Rwanda

Rwanda is a small, landlocked, mountainous country lying south of the Equator in central Africa, bordered by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. Rwanda existed as an independent, highly centralized state for several centuries, ruled by a king and noble elite drawn largely from the minority Tutsi group. Rwanda became part of German East Africa in 1899, but following the First World War it became part of the Belgianadministered territory of Ruanda-Urundi, with neighbouring Burundi, under a League of Nations mandate. The colonial authorities consolidated the power of the existing Tutsi elite but, in an attempt to head off claims for independence from them, the Hutu majority were encouraged to participate in the political life of the country. Independence from Belgium followed in 1962, after a Hutu uprising (1959-61) and large-scale massacres of Tutsis. This brought to power a Hutudominated Government led by President Gre´goire Kayibanda, who oversaw continued inter-communal violence between the Hutus and Tutsis. In 1973 Kayibanda was toppled in a military coup and Juvenal Habyarimana, a more moderate Hutu, took up the presidency. During his regime however, Tutsis were still excluded from power and faced widespread discrimination and state-sponsored violence. Many left the country, joining those who had fled the killings of 1959. Power was concentrated in the hands of a single party, the Mouvement Re´volutionnaire National pour le De´veloppement (MRND). Habyarimana and the MRND won several uncontested ‘elections’ through the 1980s. Having failed to negotiate their return to the country, in 1985 Tutsi exiles in Uganda formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a small but highly effective rebel force. In October 1990 the RPF invaded Rwanda from Uganda, demanding representation and equality for all Rwandans. A civil war in the border area ensued, with the Habyarimana regime being ably assisted by the French Government with whom it had struck up a mutually conducive post-independence relationship. Each incursion by the RPF was followed by reprisal massacres, largely of Tutsis, by government forces. A peace agreement was brokered in 1993, which inter alia provided for a power-sharing arrangement involving all political forces and the RPF. Unwilling to share power, however, a group of extremist Hutu politicians planned to consolidate their hold on the country by exterminating all the Tutsis of

the country, along with moderate Hutu leaders. The Hutu Government formed and trained the extremist youth militia known as the Interahamwe and disseminated hate propaganda to the largely illiterate population through state radio. Lists were compiled of Tutsis and moderate Hutu leaders who were to be massacred once the planned genocide commenced. On 6 April 1994 President Habyarimana was returning to Rwanda from attending a meeting in Tanzania to discuss the implementation of the peace agreement. As his private jet approached the airport in Kigali it was struck by two surface-to-air missiles killing all on board. There is powerful circumstantial evidence in favour of the theory that the plane was brought down by the presidential guard as part of a coup attempt to bring hardline politicians to power and to destroy the peace process and the transition to democracy. The mass killing of political opponents was the next stage in a carefully planned sequence of events. Massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians began within hours of the death of the President and quickly spread throughout the country, propelled by the death lists and propaganda being aired over the radio. Thousands were slaughtered daily in a genocide that lasted until July and cost the lives of around 1m. Rwandans. It was halted only by the RPF taking control of the country. The extremist politicians and over 2m. Hutus fled the country, together with many members of the Rwandan armed forces and the Interahamwe, mainly into Zaire (now the DRC). The RPF has remained the dominant party in Rwanda since July 1994, when it set up a Transitional Government of National Unity, sharing power with other parties under the formula agreed at Arusha in 1993.