Rwanda
Rwanda's countryside is covered by grasslands and small farms
extending over rolling hills, with areas of rugged mountains that
extend southeast from a chain of volcanoes in the northwest. The
divide between the Congo and Nile drainage systems extends from
north to south through western Rwanda at an average elevation of
almost 9,000 feet. On the western slopes of this ridgeline, the land
slopes abruptly toward Lake Kivu and the Ruzizi River valley, which
form the western boundary with the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(formerly Zaire) and constitute part of the Great Rift valley. The
eastern slopes are more moderate, with rolling hills extending
across central uplands at gradually reducing altitudes, to the
plains, swamps, and lakes of the eastern border region.
Although located only two degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda's
high elevation makes the climate temperate. The average daily
temperature near Lake Kivu, at an altitude of 4,800 feet (1,463
meters) is 73o F (23o C). During the two rainy seasons (February-May
and September-December), heavy downpours occur almost daily,
alternating with sunny weather. Annual rainfall averages 80
centimeters (31 in.) but is generally heavier in the western and
northwestern mountains than in the eastern savannas.
Rwanda's population density, even after the 1994 genocide, is
currently the highest in continental Sub-Saharan Africa. Still a
very rural society, many families live in a self-contained compound
on a hillside. The urban concentrations are grouped around
administrative centers. The indigenous population consists of three
ethnic groups. Accounts of their respective arrivals in the area of
modern Rwanda were highly politicized during Rwanda's post-colonial
era, particularly in the years leading up to the genocide. The
Hutus, who comprise the majority of the population (85%), are
traditionally farmers of Bantu origin. The Tutsis (14%) are
traditionally a pastoral people who by some accounts arrived in the
area in the 15th century. Until 1959, they formed the dominant caste
under a feudal system based on cattle holding. The Twa (1%) are
thought to be the remnants of the earliest settlers of the region.
Over 70% of the adult population is literate, but not more than 5%
have received secondary education. During 1994-95, most primary
schools and more than half of prewar secondary schools reopened. The
national university in Butare reopened in April 1995; enrollment is
over 7,000. Rebuilding the educational system continues to be a high
priority of the Rwandan Government. |
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According to folklore, Tutsi cattle breeders began arriving in the
area from the Horn of Africa in the 15th century and gradually
subjugated the Hutu inhabitants. The Tutsis established a monarchy
headed by a mwami (king) and a feudal hierarchy of Tutsi nobles and
gentry. However, in some areas of the country, independent Hutu
principalities continued to exist, and in other areas Tutsi and Hutu
lineages lived in interdependent cooperation under the nominal
control of the Tutsi king. Within the monarchy, through a contract
known as ubuhake, the Hutu farmers pledged their services and those
of their descendants to a Tutsi lord in return for the loan of
cattle and use of pastures and arable land. Thus, the Tutsi reduced
some Hutu to virtual serfdom. However, boundaries of race and class
were somewhat fluid, with most rural Tutsis enjoying few advantages
over the Hutu. The first European known to have visited Rwanda was
German Count Von Goetzen in 1894. He was followed by missionaries,
notably the "White Fathers." In 1899, the mwami submitted to a
German protectorate without resistance. Belgian troops from Zaire
chased the small number of Germans out of Rwanda in 1915 and took
control of the country.
After World War I, the League of Nations mandated Rwanda and its
southern neighbor, Burundi, to Belgium as the territory of
Ruanda-Urundi. Following World War II, Ruanda-Urundi became a UN
Trust Territory with Belgium as the administrative authority.
Reforms instituted by the Belgians in the 1950s encouraged the
growth of democratic political institutions but were resisted by the
Tutsi traditionalists who saw in them a threat to Tutsi rule. An
increasingly restive Hutu population, encouraged by the Belgian
military, sparked a revolt in November 1959, resulting in the
overthrow of the Tutsi monarchy. Two years later, the Party of the
Hutu Emancipation Movement (PARMEHUTU) won an overwhelming victory
in a UN-supervised referendum.
During the 1959 revolt and its aftermath, more than 160,000 Tutsis
fled to neighboring countries. The PARMEHUTU government, formed as a
result of the September 1961 election, was granted internal autonomy
by Belgium on January 1, 1962. A June 1962 UN General Assembly
resolution terminated the Belgian trusteeship and granted full
independence to Rwanda (and Burundi) effective July 1, 1962.
Gregoire Kayibanda, leader of the PARMEHUTU Party, became Rwanda's
first elected president, leading a one-party government chosen from
the membership of the directly elected unicameral National Assembly.
Peaceful negotiation of international problems, social and economic
elevation of the masses, and integrated development of Rwanda were
the ideals of the Kayibanda regime; in reality the Kayibanda
government promoted a Hutu-supremicist ideology.
Relations with 43 countries, including the United States, were
established in the first 10 years. Despite the progress made,
inefficiency and corruption began festering in government ministries
in the mid-1960s. On July 5, 1973, the military took power under the
leadership of Maj. Gen. Juvenal Habyarimana, who dissolved the
National Assembly and the PARMEHUTU Party and abolished all
political activity.
In 1975, President Habyarimana formed the National Revolutionary
Movement for Development (MRND) whose goals were to promote peace,
unity, and national development, in the guise of a one-party state.
The movement was organized from the "hillside" to the national level
and included elected and appointed officials.
Under MRND aegis, Rwandans went to the polls in December 1978,
overwhelmingly endorsed a new constitution, and confirmed President
Habyarimana as president. President Habyarimana was re-elected in
1983 and again in 1988, when he was the sole candidate. Responding
to public pressure for political reform, President Habyarimana
announced in July 1990 his intention to transform Rwanda's one-party
state into a multi-party democracy.
On October 1, 1990, Rwandan exiles banded together as the Rwandan
Patriotic Front (RPF) and invaded Rwanda from their base in Uganda.
The rebel force, composed primarily of ethnic Tutsis, blamed the
government for failing to democratize and resolve the problems of
some 500,000 Tutsi refugees living in the diaspora around the world.
The war dragged on for almost 2 years until a cease-fire accord was
signed July 12, 1992, in Arusha, Tanzania, fixing a timetable for an
end to the fighting and political talks, leading to a peace accord
and power sharing, and authorizing a neutral military observer group
under the auspices of the Organization for African Unity. A
cease-fire took effect July 31, 1992, and political talks began
August 10, 1992.
On April 6, 1994, the airplane carrying President Habyarimana and
the President of Burundi was shot down as it prepared to land at
Kigali. Both presidents were killed. As though the shooting down was
a signal, military and militia groups began rounding up and killing
all Tutsis and political moderates, regardless of their ethnic
background.
The prime minister and her 10 Belgian bodyguards were among the
first victims. The killing swiftly spread from Kigali to all corners
of the country; between April 6 and the beginning of July, a
genocide of unprecedented swiftness left up to 800,000 Tutsis and
moderate Hutus dead at the hands of organized bands of militia--Interahamwe.
Even ordinary citizens were called on to kill their neighbors by
local officials and government-sponsored radio. The president's MRND
Party was implicated in organizing many aspects of the genocide.
The RPF battalion stationed in Kigali under the Arusha accords came
under attack immediately after the shooting down of the president's
plane. The battalion fought its way out of Kigali and joined up with
RPF units in the north. The RPF then resumed its invasion, and civil
war raged concurrently with the genocide for 2 months. French forces
landed in Goma, Zaire, in June 1994 on a humanitarian mission. They
deployed throughout southwest Rwanda in an area they called "Zone
Turquoise," ostensibly to quell the genocide and stop the fighting
there; many members of the genocidal rump regime established after
the genocide escaped through the French zone to eastern Congo. The
Rwandan Army was quickly defeated by the RPF and fled across the
border to Zaire followed by some 2 million refugees who fled to
Zaire, Tanzania, and Burundi. The RPF took Kigali on July 4, 1994,
and the war ended on July 16, 1994. The RPF took control of a
country ravaged by war and genocide. Up to 1 million had been
murdered, another 2 million or so had fled, and another million or
so were displaced internally.
The international community responded with one of the largest
humanitarian relief efforts ever mounted. The United States was one
of the largest contributors. The UN peacekeeping operation, UNAMIR,
was drawn down during the fighting but brought back up to strength
after the RPF victory. UNAMIR remained in Rwanda until March 8,
1996.
Following an uprising by the ethnic Tutsi Banyamulenge people in
eastern Zaire in October 1996, a huge movement of refugees began
which brought more than 600,000 back to Rwanda in the last 2 weeks
of November. This massive repatriation was followed at the end of
December 1996 by the return of another 500,000 from Tanzania, again
in a huge, spontaneous wave. Less than 100,000 Rwandans are
estimated to remain outside of Rwanda, and they are thought to be
the remnants of the defeated army of the former genocidal
government, its allies in the civilian militias known as Interahamwe,
and soldiers recruited in the refugee camps before 1996.
In 2001, the government began implementation of a grassroots
village-level justice system, known as gacaca, in order to address
the enormous backlog of cases stemming from the genocide. Despite
periodic prison releases, including the most recent January 2006
release of approximately 7,000 prisoners, tens of thousands of
individuals remain in the prison system, some scheduled to face the
traditional court system, some awaiting trial by gacaca courts, some
convicted by gacaca courts and returned to serve their sentences. By
the end of 2006, 818,000 genocide suspects had been identified by
the gacaca courts; case totals are now over one million. These
courts hoped to complete their caseload by the end of 2008.
In February 2008 a moderate earthquake in neighboring D.R.C., near
the southern Rwandan border town of Cyangugu, caused several dozen
deaths and hundreds of injuries in two Rwandan districts, with
hundreds of homes rendered uninhabitable and several churches
demolished. Rwandan authorities responded quickly to the tragedy
and, with the assistance of local and international non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), assisted those in need. |
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