Hutus & Tutsis in Rwanda
The Hutu and Tutsi people dominate Rwanda in Africa and were the cause of the Rwandan genocide. The Tutsis are a nomadic group of people believed to have migrated to the great lakes region 400 years ago, while the Hutus were agriculturalists who arrived here between 500-1000 years BC from Chad.
After several years of staying in harmony. The Tutsis began to dominate the Hutu people and most were wealthier than the Hutus. Later on during the Belgian colonial rule in Rwanda the Hutus and Tutsis were to carry identity cards, each showing the tribe they belonged to.
Before the Belgian colonial rule, the two tribes lived together obeying the Tutsis’ godlike king, spoke the same language, intermarried and did everything in good harmony. Before the Germans colonized Rwanda and Burundi, they were known as Ruanda-Urundi, and when the Germans left two nations, Rwanda and Burundi, emerged with hot clashes between the two tribes from 1962 to 1994 when the genocides took place.
The colonialists segregated the two tribes by providing the Tutsis with higher education and giving them colonial powers, the problem came in when Rwanda got independence and the Hutus took advantage of the minority Tutsis by killing thousands of them and forcing the rest into exile in the neighboring countries.
The assassination of the Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana through the shooting of his plane near Kigali international airport led to the killing of the Burundi president, who was also a Hutu. The blame for the plane attack has never been known to date but the Hutus suspected the Tutsis and hence started the slaughter; women were raped and killed.
The Rwandan Tutsis later on in Uganda started a party known as the Rwandan Patriotic front and planned attacks on the Rwandan government led by the Hutus at that time. The shooting of the presidential plane that led to presidential death. The government launched a genocidal campaign against the Tutsis.
The campaign continued for a good 100 days with the aim of wiping out the Tutsis from Rwanda and the killing was made easier using national identification cards, the killings were massive and over 800,000 died using guns, machetes, pangas and many more.
After the genocide, many Hutus fled the country, fearing revenge from the Tutsis who now ruled the country; they flew to the neighboring countries.
Today, Rwanda is at peace, with the two tribes living in great harmony it’s even prohibited to differentiate the two tribes in the country; they’re not allowed to speak publicly about being Hutu or Tutsi.
