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Human occupation of Rwanda is thought to have begun shortly after the last ice age. By the 11th century, the inhabitants had organized into a number of kingdoms. In the 19th century, Mwami (king) Rwabugiri of the Kingdom of Rwanda conducted a decades-long process of military conquest and administrative consolidation that resulted in the kingdom coming to control most of what is now Rwanda. The colonial powers, Germany and Belgium, allied with the Rwandan court.
The Hutu, also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group native to the African Great Lakes region of Africa. They live mainly in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the principal ethnic groups alongside the Tutsi and the Great Lakes Twa.
Juvénal Habyarimana was a Rwandan politician and military officer who served as the second president of Rwanda, from 1973 until 1994. He was nicknamed "Kinani", a Kinyarwanda word meaning "invincible".
Michel Micombero was a Burundian politician and army officer who ruled the country as its first president and de facto dictator for the decade between 1966 and 1976.
The Rwandan Patriotic Front is the ruling political party in Rwanda. Led by President Paul Kagame, the party has governed the country since its armed wing defeated government forces, winning the Rwandan Civil War in 1994.
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.
Faustin Twagiramungu is a Rwandan politician. He was Prime Minister from 1994 until his resignation in 1995, the first head of government appointed after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) captured Kigali. He then exiled himself to Belgium.
Grégoire Kayibanda was a Rwandan politician and revolutionary who was the first elected President of Rwanda from 1962 to 1973. An ethnic Hutu, he was a pioneer of the Rwandan Revolution and led Rwanda's struggle for independence from Belgium, replacing the Tutsi monarchy with a republican form of government. Rwanda became independent from Belgium in 1962, with Kayibanda serving as the country's first president, establishing a pro-Hutu policy and a de facto one-party system governed by his party, Parmehutu. He was overthrown in a coup d'état in 1973 by his defense minister, Juvénal Habyarimana, and died three years later.
The National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development was the ruling political party of Rwanda from 1975 to 1994 under President Juvénal Habyarimana. Between 1975 and 1991, when it was known as the National Revolutionary Movement for Development, the MRND was the only legal political party in the country. It was dominated by Hutus, particularly from President Juvenal Habyarimana's home region of Northern Rwanda. The elite group of MRND party members who were known to have influence on the President and his wife are known as the akazu.
The assassination of presidents Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira in the evening of April 6, 1994 was the proximate trigger for the Rwandan genocide, which resulted in the murder of approximately 800,000 Tutsi and a smaller number of moderate Hutu. The first few days following the assassinations included a number of key events that shaped the subsequent course of the genocide. These included: the seizing of power by an interim government directed by the hard-line Akazu clique; the liquidation of opposition Hutu politicians; the implementation of plans to carry out a genocide throughout the country; and the murder of United Nations peacekeepers, contributing to the impulse of the international community to refrain from intervention.
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.
The Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement, also known as the Republican Democratic Movement – Parmehutu, was a political party in Rwanda. It was the most important party of the "Hutu Revolution" of 1959–61 that led to Rwanda becoming an independent republic and Hutus superseding Tutsis as the ruling group.
Ubuhake is the name given to the social order in Rwanda and Burundi from approximately the 15th century to 1958. It has been frequently compared to European feudalism. Based on cattle distribution, it was, however, a much smaller system than the one of uburetwa, which affected a much larger segment of the population and was based on land distribution. The Tutsi monarchy used the land distribution system of uburetwa to centralise control of the lands in most of Rwanda in a system called igikingi. Only the northwest of Rwanda, where Hutu land owners refused to submit, were not part of igikingi.
The Banyarwanda are the cultural and linguistic group of people who inhabit mainly Rwanda. Within the Banyarwanda there are three subgroups: Hutu, Tutsi and Batwa. Some Banyarwanda live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, having migrated there from neighbouring Rwanda in waves. In the Congo, they live in the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu. There are also 1 million Banyarwanda in Uganda, where they live in the west of the country; Umutara and Kitara are the centres of their pastoral and agricultural areas.
The largest ethnic groups in Rwanda are the Hutus, which make up about 85% of Rwanda's population; the Tutsis, which are 14%; and the Twa, which are around 1%. Starting with the Tutsi feudal monarchy rule of the 10th century, the Hutus were a subjugated social group. It was not until Belgian colonization that the tensions between the Hutus and Tutsis became focused on race, the Belgians propagating the myth that Tutsis were the superior ethnicity. The resulting tensions would eventually foster the slaughtering of Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide. Since then, policy has changed to recognize one main ethnicity: "Rwandan".
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.
On 18–19 October 1965, a group of ethnic Hutu officers from the Burundian military attempted to overthrow Burundi's government in a coup d'état. The rebels were angry about the apparent favouring of ethnic Tutsi minority by Burundi's monarchy after a period of escalating ethnic tension following national independence from Belgium in 1962. Although the Prime Minister was shot and wounded, the coup failed and soon provoked a backlash against Hutu in which thousands of people, including the participants in the coup, were killed. The coup also facilitated a militant Tutsi backlash against the moderate Tutsi monarchy resulting in two further coups which culminated in the abolition of Burundi's historic monarchy in November 1966 and the rise of Michel Micombero as dictator.
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 twelve 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.
Michel Rwagasana was a Rwandan politician who served as secretary general of the Union Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR) and represented Nyanza in the Rwandan Legislative Assembly from 1961 to 1963. Born to Hutu and Tutsi parents in Ruanda-Urundi, Rwagasana worked for the colonial administration and advised King Mutara III Rudahigwa of Ruanda before cofounding UNAR, a Tutsi-dominated monarchist political party. UNAR lost out to the majority party, Parmehutu led by Rwagasana's relative Grégoire Kayibanda, but supported the integration of UNAR into a coalition government as the country became independent as the Republic of Rwanda. He was killed in a purge in 1963, and is currently recognized by the Rwandan government as a national hero.
François Rukeba was a Rwandan politician and rebel leader.
References
- ↑ Gérard Prunier (1995). The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. C. Hurst & Co. p. 47.
- ↑ Preben Kaarsholm, ed. (2006). Violence, political culture & development in Africa. James Currey Publishers. p. 81, n. 33. ISBN 0-85255-894-5.
- ↑ Mutavu, Viola (31 January 2017). "Ibigwi byihariye by'Intwari Rwagasana Michel umaze imyaka 54 atabarutse". Igihe (in Kinyarwanda). Retrieved 28 April 2021.
- ↑ Mahmood Mamdani (2014) When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton University Press, p127
- ↑ Mamdani, p128
- ↑ Kimonyo, Jean-Paul (24 March 2014). "'Qui est génocide?' or 'Who is genocide?'". The New Times. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
- 1 2 Gasana, Vincent (26 December 2018). "The massacre of innocents, Rwanda 1963". The New Times. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
- ↑ Kimenyi, Felly (31 January 2013). "The life and times of Michel Rwagasana". The New Times. Retrieved 28 April 2021.
- ↑ Uriel Rosenthal; Arjen Boin; Louise K. Comfort, eds. (2001). MANAGING CRISES. Charles C. Thomas Publishers. p. 92.
- ↑ History Embassy of Rwanda to the United Kingdom
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