Tutsi - History

History

Beginning about 1880, Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in the Great Lakes region. Later, when German forces occupied the area during World War I, the conflict and efforts for Catholic conversion became more pronounced. As the Tutsi resisted conversion, the missionaries found success only among the Hutu. In an effort to reward conversion, the colonial government confiscated traditionally Tutsi land and reassigned it to Hutu tribes, igniting a conflict that has lasted into the 21st century.

The area was ruled as a colony by Germany (before World War I) and Belgium. Both colonial powers allowed only the Tutsi to be educated and only they could participate in the colonial government. Such discriminatory policies engendered resentment.

When the Belgians took over the colony, they believed the colony could be better governed if they continued to identify the different populations. In the 1920s, they required people to identify with a particular ethnic group and classified them in censuses. Belgian colonists viewed Africans in general as children who needed to be guided, but noted the Tutsi to be the ruling culture in Rwanda-Burundi. In 1959, Belgium reversed its stance and allowed the majority Hutu to assume control of the government through universal elections after independence.

The Hutu majority had revolted against the Tutsi but was unable to take power. Since the nation's independence, more extremist Tutsi came to power and oppressed the Hutus, especially those who were educated. Their actions led to the deaths of up to 200,000 Hutus. Overt discrimination from the colonial period was continued by different Rwandan and Burundian governments, including identity cards that distinguished Tutsi and Hutu.

In 1993, Burundi's first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi officers, as was the person entitled to succeed him under the constitution. This sparked a period of civil strife between Hutu political structures and the Tutsi military, in which an estimated 800,000 Burundians, mostly Tutsi, were murdered. Since the 2000 Arusha Peace Process, today in Burundi the Tutsi minority shares power in a more or less equitable manner with the Hutu majority. Traditionally, the Tutsi had held more economic power and controlled the military.

A similar pattern of events took place in Rwanda, but there the Hutu came to power in 1962. They in turn often oppressed the Tutsi, giving rise to Tutsi rebel movements. Exiled Tutsis attacked Rwanda in 1990 with the intention to liberate Rwanda. The fighting culminated in the Hutu mass killings of Tutsi and Hutu in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, in which the Hutu then in power killed an estimated 500,000–1,000,000 people, largely of Tutsi origin. At the same time in 1994, the RPF, mostly made up of diasporic Tutsi in Uganda, advanced to Rwanda. It had experience in organized irregular warfare from the Ugandan Bush War, and got much support from the government of Uganda. The initial RPF advance was halted by the lift of French arms to the Rwandan government. Attempts at peace culminated in the Arusha Accords. The agreement broke down after the assassination of the Rwandan and Burundian Presidents. Victorious in the aftermath of the genocide, the RPF came to power in July 1994. The RPF then killed many Hutus to avenge the genocide.