Gikongoro Province was one of the former twelve provinces (intara) of Rwanda and is situated in the southwest of the country. The former province had an area of some 2,146 square kilometers. Its population was estimated at 466,451 (1990) and 511,776 (2002) prior to its dissolution in January 2006, with an annual growth rate of .810% between the years of 1990 and 2002. It included 13 "communes" and 125 sectors. [1]
Gikongoro Province was created after Rwanda gained its independence from Belgium in the Rwandan Revolution. The southern and western outlands of Nyanza, the former capital of the Kingdom of Rwanda, became eastern Gikongoro. [1]
In 1994, at the time of the Rwandan genocide the Tutsi population was concentrated in northern and eastern areas; according to local population statistics, there were almost no Tutsi living in western Gikongoro. In 1990, 17.5% of the population in Gikongoro was Tutsi. Tutsi were unevenly distributed throughout the province; 43% of Tutsi lived in Mubuga, with smaller percentages in Nyamagabe and Muko. There were five sectors with a Tutsi-majority population. The pre-genocide figure of 17.5% may be low due to missing data from Rwamiko. Rwamiko bordered Butare province—according to the 1991 census Butare province was 17.3%. Tutsi, more than any other province. Many of the sectors around Rwamiko were at least 40% Tutsi. There is a discrepancy between the 1990 local population data and 1991 population census. The 1991 census reported that only 12.8% of Gikongoro residents were Tutsi. According to Marijke Verpoorten, a researcher at University of Antwerp, the 1991 census under-reported Tutsi population figures. The Rwandan government stopped reporting ethnic demographic data after the genocide. [1]
According to some estimates, Tutsi men in Gikongoro had only a 25% chance of surviving the genocide. Other estimates have placed the odds even lower, around 10.7%. The genocide was more severe in areas where Tutsi had been persuaded to gather like Kibeho and Kaduha; these parishes were announced as safe locations for Tutsi to gather, but ended up being locations of large scale massacres. The violence was particularly intense in Mubugu and Rukondo. There was very little opposition to the genocide amongst local leadership; those who did object, in areas like Musebeya, Kivu and Kinyamakara, were unable to make a significant difference in the overall progress of the genocide and eventually lost their influence to political rivals who took advantage of the situation. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has identified Gikongoro as the location of some of the "earliest attacks" and "worst massacres" of the Rwandan genocide. The violence spread from Gikongoro to nearby areas, spreading outward from Kigali until it reached Gitarama Province. [1]
The Tutsi, or Abatutsi, are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. Tutsi are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group of probable Nilotic origin, and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi.
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were slaughtered by armed militias. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths. Estimates for the total death toll are as high as 1,100,000.
The provinces of Rwanda are divided into districts (akarere) and municipalities (umujyi). Prior to January 1, 2006, Rwanda was composed of 12 provinces. The Rwandan government decided to establish new provinces in an attempt to address issues that arose from the Rwandan genocide. The new provinces were to be "ethnically-diverse administrative areas".
Banyamulenge is the name that describes a community in the southern part of Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Banyamulenge of South Kivu are culturally and socially distinct from the Tutsi of North Kivu. Most Banyamulenge speak Kinyamulenge, which is a mixture of Kinyarwanda and Kirundi with specific phonological and morphological features not found in the latter two.
Butare was a province (prefecture) of Rwanda prior to its dissolution in January 2006. Butare city is the second largest city in Rwanda and one of the nation's former twelve provinces. It is located in south-central region of the country and borders Burundi to the south. It had a population of 77.449 as of January 2006.
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko is a Rwandan politician who was the Minister for Family Welfare and the Advancement of Women. She was convicted of having incited troops and militia to carry out rape during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. She was tried for genocide and incitement to rape as part of the "Butare Group" at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania. In June 2011, she was convicted of seven charges and sentenced to life imprisonment. Nyiramasuhuko is the first woman to be convicted of genocide by the ICTR, and the first woman to be convicted of genocidal rape.
The Rwandan Civil War was a large-scale civil war in Rwanda which was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces, representing the country's government, and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1 October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose from the long-running dispute between the Hutu and Tutsi groups within the Rwandan population. A 1959–1962 revolution had replaced the Tutsi monarchy with a Hutu-led republic, forcing more than 336,000 Tutsi to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. A group of these refugees in Uganda founded the RPF which, under the leadership of Fred Rwigyema and Paul Kagame, became a battle-ready army by the late 1980s.
Kibeho is a small town in south Rwanda, which became known outside of that country because of reported apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ occurring between 1981 and 1989. It is also known for the Kibeho Massacre, in April 1995, where several thousand internally displaced people were killed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army.
Gikongoro is a city in Nyamagabe district, Southern Province, Rwanda.
Gitarama was one of the former twelve provinces (intara) of Rwanda and was situated in the centre of the country, to the west of the capital Kigali. Gitarama Prefecture was created in 1959, increasing the number of prefectures of Rwanda from eight to nine. In 2002, it was renamed a province, as were the other prefectures of Rwanda. It had an area of 2,187 square kilometres and a population of some 851,451 prior to its dissolution in January 2006. Gitarama was divided into 8 districts: Muhanga, Kayumbu, Kabagali, Ntenyo, Kamonyi, Ntongwe, Ndiza and Ruyumba; and two towns: Ruhango and Gitarama. Gitarama bordered the provinces Butare, Gikongoro, Kibuye, Gisenyi, Ruhengeri, Kigali-Ngali and Kigali City Tourist attractions included the Kamegeri rocks and the Busaga forest.
The five provinces of Rwanda are divided into 30 districts. Each district is in turn divided into sectors, which are in turn divided into cells, which are in turn divided into villages.
Our Lady of Kibeho is the name given to reported Marian apparitions concerning several adolescents, in the 1980s in Kibeho, south-western Rwanda.
The Rwandan Revolution, also known as the Hutu Revolution, Social Revolution or Wind of Destruction, was a period of ethnic violence in Rwanda from 1959 to 1961 between the Hutu and the Tutsi, two of the three ethnic groups in Rwanda. The revolution saw the country transition from a Belgian colony with a Tutsi monarchy to an independent Hutu-dominated republic.
Violence during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 took a gender-specific form when, over the course of 100 days, up to half a million women and children were raped, sexually mutilated, or murdered. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) handed down the first conviction for the use of rape as a weapon of war during the civil conflict, and, because the intent of the mass violence against Rwandan women and children was to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular ethnic group, it was the first time that mass rape during wartime was found to be an act of genocidal rape.
Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana was a Rwandan academic who served as the Prefect of Butare and was killed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. He was the only Tutsi prefect at the time of the genocide, and also the only prefect belonging to the Liberal Party. He had resisted the genocide. Agnès Ntamabyaliro Rutagwera was implicated in arranging his murder.
The International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda since October 1, 1990 was an international inquiry that investigated reported human rights abuses during the Rwandan Civil War. Sponsored by four international non-governmental organizations, the commission was not officially mandated by the Rwandan government. Ten commissioners from eight countries spent two weeks in Rwanda visiting prefectures and documenting oral and written accounts, along with exhuming reported locations of mass grave burials. Primarily, the inquiry examined three major massacres that occurred between 1990 and 1992. The commission lasted three months and the final report was released in March 1993. Due to the dates of its investigation, the commission does not cover the Rwandan genocide, which followed in April 1994.
Jonathan Ruhumuliza is a Rwandan retired Anglican bishop. He is currently a parish priest in the Church of England and a former Bishop of Kigali and Bishop of Cameroon.
Marijke Verpoorten is a researcher and professor at the University of Antwerp. She received a PhD in Economics from the University of Leuven. Her research has focused on development economics, economic causes of armed conflicts, global supply chains, natural resources and religion, particular in Rwanda, Benin and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She also teaches economic and institutional development at the Catholic University of Bukavu and development economics at the African school of Economics in Benin.
In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a 2018 non-fiction book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever and published by Random House of Canada; it has also been translated into Dutch and French. The book describes alleged war crimes by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Rwanda's ruling political party, during its ascent to power in the 1990s.
The Bugesera invasion, also known as the Bloody Christmas, was a military attack which was conducted against Rwanda by Inyenzi rebels who aimed to overthrow the government in December 1963. The Inyenzi were a collection of ethnically Tutsi exiles who were affiliated with the Rwandan political party Union Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR), which had supported Rwanda's deposed Tutsi monarchy. The Inyenzi opposed Rwanda's transformation upon independence from Belgium into a state run by the ethnic Hutu majority through the Parti du Mouvement de l'Emancipation Hutu (PARMEHUTU), an anti-Tutsi political party led by President Grégoire Kayibanda. In late 1963 Inyenzi leaders decided to launch an invasion of Rwanda from their bases in neighbouring countries to overthrow Kayibanda. While an attempted assault in November was stopped by the government of Burundi, early in the morning on 21 December 1963 several hundred Inyenzi crossed the Burundian border and captured the Rwandan military in camp in Gako, Bugesera. Bolstered with seized arms and recruited locals, the Iyenzi—numbering between 1,000–7,000—marched on the Rwandan capital, Kigali. They were stopped 12 miles south of the city at Kanzenze Bridge along the Nyabarongo River by multiple units of the Garde Nationale Rwandaise (GNR). The GNR routed the rebels with their superior firepower, and in subsequent days repelled further Inyenzi attacks launched from the Republic of the Congo and Uganda.
Coordinates: 02°30′S29°35′E / 2.500°S 29.583°E
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