Rwanda and Ethnic Quotas

Another country divided ethnically was Rwanda - the most densely populated country in Africa. At its independence (July 1961) Tutsi made up nine percent of the population. The rest were mostly Hutu, with Hutu dominating the new government. Rather than this government pursuing a policy of integration, reconciliation and speaking of the people of the nations as Rwandans, it pursued a policy of protecting the Hutu by restricting the Tutsi. Some assimilation and intermarriage had already taken place between the Hutu and Tutsi, and more integration might have developed had the government encouraged it. Instead it fanned the flames of fear - similar to the fear of Jews earlier in the century. Hutu government leaders saw the Tutsi as too ambitious. With the rise in population had come the belief that not enough opportunity existed for the Hutu and that too many Tutsi were around. The government decreed that no more than 9 percent of school children or students in higher education should be Tutsi, that no more than 9 percent of those in civil service or any other area of employment should be Tutsi.

Government policy and ethnic violence encouraged some Tutsi to leave the country. In an effort to encourage more to leave, in late 1961 about 3000 homes were set afire, and about 150 Tutsi were killed. Across the border in Tanzania, Tutsi organized an army to fight for justice - seen by the Hutu, of course, as terrorists. In 1963, in reprisal for Tutsi raids into Rwanda, Hutu gangs killed around ten thousand Tutsi and the Rwandan government executed about 20 prominent Tutsi citizens. The authoritarian Hutu government encouraged their followers to scrutinize schools and places of work to make sure that no more than nine percent were Tutsi. And people eager to fill positions occupied by Tutsi - including people in education - were eager to drive the Tutsi out.

Massive Tutsi emigration followed, and the war between the Tutsi and the Hutu escalated. The Tutsi force in Tanzania grew stronger, while the United States, France and Egypt were shipping arms not to the Tutsi "terrorists" but to the Hutu regime in Rwanda. Finally the International Commission on Human Rights stepped in and tried to do something about the killings of Tutsi and the refugee problem. In August 1993 an accord between the Tutsi military group (the Rwandese Patriotic Front) and the Hutu was reached at a conference in Arusha Tanzania. But among the Hutu were those who wanted no compromise and saw the Arusha Accords as handing power to the Tutsi, and they were unhappy with their Hutu president, Major-General Juvénal Habyarimana.

On April 6, 1994, the airplane carrying the President back to Rwanda was shot down, by persons unknown, as it approached the airport. Everyone aboard was killed. Within hours of the crash an organized slaughter of Tutsi began. Within thirty-six hours the Presidential Guard killed most of their "priority targets": journalists, civil-rights activists and others. Within days, around 40,000 bodies that had floated to Uganda were counted and buried. 60,000 bodies were buried in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. The killings lasted for three months. The population of Tutsi, estimated at around 930,000 was reduced to around 130,000. That is about 800,000 people killed, more than the 500,000 conservatively estimated by the United Nations.

From 10,000 to 30,000 Hutu were also killed, as some Tutsi fought back. The killings created a chaos that allowed the Tutsi force to move through Rwanda, and hundreds of thousands of Hutu fled in panic. The attempt at genocide had weakened the Hutu cause.

In July 1994 the Tutsi Rwandese Patriotic Front formed a government in Kigali, and it made an attempt at reconciliation. The president and prime minister of the new Rwandan government were Hutu, as were sixteen of its twenty-two ministers. Rwanda was in ruin, with some Rwandese Hutu opponents expressing hope that the Rwandese Patriotic Front would rule over a desert.

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