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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2022
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE GENOCIDE AGAINST THE TUTSI
To understand what happened in Rwanda, it is worth mentioning briefly something about the Rwandan history in as far as the preparation of the genocide and its execution are concerned. Before 1994, Rwanda, which is situated immediately south of the Equator, bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi, was the most densely populated African country with more than 7 million inhabitants on only 26,338 square kilometres of land. As written by Melvern, the pre-colonial period was largely a mystery for that its history was recalled only in poems and myths. By that time, Rwanda being a Kingdom, the King owned everything: the land, the cattle and the people (Melvern 2004, 7). After the Berlin conference of 1885, in which the main European powers divided the African continent and Rwanda was given to Germany, Rwanda continued to have its monarchy, which was one of the impressing Kingdoms among other African ones (Des Forges et al. 1999, 47). Germany ruled through that monarchy since the time it installed itself in Rwanda in 1897. In 1917, the League of Nations gave Belgium the mandate to administer Rwanda. In its summary of Rwandan history, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) mentioned that Rwanda was a complex and advanced monarchy. The monarch ruled the country through his official representatives drawn from the Tutsi nobility. Thus, a highly sophisticated political culture emerged which enabled the king to communicate with the people.
Both German and Belgian colonial authorities, if only at the outset as far as the latter are concerned, relied on an elite essentially composed of people who referred to themselves as Tutsi, a choice which, according to Des Forges, was born of racial or even racist considerations. In the minds of the colonizers, the Tutsi looked more like them, because of their height and colour, and were, therefore, more intelligent and better equipped to govern. Unlike Germany's policy of indirect rule, Belgium's policy became direct rule, which eroded the power of the King. His son, Mutara Rudahigwa, replaced him. The Belgian rule was harsh on Hutu and, as Belgian rule consolidated, hundreds of thousands of Hutu peasants fl ed the country to neighbouring Uganda to become migrant labourers (Melvern 2004, 10).
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