic origin of Tutsis who were to be
considered as a superior race, born to rule over Rwanda. In opposition, Hutus were identified as
common farmers who were not suitable for leading the country. A feeling of inferiority began to
grow among Hutus and their desire for vengeance eventually led to the social (‘Hutu’) revolution of
1959. Since the independence, different heads of state (especially Grégoire Kayibanda) manipulated
the ethnic differences in order to maintain control over the country. This political strategy portrayed
Tutsis as foreigners, authors of injustices and enemies of the Republic, in comparison with Hutus as
the indigenous majority and former victims of injustice, who emancipated themselves from the
Tutsi monarchy in 1959. It is possible to point out this as the reason for the recurrent violence
perpetrated against the Tutsi civilians (Prunier, 1995; Clark and Kaufman, 2008). How these ideas
formed the reasoning behind the 1994 genocide will be examined in the following paragraphs.
Furthermore, as Straus (2008) stated, 'there was […] continuity between the colonial and post-
20
colonial regimes in how authorities acted' (p. 217). The first Rwandan republic can be described as
a ʻmwamishipʼ (Lemarchand, 1970, p.272), in which the king, as well as the other authorities,
simply replaced the mwami and the various political figures existing before 1959. Consequently,
their roles, attitudes and strategies in the administration of Rwanda resemble those of the Belgians
and Tutsi elites during the colonial period. However, there was one substantial difference with
colonial Rwanda: Hutus, who had for so long been the oppressed, became the rulers of the country,
willing to take revenge over the Tutsis.
Francesca Polidori (in Fusaschi, 2009) affirms that during the thirty-five years which passed
between the social revolution and the genocide of 1994, discrimination against Tutsis and their
systematic and continuous extermination began the government's policy. The targets set by the State
were the 'glorification, distinction and hierarchizing' of ethnic groups, with the Hutus to be
considered superior. Tutsis were 'dehumanized' and increasingly considered as a problem for the
Rwandan society (p.103). They gradually lost their rights, and for their persecutors, no punishment
entailed. When persecution of another ethnic group becomes a country's policy, genocide begins to
be much more than an eventuality.
Within the context described above, thousands of Tutsis were arbitrarily deported to regions far
from their homeland. Those who were not forced to leave the country took the decision to emigrate,
in an attempt to escape from the recurrent Hutu attacks against them. Despite Tutsi exiles' desire to
go back, both the First and Second Republics repeatedly stated that Rwanda was a small,
overpopulated country that could not accommodate Rwandan refugees if they were to return. Tutsis
living in exile began pressing for return to their country of origin, but received no response from the
government. The clash between Hutus and Tutsi exiles became unavoidable.
1.6 Political and economical situation in Rwanda at the end of the 1980s
After years of relative calm, in the late 1980s, Rwanda once again experienced the rise of Hutu
extremism, which eventually led to the genocide in 1994. From 1973 onwards, the Habyarimana's
regime had presided over a period of economic growth, political stability and international support.
Regional and economical inequalities did not disappear, but ethnic divisions narrowed – although
21
Tutsi presence in education and government was still minimal due to regional and ethnic quotas.
Nevertheless, in the mid-1980s the country's economy began to decline and this was mainly because
the government had never made the reforms that were needed in order to regulate land ownership,
access and use. The result of such a lack of regulation was a significant impoverishment of rural
Rwanda (Pottier, 2002). Moreover, and due to the fact that Habyarimana was a native of northwest
Rwanda, his political choices often tended to penalise the southern part of the country. France,
which gave military and diplomatic support to Habyarimana's regime, did the same, funding higher
education and military training only in northern Rwanda. In doing so, the French (willingly or
unwillingly) contributed to the exacerbation of the contrasts between the north and the south of the
country
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Moreover, another major political change was about to take place in Rwanda. In fact, with the end
of the Cold War and the fall of communism in Europe, Western countries could no longer tolerate
the existence of single-party dictatorships in Africa. 'In 1991, under pressure from France, which
was then Rwanda's principal international backer, President Habyarimana formally ended the
exclusive rule of his party, the Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement
(MRND)' (Straus, 2008, p. 24). Hutu opponents of the regime, especially from the southern regions
of Rwanda, arose to challenge the president and his party. The largest opposition party created was
the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR). Unfortunately, as Pottier (2002) highlights,
'The country was not ready for the sudden switch to Western-style democracy' (p.37) and the main
outcome of Habyarimana's decision was the aggravation of tension within the country.
1.6.1 Rwandan exiles and the creation of RPF
As highlighted in the previous sections, several years of discrimination, persecution and violence
against the Tutsis had led to the displacement of a significant portion of the Rwandan Tutsi
population to the neighbouring countries, especially Uganda and Burundi. Many of these refugees,
who were forced into exile, suffered from persistent discrimination by the government of the
hosting countries. In Uganda, Idi Amin Dada – president of the country from 1971 to 1979 – was
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Gerard Prunier (1995) believes that, had the Rwandan civil war of 1990 not been fought on ethnic grounds pitting
Hutus against Tutsis, the fatal division in Rwanda might well have been north versus south.
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