The Mandates Commission of the League of Nations might never have approved a policy of “indirect rule” that coercive and controlling were it not for the Rwakayihura famine of 1929–30 in which thousands of Rwandans died in inaccessible parts of the country. Only draconian measures could build roads, increase harvests, and raise the taxes to keep the country together.20 With the exile of the recalcitrant King Musinga and the investiture of the more educated and compliant Rudahigwa in 1931, the Belgian mandate took root.21
TRANSITION TO TRUSTEESHIP
The League of Nations had been content to let Belgium administer the territory and send reports on social and economic progress to the Mandate Commission in Geneva, there to debate the merits of Belgian policy. Following World War II, however, the newly created UN Trusteeship Council actively pushed for political change, as well as for economic and social development. Regular missions began in 1947, reviewing progress on site. Although traditional autocracy had been legally grounded and administratively rationalized under indirect rule, the council’s first visiting mission to East Africa was convinced that “political evolution has reached a stage when an acceleration of the movement would be justified without running any great risk of grave social upheaval.”22
Grave social upheaval was precisely what occurred as Rwanda moved quickly toward independence in the late 1950s. By 1959, rural violence had broken out in northwest and central Rwanda, with massacres and hut burnings perpetrated by both Hutu and Tutsi partisans, while threats and intimidations harried Tutsi nobles into exile. In 1960, elected communal burgomasters and counselors replaced chieftaincies. As Reyntjens sums it up, “In less than two years [1959–1961], Rwanda had passed from a ‘feudal’ monarchy to a Hutu ‘democratic’ republic. . . . In 1952, the monarchist, fundamentally Tutsi regime was still solidly established, legally reinforced by 35 years of indirect administration. In 1962, Rwanda became independent under a republican, fundamentally Hutu regime.”23
A SOCIAL REVOLUTION
Chrétien contends that “the 1959–1961 ‘social revolution’ is the key event in Rwanda, one that shaped the country’s politics for the next three decades.”24 Radical changes brought about by that event found root in several factors:
• The UN Trusteeship Council’s interventions, which sought a rapid pace toward representative government and national autonomy25
• The monopolization of power, position, and privilege by the ruling Tutsi elite26
• The abolition in 1954 of ubuhake cattle-clientage without a concomitant reform of the land-tenure system27
• The emergence of Hutu intelligentsia, who challenged the legitimacy of traditional institutions and symbols and called for democratic governance28
• The death of Mwami Rudahigwa and the hardening of neo-traditionalist attitudes claiming right of conquest and superiority29
• The creation of political parties mobilized by individual leaders and ideologically centered on presumed Hutu and Tutsi identities30
Tensions built by these factors came to a crescendo on November 1, 1959, with the outbreak of violence around Kabgayi, center of the Hutu renaissance, and in the northwest, where clan leaders still opposed rule from the central court. By the time the violence abated, some three hundred Hutu and Tutsi were killed and twelve hundred were arrested, while the population of displaced burgeoned.31
To calm the storm, the Belgian administration installed Hutu chiefs and subchiefs in vacated chieftainships. They then implemented a previously planned administrative reform of replacing subchiefs with burgomasters and elected communal councils. A multiparty Provisional Council took over the legislative role of the High Council of State. After the failure of a reconciliation conference in early January 1961 at Ostend, Belgium, the Provisional Council called a national convention of burgomasters and municipal counselors. On January 28, these counselors deposed the “monarchy and all its symbols” and proclaimed a democratic republic.
Nine months later, under UN supervision but in an atmosphere of preelectoral violence and intimidation, legislative elections and a referendum on the monarchy confirmed the establishment of the republic and the parliamentary dominance of the Parmehutu Party. The elected legislators then set up the structures of the new republic, chose a government, and designated Grégoire Kayibanda as president. The “social revolution” thus gave birth to the government that took Rwanda to independence on July 1, 1962.32
FIRST REPUBLIC
Around the edges of this new, landlocked republic, monarchists in refugee camps plotted a return to power. Host country control and internal divisions within refugee leadership kept the attacks from being more effective; but with each attack, Hutu took reprisals against Tutsi still living in Rwanda.33
In December 1963, the monarchist UNAR party planned attacks from Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi. While the other attacks were turned back, a refugee force from Burundi pushed to within twenty miles of Kigali before the Rwandan National Guard stopped the column. Tutsi opposition leaders were immediately arrested and executed without trial. Kayibanda ordered his ministers to organize civil defense in each prefecture; the national radio called for citizens to defend their country; some local officials urged the elimination of all Tutsi as the only solution. An orgy of hut burning and murder broke out, especially in areas of high Tutsi population. Some ten thousand men, women, and children were hacked to death.34
In 1964 and 1966, refugees again attempted cross-border attacks. Each was turned back and followed by an anti-Tutsi pogrom. The 1963 victory at the Kanzenze bridge brought pride to the National Guard, solidarity to the Hutu cause, and a template for handling the Tutsi threat. Given their political utility, attacks against persons and property went largely unpunished; impunity for ethnic crimes became an unwritten understanding.
As the outside threat receded, internal divisions increased. Parmehutu became a de facto single party coping with land tenure issues, tensions within the National Guard, intraparty struggles, and disputes with the Catholic church. At the local level, burgomasters and prefects recreated networks of clients, extracting dues for services just like subchiefs and chiefs under the monarchical regime. Mismanagement and malversation abounded.35
Hutu advancement remained at the core of the Parmehutu agenda, arbitrarily enforced in school admittances, civil service recruitment, and even checks on business payrolls. Hutu who fled the 1972 genocide in Burundi gave a further impetus toward Hutu identity. Ethnic solidarity became the watchword among Hutu intelligentsia and especially among politicians campaigning for elections in 1973. Vigilantism gave way to hut burnings and murders. The harassment and intimidation triggered yet another massive emigration of frightened Tutsi who had hoped to make their accommodation with the new regime.
SECOND REPUBLIC
In a situation of looming chaos, President Kayibanda finally called on the National Guard to restore order. On July 4, 1973, top ministers from the government attended the national day celebration at the US residence, then repaired to a nightlong meeting with President Kayibanda. In the early morning hours, the National Guard surrounded the meeting place and arrested all participants. A Committee for Peace and National Unity, made up of the National Guard High Command, had decided not only to restore peace but also to take over power.36
The committee declared martial law, displacing all institutions of the First Republic, including the party, the national assembly, and the Supreme Court. President Kayibanda and seven other top members of his regime received suspended death sentences at a court martial.37 Coup leaders settled into high ministerial and administrative posts, with the newly promoted National Guard commander, Major General Juvénal Habyarimana, being named president and minister of defense.
In 1975, Habyarimana established the Revolutionary National Movement for Development (MRND) as a nationwide movement dedicated to unity and development. By 1978, Rwandans adopted by referendum a new constitution