A bit of Rwandan history

Rwanda is a unique country in Africa. It is located right below the equator, the “land of a thousand hills” and several dormant volcanoes. Prior to colonization it had been ruled for many centuries as a well-organized, highly-isolated fiefdom, and because of this, it is one of the last African countries to be entered by Europeans. Apparently, it had been held as a German colony for over 20 years before any European ever stepped foot in the country (those who tried earlier had been repelled by arrows) to announce its subjugation. (And when such German colonizer finally did, he stunned the people by having the gal to touch their Tutsi king by shaking his hand).


According to some archeological evidence (there has been little archeology done here due to years of isolation from the west) and much oral history, Rwanda was first settled by the Twa pygmies who lived in small, hunter-gatherer tribes, probably as early as the last ice age. Centuries later, sometime around 700 BC, came the strong and stocky agriculturalists –the Hutus- who pushed the Twa into the surrounding forests and spread out on Rwanda’s volcano enriched land. Around 1000 AD, entered the Tutsis, who had traditionally been herders of cattle. They were thin, lanky, and averaged heights of 1.5-2 meters, with many as tall as 2.5 meters. Either by conquest or assimilation - Tutsi oral history does not say - the Tutsis developed an established fiefdom and monarchy over the Hutus and Batwa, which remained highly functional until the beginning of the 20th century.

Until the 20th century, Rwandans had a highly organized and isolated society. They did not engage in trading with the Middle East, Asia or other African nations. They believed they were at the center of the universe and that their Tutsi king was magically connected with the health of their nation. Attempts by Europeans to enter the area in the 19th century were repeatedly stopped by attacks of arrows. Apparently, Rwanda had been "assigned to" Germany at the Berlin conference of 1885, but no European visited the country until 1894. The Tutsis reigned over the Hutus and Twas, but upward and downward mobility was apparently possible (rich Hutus could marry a Tutsi and "become Tutsi" and vice versa). Despite reports that the Rwandan genocide was a result of "centuries of ethnic fighting", until 1959, there had been no recorded ethnic violence in the country.


When the Germans entered, they adopted the existing hierarchy and ruled alongside the Tutsis. Given that definitions of race was en vogue in Europe (and especially Germany) at the time, they and other Europeans became quite fascinated with the racial distinctions visible in Rwanda, between the short "primitive" Twa, the stout Hutus, and the seemingly superior tall, lanky, lighter-skinned Tutsis. The Germans were the first to reinforce these definitions, and when Belgium took over Rwanda after WWI, they went as far as issuing racial identification cards to all Rwandans. The many who were indistinguishable due to centuries of intermarriage would be put into one group or another based on height measurements, skin tones, and wealth.


The Belgians themselves initially ruled along with the Tutsis, but when in the 1940s democracy and freedom of the proletariat became popular movements around Europe, the Belgiums began to support and encourage Hutu independence. Ethnic unrest rose, and in 1959, a Hutu leader was killed by a group of Tutsis - this is apparently the first recorded act of ethnically-motivated violence between the two. Thousands of Tutsis (a small minority in Rwanda) were killed in their homes in retaliation and hundreds of thousands fled into nearby Uganda, Burundi and Zaire. Among them included a 2 year old boy named Paul Kagame, who would later form the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1985 in Uganda (and receive military training in 1990-94 at Fort Leavenworth in the US). Between 1960 and 1994, there were incidents nearly every 1-2 years of RPF attempting to cross the border into Rwanda, occasionally attacking villages and killing villagers. In retaliation, entire villages of Tutsis would be killed, and many more forced to flee outside of Rwanda's borders.


By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the hatred towards the Tutsis was official, with radio broadcasts advocating complete destruction of the race. When the then moderate Hutu president was killed in a suspicious plane crash, the genocide began. Lists of all Tutsis (which thanks to the Belgian identification program had been carefully maintained) were issued out to drunk enranged gangs of Hutus. Tens of thousands of people were killed daily, often by their neighbors, and usually with machetes (because no one wanted to waste money on bullets). Some of the greatest massacres were in schools and churches, as Rwandas being 95% Christian (and mostly catholic) hoped that they would be protected inside of their god's walls. In less than 2 months, nearly 800,000 Tutsis were killed, the rest had fled. Paul Kagame left his training at Fort Leavenworth and the RPF entered from Uganda. Even 1 month into the genocide, the Belgian and French forces continued to arm the Hutu militias, as they had for so long supported Hutu independence and refused to believe in the atrocities their own soldiers were reporting.


The RPF eventually reached Kigali, set up a new government and put an end to the violence. Surprisingly, there was little retaliation on their side, and the first person tried and sentenced for an ethnic crime by the RPF was an RPF soldier who was avenging his family's death. For the next 10 years, there would be sporadic fighting with returning Tutsis avenging their own tragedies and Hutus lashing out against the returning (and now again ruling) Tutsis. But there was a strong movement for reconciliation. And remarkably few Tutsis that had seen their neighbors murder their family members sought out revenge. There is an incredible story Philip Gourevitch mentions in his well-written book on the Rwandan genocide "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" where even in 1997, 18 Hutu and Tutsi school girls and their Belgian nun were attacked by a Hutu militia. They were asked to separate themselves by race; they refused and instead called themselves "Rwandans". They were all killed, but the story was passed down as an example of hope for the future.


Today, Paul Kagame is serving his second term as president. There are elections, coming up in August, but as before, no one is under illusion that they are fair. Unofficially, he does not let anyone run against him, and officially, he has said recently that "Rwanda is not ready for the medicine of democracy."

At the same time, one can almost call what they have here as a somewhat "benevolent dictatorship". Though reports of corruption exist, there is not much evidence of this. Crime is remarkably low. In 2008, 45 of the 80 parliamentary seats were held by women (Rwanda is the only country in the world where females outnumber the males in government.) More children are going to school than ever in Rwandan history. Education is free, but poorer families still have trouble covering the fees of books and uniforms. There is an national health care system that was recently featured in the NYT and which gives basic insurance to all Rwandans for $1 per person per year (a poor person earns an average of $0.5-1 per day here). Plastic bags were banned 2 years ago and once a month, every citizen must spend 4 hours on a public works clean up project. This year, Rwanda was named the world's ambassador to the Environment by the UN because of it's many recent conservation efforts. The country is clean, the people are remarkably friendly and (at least appear to be) happy, and the last 5 years have had a strong growth in tourism which is vital to the country's economy. '

Things are clearly not ideal here, but given that the country only 16 years ago lost 10% of their population -most of the educated elite- to a civil genocide, they are doing remarkably well.