The History of Rwanda

1. The History of Rwanda By Your Name Here Date

2. Pre-Colonial Rwanda • Rwanda was a highly centralized kingdom ruled by Tutsi kings • The king ruled through three categories of chiefs – cattle chiefs, land chiefs and military chiefs • “Ubuhake,” a clientele system, permeated the whole society

3. Colonial Rwanda • In 1899, Rwanda became a German colony • In 1919, after the defeat of the Germans during World War I, Rwanda became a territory of the League of Nations under the Belgian administration

4. In 1935, the Belgian colonial administration introduced a prejudiced national identification based on ethnicity; wealthy people such as the ruling elite were registered as Tutsi and those with less wealth as Hutu With the demand for independence arose the Union Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR), a political party consisting of the Tutsi people The Belgians then quickly sided with another party called PARMEHUTU which was founded as a sectarian ethnic ideology In 1959, the first massive slayings of Tutsi by PARMEHUTU occurred under Belgian supervision With widespread violence, PARMEHUTU destroyed the monarchy On July 1st, 1962, Rwanda was granted formal independence from Belgium Colonial Rwanda (Cont’d)

5. Post-Independence • From 1959 onward, Tutsi people were targeted causing the deaths of thousands • The First Republic under President Gregoire Kayibanda institutionalized the discrimination and massacre of Tutsi people • In 1973, President Kayibanda was overthrown in a coup d’etat; Major General Juvenal Habyarimana was brought to power and more massacres of Tutsi occurred

6. Post-Independence (Cont’d) • In 1975, President Habyarimana formed MRND, a single ruling party that in 1978 created a constitution to return him to office repeatedly through “elections” where he was the only candidate • Habyarimana’s regime became more violently intolerant; political activities remained banned

7. Post-Independence (Cont’d) • Divisions within the ruling Hutu class, which culminated in the 1973 coup, became more heightened in the 1970s and 1980s • In 1987, the Rwandese Political Front (RPF) was formed, its objectives included promoting national unity, establishing a true democracy and providing security for all Rwandese • On October 1st, 1990, the RPF took up arms against the dictatorship; France, Belgium, and the Democratic Republic of Congo dispatched troops to Rwanda to help in the civil war • On August 4th, 1993, the Arusha Peace Agreement was signed by both the RPF and the ruling government but it was never implemented

8. Genocide • Although mass slayings of Tutsi took place throughout the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, between April and July 1994 over a million Rwandese (mainly Tutsi and Hutu opposition) were killed by the genocidal regime

9. On July 4th, 1994, the capital of Rwanda, Kigali, fell to the forces of the Rwandese Patriotic Army, a wing of the RPF Members of the former regime fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo On July 19th, 1994, RPF established a new government called the Government of National Unity with four other political parties The Fall of The Genocidal Regime

10. Eight Years of Progress • About 3 and a half million refugees have returned to Rwanda • The Government of National Unity has made progress rebuilding the justice system by starting with the enactment of the Genocide Law • The Genocide Law allowed for the trial and conviction of genocide suspects; currently 120,000 genocide suspects are in prison

11. Eight Years of Progress (Cont’d) • The Genocide Survivor Fund provides education, shelter, health and income-generating activities to the most vulnerable of survivors • A Human Rights Commission has been established to protect the rights of all citizens