Ethnic Tensions in Rwanda
- This case study of Prescribe Topic: Conflict and Intervention focuses on the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.
- Over 100 days between April and June, approximately 800,000 to over one million people-mainly Tutsi civilians-were brutally murdered by Hutu extremists.
- This killing spree, faster and more intense than any genocide of the 20th century, surpassed those in Cambodia and Bosnia and occurred at five times the speed of the Holocaust.
- While much of the international community remained unaware or inactive, Rwanda was devastated.
- The massacre was not a spontaneous act of violence but a calculated strategy by a ruling elite desperate to retain power.
Rising of ethnic tensions: the colonial legacy
- After World War I, Rwanda was handed to Belgium after having been colonized by Germany, under a League of Nations mandate.
- The Belgians reinforced the existing social hierarchy, favoring the minority Tutsi-deemed racially superior based on pseudo-scientific beliefs-over the majority Hutu.
- This preference entrenched an ethnic divide that had previously been more fluid and socio-economic than rigid or racial.
- Belgian colonialism propagated the myth that the Tutsi were a racially distinct, superior people-taller, more intelligent, and better suited to rule.
- These ideas, rooted in 19th-century European racial theory, shaped future ethnic ideology in Rwanda and were later weaponized by Hutu extremists in the 1994 genocide.
Tutsi “superiority”
- European colonial powers, especially Belgium, applied 19th-century racial theories to Rwanda. They were influenced by the Hamitic Hypothesis, a now-discredited theory that claimed the Tutsi were of Caucasian descent, coming from the northeast (possibly Ethiopia or Egypt).
- Colonizers believed the Tutsi were naturally more intelligent, refined, and suited to rule. Belgian anthropologists and missionaries reinforced this idea, pointing to the Tutsi’s taller height, lighter skin, and narrower features as proof of “racial superiority.”
- These physical differences were used to justify giving Tutsi elites special privileges in education, government jobs, and church leadership.
- This deepened the ethnic divide and embedded false racial hierarchies into Rwandan society.
Belgian colonial rule in Rwanda
- Direct rule and exploitation
- Belgium imposed direct rule, forcing labor and heavy taxation.
- Rwanda’s fertile land was exploited for cash crops like coffee.
- Tutsi elites acted as intermediaries, which increased resentment among the Hutu.
- The Hutu carried most of the exploitation but were politically marginalized.
- Ethnically segregated education
- Tutsi children received superior education, usually in French.
- Hutu children were restricted to vocational training.
- Christianity was made compulsory for Tutsi elites, further raising their status.
- This reinforced Belgian control through religious and administrative loyalty.
