The Tutsis as cattle-herders were often in a position of economic dominance to the soil-tilling Hutus. That is not to say that all Tutsis were wealthy and all Hutus were poor, but in many areas, like Rwanda, the minority Tutsis ruled the Hutus.
According to some historians, like Congolese Professor George Izangola, the only difference between the two groups were economic, rather than ethnic. If you were close to the king, you owned wealth, you owned a lot of cattle, you are a Tutsi. Colonial rule, which began in the late 19th Century, did little to bring the groups together. The Belgians, who ruled what would later become Rwanda and Burundi, forced Hutus and Tutsis to carry ethnic identity cards. The colonial administrators further exacerbated divisions by only allowed Tutsis to attain higher education and hold positions of power.
Following independence in , Ruanda-Urundi split into two countries: Rwanda and Burundi. In Rwanda, the Hutu majority lashed out at the minority Tutsis — killing thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to neighboring Uganda.
In Burundi, the minority Tutsis maintained their control of the military and government through a campaign of violence against the Hutus. Although they lost multi-party elections in , two assassinations and a military coup have allowed the Tutsis to remain in power.
When Yoweri Museveni, a rebel leader of Tutsi descent, seized power in Uganda in , it was largely through the assistance of Rwandan Tutsis. Not surprisingly, the Tutsis welcomed this idea, and for the next 20 years they enjoyed better jobs and educational opportunities than their neighbours. Resentment among the Hutus gradually built up, culminating in a series of riots in More than 20, Tutsis were killed, and many more fled to the neighbouring countries of Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda.
When Belgium relinquished power and granted Rwanda independence in , the Hutus took their place. Over subsequent decades, the Tutsis were portrayed as the scapegoats for every crisis.
This was still the case in the years before the genocide. The economic situation worsened and the incumbent president, Juvenal Habyarimana, began losing popularity. Their aim was to overthrow Habyarimana and secure their right to return to their homeland. Habyarimana chose to exploit this threat as a way to bring dissident Hutus back to his side, and Tutsis inside Rwanda were accused of being RPF collaborators.
In August , after several attacks and months of negotiation, a peace accord was signed between Habyarimana and the RPF, but it did little to stop the continued unrest. When Habyarimana's plane was shot down at the beginning of April , it was the final nail in the coffin. Exactly who killed the president - and with him the president of Burundi and many chief members of staff - has not been established.
Whoever was behind the killing its effect was both instantaneous and catastrophic. In Kigali, the presidential guard immediately initiated a campaign of retribution. Leaders of the political opposition were murdered, and almost immediately, the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus began. Within hours, recruits were dispatched all over the country to carry out a wave of slaughter.
The early organisers included military officials, politicians and businessmen, but soon many others joined in the mayhem. Organised gangs of government soldiers and militias hacked their way through the Tutsi population with machetes, or blew them up in churches where they had taken refuge.
The extremist ethnic Hutu regime in office in appeared genuinely to believe that the only way it could hang on to power was by wiping out the ethnic Tutsis completely. Encouraged by the presidential guard and radio propaganda, an unofficial militia group called the Interahamwe meaning those who attack together was mobilised. The then-governing party, MRND, had a youth wing called the Interahamwe, which was turned into a militia to carry out the slaughter.
Weapons and hit-lists were handed out to local groups, who knew exactly where to find their targets. The Hutu extremists set up a radio station, RTLM, and newspapers which circulated hate propaganda, urging people to "weed out the cockroaches" meaning kill the Tutsis.
The names of prominent people to be killed were read out on radio. Even priests and nuns have been convicted of killing people, including some who sought shelter in churches.
By the end of the day killing spree, around , Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been killed. The Belgians and most UN peacekeepers pulled out after 10 Belgian soldiers were killed. The French, who were allies of the Hutu government, sent a special force to evacuate their citizens and later set up a supposedly safe zone but were accused of not doing enough to stop the slaughter in that area.
Paul Kagame, Rwanda's current president, has accused France of backing those who carried out the massacres - a charge denied by Paris. The well-organised RPF, backed by Uganda's army, gradually seized more territory, until 4 July , when its forces marched into the capital, Kigali. Some two million Hutus - both civilians and some of those involved in the genocide - then fled across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the time called Zaire, fearing revenge attacks.
Others went to neighbouring Tanzania and Burundi. Human rights groups say RPF fighters killed thousands of Hutu civilians as they took power - and more after they went into DR Congo to pursue the Interahamwe. The RPF denies this. In DR Congo, thousands died from cholera, while aid groups were accused of letting much of their assistance fall into the hands of the Hutu militias. The RPF, now in power in Rwanda, embraced militias fighting both the Hutu militias and the Congolese army, which was aligned with the Hutus.
But the new president's reluctance to tackle Hutu militias led to a new war that dragged in six countries and led to the creation of numerous armed groups fighting for control of this mineral-rich country. An estimated five million people died as a result of the conflict which lasted until , with some armed groups active until now in the areas near Rwanda's border.
The International Criminal Court was set up in , long after the Rwandan genocide so could not put on trial those responsible. A total of 93 people were indicted and after lengthy and expensive trials, dozens of senior officials in the former regime were convicted of genocide - all of them Hutus.
Within Rwanda, community courts, known as gacaca, were created to speed up the prosecution of hundreds of thousands of genocide suspects awaiting trial. Correspondents say up to 10, people died in prison before they could be brought to justice.
For a decade until , 12, gacaca courts met once a week in villages across the country , often outdoors in a marketplace or under a tree, trying more than 1. Their aim was to achieve truth, justice and reconciliation among Rwandans as "gacaca" means to sit down and discuss an issue. President Kagame has been hailed for transforming the tiny, devastated country he took over through policies which encouraged rapid economic growth.
He has also tried to turn Rwanda into a technological hub and is very active on Twitter.
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