Rwanda travel guide

It is believed that the earliest inhabitants of present day Rwanda were the Twa, a group of Pygmy forest hunters and gatherers, whose descendants still live in Rwanda today. A resource rich, fertile landscape, it has been sought after for centuries by various colonists, the first being members of the Hutu tribe in the 5th century. The Hutu’s social structure was that of clans, with each one ruled by a king, or bahinza, who had a lot of power over their daily activities. Agricultural strength, cattle and land ownership was at the heart of Hutu life, and they cleared many of the Twa’s forests to pursue these activities.

The arrival of the Tutsis
The Tutsi people began migrating into the area in the 14th century. Their agricultural and political skills upstaged those of the Hutu, meaning that more and more land fell into the hands of the Tutsi clans. The clans’ kings, called mwami, created a system whereby Hutus were forced to rent their land from Tutsi elite landlords in order to farm and survive, and through this system the borders of Rwanda started to take shape.

German colonisation & German East Africa
The 1885 Conference of Berlin declared that Rwanda and Burundi would fall under German influence and control. This didn’t actually happen until 1894, when German Count von Götzen and his forces moved in, establishing what was to become known as German East Africa. The settling powers were short on numbers, however, and so were obliged to work closely with the ruling Tutsi mwanis in order to gain from the country’s valuable resources.

Even though German colonisation turned out to be relatively brief, its legacy remains today as it took the form of extensive coffee planting and Christian missions. Tutsi cooperation and conversion meant that, in the eyes of Europeans, they took on a more superior role than the agricultural Hutsi communities. So, divisions go back a long time in Rwanda’s history and, as is so often the case, are closely connected with land and class systems.

Creating a ‘superior’ race & Belgian rule
Following WW1 and a subsequent League of Nations mandate, Rwanda fell under Belgian administration. An ID system was introduced aimed at differentiating between tribal heritage and, from 1935, ‘Tutsi’, ‘Hutu’ and ‘Twa’ were indicated on identity cards. This is considered by many experts to have been a very destructive and divisive time in Rwanda’s history.

The Belgian rulers commissioned scientists to find a way of differentiating between Tutsis and Hutus – bearing in mind that they were working successfully with the Tutsi elite at that time. So-called scientists claimed that Tutsis were ‘superior’ as their skulls were bigger, they were tall and their skin was a lighter colour. In other words, closer to European traits, ergo, for the powers of the time, ‘superior’. It is important to note that this took place during the time when the eugenics movement was taking hold, and was taken seriously. The government used skull size and also the amount of cattle that a person owned as a way of defining ethnicity for their ID cards. They then went on to create a segregated school system, which never bodes well.

Breaking from Belgium
After WW2, the Tutsis began to lose control and tribal tensions were growing, not only because of the ID card system but also because the feudal ubuhake system was stopped and the majority Hutus started to gain control of their cattle and land again. A movement for independence from Belgian rule began and, in 1959, the Tutsi elite formed a political party, the Union Nationale Rwandaise. In the same year, a rival political party was formed by the Hutu people: Parti de l’émancipation du peuple Hutu (Parmehutu).

The era of independence
With growing anti colonial and anti Tutsi elitism sentiment among the Hutu people, Parmehutu became militarised and led an uprising in 1960, in which many Tutsis were killed and the reigning King Kigeri V fled the country. Consequently, following a referendum, the country became an independent republic in 1961, led by Parmehutu, with their leader Grégoire Kayibanda as President. Violence against between Tutsis and Hutus was ongoing, however, and in 1963 there was an attempted takeover by Tutsis now living in exile in Burundi. During this attempt, the Hutu forces of the new republic killed over 14,000 people.

Kayibanda stayed in power until 1973 when a bloodless coup led by Major General Juvenal Habyarimana, a wealthy Hutu and military dictator, led to his instatement as president. Violence between Tutsis from Burundi and Hutus in Rwanda continued until civil war broke out in 1990. Tutsis from neighbouring Uganda and Burundi rebelled en masse, with exiled Paul Kagame of Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) among them. There was a ceasefire in March 1991, but talks and peaceful developments were slow.

The 100 day Rwandan genocide
In 1994 President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi's President Cyprien Ntaryamira were killed while flying back from a heads of state summit meeting in Tanzania, when their airplane was hit by a missile. It is still not known who was responsible for the attack, some blaming Hutu extremists and others the RPF. The outcome was one of the most notorious periods in history when Rwanda’s Hutu powers ordered the mass killing of Tutsis and anyone considered to be government insurgents.

Between April and mid-July 1994, nearly 70 percent of the Tutsi population – over a million people – were killed by Hutu forces, and over two million Hutus fled. A third of the Twa population was also murdered. Through horrific displays of incitement to hatred, Hutus were encouraged to kill their Tutsi neighbours, with Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines notoriously broadcasting hate speech and advocating violence against Tutsis. Directors of this radio station and other media outlets promoting hate speech were imprisoned for life during the 2003 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

“Members of the presidential guard started killing Tutsi civilians in a section of Kigali near the airport. Less than half an hour after the plane crash, roadblocks manned by Hutu militiamen often assisted by gendarmerie (paramilitary police) or military personnel were set up to identify Tutsis.” – Source: United Nations

Wars with Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
The RPF took control of country again 4 July 1994, following a UN humanitarian mission a month earlier which had some impact in the south of the country, but not elsewhere. People who were responsible for the genocide fled, mostly to Zaire, now DRC, and tensions arose again in their refugee camps. This led to a war between Rwanda and DRC in 1996 and again in 1998 when they took part in a joint invasion with Uganda. In July 1999, the Lusaka Peace Accord was signed and UN peacekeepers were sent to monitor the situation.

The road to justice and peace
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda began in May 1995, with a very slow process of trying those who were guilty of genocide, incitement to hatred, rape and many other horrors. This Tribunal was based in Arusha, Tanzania and finally drew to a close on 31 December 2015 after many arrests. The national Gacaca courts still exist in Rwanda, however, with cases against people involved in the genocide still being heard.

In March 2000 RPF’s Paul Kagame became President of Rwanda which, a position he still holds as of September 2018. Kagame has been responsible for ensuring that the new Rwanda is a peaceful one although he also keeps a tight rein. The national media is kept under contro; his justification being the impact of incitement to violence by certain media during the genocide. At the time of writing, there are no independent radio stations in Rwanda.

International human rights organisations speak out against the restriction of a viable political opposition in Rwanda or ‘dissenting voices’. What Kagame has produced, however, is a country almost free of crime, in which where every adult between the ages of 18- 65 carries out a civic duty on the last Saturday of every month – cleaning the streets, doing public building work, helping landscape a park. Whatever it is, it’s all about coming together.

At Responsible Travel we believe that tourism can also be one of the best ways of bringing people together, sharing a national pride through cultural exchange. It is also one of the country’s highest earners, along with coffee and tea production. After the genocide, the UN claimed that “the tragedy was compounded by the faltering response of the international community.” As tourists in Rwanda, we can at least start to make amends on that front.