Rwanda

Republic of Rwanda [Repubulika y'u Rwanda] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) [République du Rwanda] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)
Flag Coat of arms of Rwanda Coat of arms
Motto: Ubumwe, Umurimo, Gukunda Igihugu "Unity, Work, Patriotism"
Anthem: [Rwanda nziza] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)
Capital and largest city	Kigali
Official languages	Kinyarwanda, French, English
Government	Republic
• President	Paul Kagame
• Prime Minister	Bernard Makuza
Independence  from Belgium
• Date	July 1 1962
• Water (%)	5.3
Population
• July 2005 estimate	7.6 million (86th)
• 2002 census	8,128,553
GDP (PPP)	2005 estimate
• Total	$11.24 billion (130th)
• Per capita	$1,300 (160th)
HDI (2004)	0.450  (158th)
Currency	Rwandan franc (RWF)
Time zone	UTC+2 (CAT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (not observed)
Calling code	250
ISO 3166 code	RW
Internet TLD	.rw
1 Estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected.

Rwanda IPA: [ɾ(g)wɑndɑ], officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa. It has a population of approximately 9 million. It is bordered by Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. It is comprised of fertile and hilly terrain. This explains the title "Land of a Thousand Hills," (Template:Lang-fr /pei de mil kɔ.lin/) ("Igihugu cy'Imisozi Igihumbi" in Kinyarwanda.)

Rwanda supports the densest human populations in continental Africa. The country is well known to the outside world for the infamous 1994 genocide that resulted in the deaths of nearly 800,000 people.

Rwanda's dependence on subsistence agriculture, dense and increasing population, depleted soil fertility and uncertain climate make Rwanda a country where chronic malnutrition is widespread and poverty is endemic.

History

Main article: History of Rwanda

The Twa, a pygmoid people, have probably inhabited the region in and around Rwanda for 35,000 years. In recent times the Twa have occupied a very low social status and have often been exploited. Between the 7th and 10th centuries AD, the Bantu-speaking Hutu people arrived from the Congo basin. They began a primarily agricultural way of life. Between the 14th and 15th centuries, the pastoral Tutsi population arrived and formed a number of chieftain-led units based on clan structures. These later merged to form a state centered near Kigali. Land was gradually transferred from Hutu hands to the Mwami, the central leader of the Tutsi.

Between 1860 and 1895, Mwami Rwabugiri consolidated land control centrally. Some Hutu were allowed to "earn" back their land by a system of forced labor similar to sharecropping called uburetwa. Local Hutu administrators appointed by the Mwami ("land chiefs") supervised this system. A similar, but much smaller, system of patronage based upon cattle ownership, known as ubuhake (a "patron/client" relationship), allowed Hutu to earn cattle (and therefore status) through forced labor as well. This system was supervised by a Mwami-appointed "cattle chief," who was always a Tutsi. Tutsi commoners could also earn their way into the Tutsi aristocracy in this system, but were not required to perform similar degrees of forced labor as were the Hutus. In each region the Mwami also appointed a Tutsi "military chief." It was Rwabugiri, therefore, that created the caste system between Hutu and Tutsi.

In many parts of Rwanda the population had been fluid, both through migration as well as through intermarriage, and in these areas Rwabugiri denoted certain clan lineages as being Tutsi aristocracy by the number of cattle they possessed at the time, and by the relationships the clans had with regional Tutsi chiefs. These systems persisted until abolished in 1954.

Colonial Era

After signing treaties with chiefs in the Tanganyika region in 1884-1885, Germany claimed Tanganyika, Rwanda and Burundi as its own territory. Count von Götzen met the Tutsi Mwami for the first time in 1894. However, with only 2500 soldiers in East Africa, Germany did little to change societal structures in much of the region, especially in Rwanda. After the Mwami's death in 1895, a period of unrest followed. Germans and missionaries then began to enter the country from Tanganyika in 1897-98.

By 1899 the Germans exerted some influence by placing advisors at the courts of local chiefs. Much of the Germans' time was spent fighting uprisings in Tanganyika, especially the Maji-Maji war of 1905-1907. On May 14, 1910 the European Convention of Brussels fixed the borders of Uganda, Congo, and German East Africa which included Tanganyika and Ruanda-Urundi. In 1911, the Germans helped the Tutsi in the northern part of Rwanda, put down a rebellion of Hutus who did not wish to submit to central Tutsi control.

During World War I, 1916, Belgian forces advanced from the Congo into Germany's East African colonies. After Germany lost the War, Belgium accepted the League of Nations Mandate of 1923 to govern Ruanda-Urundi along with the Congo, while Great Britain accepted Tanganyika and other German colonies. After World War II Ruanda-Urundi became a United Nations (UN) "trust territory" administered by Belgium. The Belgian involvement in the region was far more direct than had been the German involvement and extended its interests into education and agricultural supervision. The latter was especially important in the face of two droughts and subsequent famines in 1928-29 and in 1943. These famines forced large migrations of Rwandans to neighboring Congo.

The Belgian colonizers also accepted the prevailing class rule already in place, i.e., the minority Tutsi upper class, and the lower classes of Hutus. However, in 1926 the Belgians abolished the local posts of "land-chief", "cattle-chief" and "military chief," and in doing so they stripped the Hutu of their limited, local power over land. In the 1920s, under military threat, the Belgians finally helped to bring the northwest Hutu kingdoms, who had maintained local control of land not subject to the Mwami, under the Tutsi royalty's central control. These two actions disenfranchised the Hutu. Large, centralized land holdings were then divided into smaller chiefdoms.

The fragmenting of Hutu lands angered Mwami Yuhi IV who had hoped to further centralize his power enough to rid himself of the Belgians. In 1931 Tutsi plots against the Belgian administration resulted in the Belgians deposing the Tutsi Mwami Yuhi. This caused the Tutsis to take up arms against the Belgians, but Tutsi fear of the military superiority of the Belgians meant the Tutsis did not openly revolt.

The Roman Catholic Church considered the Hutus and Tutsis different ethnic races based on physical differences and patterns of migration. However, because of the existence of many wealthy Hutu who shared the financial (if not physical) stature of the Tutsi, the Belgians used an expedient method of classification based on the number of cattle a person owned. Anyone with ten or more cattle was considered a member of the aristocratic Tutsi class. From 1935 on, "Tutsi", "Hutu" and "Twa" were indicated on identity cards.

The Roman Catholic Church, the primary educators in the country, subscribed to and reinforced the differences between Hutu and Tutsi. They developed separate educational systems for each. In the 1940s and 1950s the vast majority of students were Tutsi. In 1943, Mwami Mutari III became the first Tutsi monarch to convert to Catholicism.

The Belgian colonialists continued to depend on the Tutsi aristocracy to collect taxes and enforce Belgian policies. It maintained the dominance of the Tutsi in local colonial administration and expanded the Tutsi system of labor for colonial purposes. The United Nations later decried this policy and demanded a greater self-representation of the Hutu in local affairs. In 1954 the Tutsi monarchy of Ruanda-Urundi demanded independence from Belgian rule. At the same time it agreed to abolish the system of indentured servitude (ubuhake and uburetwa) the Tutsis had practiced over the Hutu until then.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, a wave of Pan-Africanism swept through Central Africa, with leaders such as Julius Nyerere in Tanzania and Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. Anti-colonial sentiment stirred throughout central Africa, and a socialist platform of African unity and equality for all Africans was forwarded. Nyerere himself wrote about the elitism of educational systems, which Hutus interpreted as an indictment of the elitist educations provided for Tutsis in their own country.

Encouraged by the Pan-Africanists, and the support of the Hutu advocates in the Catholic Church by Christian Belgians, (who were increasingly influential in the Congo), Hutu sentiment against the aristocratic Tutsi was increasingly inflamed. The United Nations mandates, the Tutsi overlord class, and the Belgian colonialists themselves, added to the growing unrest.

The Hutu "emancipation" movement was soon spearheaded by Gregoire Kayibanda, founder of PARMEHUTU, who wrote his "Hutu Manifesto" in 1957. The group quickly became militarized.

In reaction, in 1959, the UNAR party was formed by Tutsis who desired an immediate independence for Ruanda-Burundi, to be based on the existing Tutsi monarchy. This group also became quickly militarized. Skirmishes began between UNAR and PARMEHUTU groups.

Then in July 1959, the Tutsi Mwami (King) Mutara III Charles was believed by Rwandan Tutsis to have been assassinated, when he died following a routine vaccination by a Flemish physician in Bujumbura. His younger half-brother then became the next Tutsi monarch, Mwami (King) Kigeli V.

In November 1959, Tutsi forces beat up a Hutu politician, Dominique Mbonyumutwa, and rumors of his death set off a violent backlash against the Tutsi known as "the wind of destruction." Thousands of Tutsis were killed and many thousands more, including the Mwami, fled to neighboring Uganda before Belgian commandoes arrived to quell the violence. Several Belgians were subsequently accused by Tutsi leaders of abetting the Hutus in the violence.

Tutsi refugees also fled to the South Kivu province of the Congo, where they called themselves Bunyamalengi. They eventually became a primary force in the First and Second Congo Wars.

In 1960, the Belgian government agreed to hold democratic municipal elections in Ruanda-Urundi, in which Hutu representatives were elected by the Hutu majorities. This precipitous change in the power structure threatened the centuries-old system by which Tutsi superiority had been maintained through monarchy.

An effort to create an independent Ruanda-Urundi with Tutsi-Hutu power sharing failed, largely due to escalating violence. The Belgian government, with UN urging, therefore decided to divide Ruanda-Urundi into two separate countries, Rwanda and Burundi. Each had elections in 1961 in preparation for independence.

In 1961, Rwandans voted, by referendum and with the support of the Belgian colonial government, to abolish the Tutsi monarchy and instead establish a republic. Dominique Mbonyumutwa, who had survived his previous attack, was named the first president of the transitional government.

Burundi, by contrast, established a constitutional monarchy, and in the 1961 elections leading up to independence, Louis Rwagasore, the son of the Tutsi Mwami and a popular politician and anti-colonial agitator, was elected as Prime Minister. However, he was soon assassinated. The monarchy, with the aid of the military, therefore assumed control of the country, and allowed no further elections until 1965.

Between 1961 and 1962, Tutsi guerrilla groups staged attacks into Rwanda from neighboring countries. Rwandan Hutu-based troops responded and thousands more were killed in the clashes.

On July 1, 1962, Belgium, with UN oversight, granted full independence to the two countries. Rwanda was created as a republic governed by the majority Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement (PARMEHUTU), which had gained full control of national politics by this time.

In 1963, a Tutsi guerrilla invasion into Rwanda from Burundi unleashed another anti-Tutsi backlash by the Hutu government in Rwanda, and an estimated 14,000 people were killed. In response, a previous economic union between Rwanda and Burundi was dissolved and tensions between the two countries worsened. Rwanda also now became a Hutu-dominated one-party state.

Post-Independence

Gregoire Kayibanda, founder of PARMEHUTU (and a Hutu) was the first president (from 1962 to 1973), followed by Juvenal Habyarimana (who was president from 1973 to 1994). The latter, also a Hutu (from the northwest of Rwanda), took power from Kayibanda in a 1973 coup, claiming the government to have been ineffective and riddled with favoritism. He installed his own political party into government. This occurred partially as a reaction to the Burundi genocide of 1972, with the resultant wave of Hutu refugees and subsequent social unrest. Many viewed him as a ruthless dictator, though, with 20 years of rule marked by an iron-fist policy against both Tutsis as well as moderate Hutus who opposed him. He resisted ongoing calls for free elections and was opposed to long-running demands by Rwandan Tutsi refugees for their right of return. (By the 1990s, Rwanda had up to one million refugees, both Tutsi and Hutu, scattered around neighbouring countries, in Uganda, Congo, Burundi, and Tanzania.) Despite these problems, Rwanda enjoyed relative economic prosperity during the early part of his regime.

Inter-relationship with events in Burundi

The situation in Rwanda had been influenced in great detail by the situation in Burundi. Both countries had a Hutu majority, yet an army-controlled Tutsi government in Burundi persisted for decades. After the assassination of Rwagasore, his UPRONA party was split into Tutsi and Hutu factions. A Tutsi Prime Minister was chosen by the monarch, but, a year later in 1963, the monarch was forced to appoint a Hutu prime minister, Pierre Ngendandumwe, in an effort to satisfy growing Hutu unrest. Nevertheless, the monarch soon replaced him with another Tutsi prince. In Burundi's first elections following independence, in 1965, Ngendandumwe was elected Prime Minister. He was immediately assassinated by a Tutsi extremist and he was succeeded by another Hutu, Joseph Bamina. Hutus won 23/33 seats in national elections a few months later, but the monarch nullified the elections. Bamina was soon also assassinated and the Tutsi monarch installed his own personal secretary, Leopold Biha, as the Prime Minister in his place. This led to a Hutu coup from which the Mwami fled the country and Biha was shot (but not killed). The Tutsi-dominated army, led by Michel Micombero brutally responded: almost all Hutu politicians were killed. Micombero assumed control of the government and a few months later deposed the new Tutsi monarch (the son of the previous monarch) and abolished the role of the monarchy altogether. He then threatened to invade Rwanda.A military dictatorship persisted in Burundi for another 27 years, until the next free elections, in 1993.

Another 7 years of sporadic violence in Burundi (from 1965 - 1972) existed between the Hutus and Tutsis. In 1969 another purge of Hutus by the Tutsi military occurred. Then, a localised Hutu uprising in 1972 was fiercely answered by the Tutsi-dominated Burundi army in the largest Burundi genocide of Hutus, with a death toll nearing 200,000.

This wave of violence led to another wave of cross border refugees into Rwanda of Hutus from Burundi. Now there were large numbers of both Tutsi and Hutu refugees throughout the region, and tensions continued to mount.

In 1988, Hutu violence against Tutsis throughout northern Burundi again resurfaced, and in response the Tutsi army massacred approximately 20,000 more Hutu. Again thousands of Hutu were forced into exile into Tanzania and Congo to flee another genocide of Hutu.

Civil War

Main articles: Rwandan Civil War and Rwandan Genocide

In 1986, Yoweri Museveni's guerrilla forces in Uganda had succeeded in taking control of that country, overthrowing the Ugandan dictatorship of Milton Obote. Many exiled refugee Rwandan Tutsis in Uganda had joined his rebel forces and had then become part of the Ugandan military, now made up from Museveni's guerrilla forces.

However, Ugandans resented the Rwandan presence in the new Ugandan army, and Paul Kagame, a Tutsi who had become head of military intelligence in Museveni's new Ugandan army, then founded the RPF, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, in 1986. He began to train his own army to invade Rwanda from Uganda, and many Tutsis who had been in the Ugandan military now joined the RPF. Kagame also received military training in the United States. In 1991, a radio station broadcasting RPF propaganda from Uganda was established by the RPF.

In response to the RPF threat, the Rwandan Hutu military government of Juvénal Habyarimana also began training young Hutu men into informal armed bands called Interahamwe (a term roughly meaning "those who fight together").

In 1990, the Tutsi-dominated RPF invaded Rwanda from Uganda. Some members allied with the military dictatorship government of Habyarimana responded in 1993 to the RPF invasion with a radio station that began anti-Tutsi propaganda and with pogroms against Tutsis, whom it claimed were trying to re-enslave the Hutus. Nevertheless, after 3 years of fighting and multiple prior "cease-fires", the government and the RPF signed a "final" cease-fire agreement in August 1993, known as the Arusha accords, in order to form a power sharing government. Neither side appeared ready to accept the accords, however, and fighting between the two sides continued unabated.

The situation worsened when the first elected Burundian president, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was assassinated by the Burundian Tutsi-dominated army in October 1993. In Burundi, a fierce civil war then erupted between Tutsi and Hutu following the army's massacre, and tens of thousands, both Hutu and Tutsi, were killed in this conflict.

This conflict spilled over the border into Rwanda and caused the fragile Rwandan Arusha accords to quickly crumble. Tutsi-Hutu hatred rapidly intensified.

Although the UN sent a peacekeeping force named the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), it was underfunded, under-staffed, and largely ineffective in the face of a two country civil-war, as detailed in Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire's book Shake Hands with the Devil.

During the armed conflict in Rwanda, the RPF was blamed for the bombing of the capital Kigali. On April 6, 1994, the Hutu president of Rwanda and the second newly elected president of Burundi (also a Hutu) were both assassinated when their jet was shot down, allegedly by missiles from the Ugandan army, while landing in Kigali. A French tribunal has blamed this action on Kagame's RPF forces. Kagame, an expert in military intelligence and propaganda, however, has always countered that disgruntled Hutus killed their own Hutu president, as well as the Hutu president of Burundi, to justify a genocide that was then "perpetrated by the French" as well as the Hutu militias.

In response to the April killing of the two state presidents, over the next three months (April - July 1994) the Hutu-led military and Interahamwe militia groups killed about 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates in the "Rwandan genocide". The Tutsi-led RPF continued to advance on the capital, however, and soon occupied the northern, eastern, and southern parts of the country by June. Thousands of additional civilians were killed in the conflict. UN member states refused to answer UNAMIR's requests for increased troops and money. Meanwhile, although French troops were dispatched to "stabilize the situation," they were only able to evacuate foreign nationals.

Between July and August, 1994, Kagame's Tutsi-led RPF troops first entered Kigali and soon thereafter captured the rest of the country. Over 2 million Hutus then fled the country, causing the Great Lakes refugee crisis. Many went to Eastern Zaire (notably Northern Kivu province).

Between 1994 and 1996, the Tutsi-controlled RPA government of Paul Kagame continued its retribution against Hutu in Rwanda. To continue its attacks against the Hutu Interahamwe forces, which had fled to Eastern Zaire, Kagame's RPA forces invaded Zaire in 1996, following talks by Kagame with US officials earlier the same year.

In this invasion Kagame allied with Laurent Kabila, a marxist revolutionary in Eastern Zaire who had been a foe of Zaire's long-time dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. Kagame was also supported by Yoweri Museveni's Ugandan forces, with whom he had trained in the late 1980s, which then invaded Eastern Zaire from the northeast. This became known as the First Congo War.

In this war, militarized Tutsi refugees in the South Kivu area of Zaire, known as Banyamulenge to disguise their original Rwandan Tutsi heritage, allied with the Tutsi RDF forces against the Hutu refugees in the North Kivu area, which included the Interahamwe militias.

In the midst of this conflict, Kabila, whose primary intent had been to depose Mobutu, moved his forces to Kinshasa, and in 1997, the same year Mobutu Sese Seko died of prostate cancer, Kabila captured Kinshasa and then became president of Zaire, which he then renamed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With Kabila's success in the Congo, he no longer desired an alliance with the Tutsi-RDF Rwandan army and the Ugandan forces, and in August 1998 ordered both the Ugandans and Tutsi-Rwandan army out of the DRC.

However, neither Kagame's Rwandan Tutsi forces nor Meseveni's Ugandan forces had any intention of leaving the Congo, and the framework of the Second Congo War was laid.

In the Second Congo War, Tutsi militias among the Banyamulenge in the Congo province of Kivu desired to annex themselves to Rwanda (now dominated by Tutsi forces under the Kagame government). Kagame also desired this, both to increase the resources of Rwanda by adding those of the Kivu region, and also to add the Tutsi population, which the Banyamulenge represented, back into Rwanda, thereby reinforcing his political base.

In the Second Congo War, Uganda and Rwanda attempted to wrest much of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Kabila's forces, and nearly succeeded. However, due to the personal financial stakes of many leaders around Southern Africa in the Congo (such as Robert Mugabe and Sam Nujoma), armies were sent to aid Kabila, most notably those of Angola and Zimbabwe. These armies were able to beat back Kagame's Rwandan-Tutsi advances and the Ugandan forces.

In the great conflict between 1998 and 2002, during which Congo was divided into three parts, multiple opportunistic militias, called Mai Mai, sprang up, supplied by the arms dealers around the world that profit in small arms trading, including the US, Russia, China, and other countries. Over 3.8 million people died in the conflict, as well as the majority of animals in the region.

Laurent Kabila was assassinated in the DRC (Congo) in 2001, and was succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila. It is claimed by many in the Congo that Joseph Kabila was the son of a Rwandan Tutsi mother and his real father was a friend of Laurent Kabila's; he was adopted by Laurent Kabila only when Laurent took Joseph's Rwandan mother as one of his many wives. Joseph speaks fluent Rwandese and was trained in Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and China. After serving 5 years as the transitional government president, he was freely-elected in the Congo to be president, in 2006, largely on the basis of his support in the Eastern Congo.

Ugandan and Rwandan forces within Congo began to battle each other for territory, and Congolese Mai Mai militias, most active in the South and North Kivu provinces (in which most refugees were located) took advantage of the conflict to settle local scores and widen the conflict, battling each other, Ugandan and Rwandan forces, and even Congolese forces.

Ironically, it was the Banyamulengi, the large Tutsi refugee group in the Congo, that appeared to have ended the war. Tired of the prolonged war, they rebelled against Kagame's Rwandan troops and forced them to return to Rwanda, allowing Kabila to retake control of the Eastern Congo with the aid of the Angolan and Zimbabwe forces.

Rwandan RPF troops finally left Congo in 2002, leaving a wake of disease and malnutrition that continued to kill thousands every month. However, Rwandan rebels continue to operate (as of May 2007) in the northeast Congo and Kivu regions. These are claimed to be remnants of Hutu forces that can not return to Rwanda without facing genocide charges, yet are not welcomed in Congo and are pursued by DRC troops. In the first 6 months of 2007, over 260,000 civilians were displaced. Congolese Mai Mai rebels also continue to threaten people and wildlife.Although a large scale effort at disarming militias has succeeded, with the aid of the UN troops, the last militias are only being disarmed in 2007. However, fierce confrontations in the northeast regions of the Congo between local tribes in the Ituri region, initially uninvolved with the initial Hutu-Tutsi conflict but drawn into the Second Congo War, still continue.

In Burundi, the Burundi Civil War from 1993 to 2006 coincided with the First and Second Congo Wars. At least 300,000 Burundians were killed, and refugees into Tanzania and Congo contributed to the region's major population displacements. In August 2005, a Hutu born-again Christian, Pierre Nkurunziza, was elected as Burundi president. At least three cease-fires between rebel groups and Burundi forces, in 2003, 2005, and September 2006, have been signed.

Rwandan stability is undoubtedly dependent both on stability in Eastern DRC (Congo) and in Burundi.

Post-civil war

After the Tutsi RPF took control of the government, Kagame installed a Hutu president, Pasteur Bizimungu, in 1994. Many believed him to be a puppet president, however, and when Bizimungu became critical of the Kagame government in 2000, he was removed as president and Kagame took over the presidency himself. Bizimungu immediately founded an opposition party (the PDR), but it was banned by the Kagame government. Bizimungu was arrested in 2002 for treason, sentenced to 15 years in prison, but released by a presidential pardon in 2007.

After it took control of the government in 1994 following the civil war, the Tutsi-dominated RDF party then wrote the history of the genocide and enshrined its version of events in the current constitution of 2003. It made it a crime to question the government's version of the genocide. In 2004, a ceremony was held in Kigali at the Gisozi Memorial (sponsored by the Aegis Trust and attended by many foreign dignitaries) to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the genocide, and the country observes a national day of mourning each year on April 7. Hutu Rwandan genocidal leaders are on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in the Rwandan National Court system, and, most recently, through the informal Gacaca village justice program. Recent reports highlight a number of reprisal killings of survivors for giving evidence at gacaca.

Many claim that memorialisation of the genocide without admission of the crimes by the Tutsi-RDF are one sided, and is part of ongoing propaganda by the Tutsi-led Rwandan government, which is essentially a one-party government at this time. The author of Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina, has demanded that Paul Kagame, the current Rwandan president, be tried as a war criminal. Kagame's invasion of Rwanda in 1990 and of Zaire / Congo in the First and Second Congo Wars was responsible for the death of more than 4 million people during those conflicts.

The first elections since the invasion of Rwanda by Kagame's forces in 1990 (and the subsequent creation of a military government by Kagame in 1994) were held in 2003. Kagame, who had already been appointed president by his own government in 2000, was then "elected" president by over 95% of the vote, with little opposition. Opposition parties were banned until just before the 2003 elections. Following the elections, in 2004, a constitutional amendment banned political parties from denoting themselves as being aligned with "Hutu" or "Tutsi." However, the RPF, a primarily Tutsi political organisation, was not disbanded and therefore continues its dominance. Most observers therefore do not believe the 2003 elections to have been fair nor representative. Elections have been compared to the "fair elections" of Robert Mugabe's ZANU party in Zimbabwe. The next presidential elections are due to be held in 2010.

Rebuilding

Rwanda today struggles to heal and rebuild, but shows signs of rapid development. Some Rwandans continue to grapple with the legacy of almost 60 years of intermittent war.

One agent in Rwanda's rebuilding effort is the Benebikira Sisters, a Catholic order of nuns whose ministry is dedicated to education and healthcare. Since the genocide, the Sisters have housed and supported hundreds of orphans, and created and staffed schools to educate the next generation of Rwandans.

The major markets for Rwandan exports are Belgium, Germany, and China. In April 2007, an investment and trade agreement, 4 years in the making, was worked out between Belgium and Rwanda. Belgium contributes $25-35 million euros per year to Rwanda.

Belgian co-operation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry continues to develop and rebuild agricultural practices in the country. It has distributed agricultural tools and seed to help rebuild the country. Belgium also helped in re-launching fisheries in Lake Kivu, at a value of US$470,000, in 2001.

In Eastern Rwanda, The Clinton Hunter Development Initiative, along with Partners in Health, are helping to improve agricultural productivity, improve water and sanitation and health services, and help cultivate international markets for agricultural products.

Politics

Main article: Politics of Rwanda

After its military victory in July 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front organized a coalition government based on the 1993 Arusha accords, and political declarations by the parties. The National Movement for Democracy and Development – Habyarimana's party that instigated and implemented the genocidal ideology – along with the CDR (another Hutu extremist party) were banned, with most of its leaders either arrested or in exile. It is not clear whether any Hutu parties are currently allowed in Rwanda.

After the 1994 genocide, the RPF installed a single-party "coalition-based" government. Paul Kagame became Vice-President. In 2000, he was elected president of Rwanda by the parliament.

A new constitution, written by the Kagame government, was adopted by referendum in 2003. The first post-war presidential and legislative elections were held in August and September 2003, respectively. Opposition parties were banned until just before the elections, so no true opposition to the ruling RPF existed. The RPF-led government has continued to promote reconciliation and unity amongst all Rwandans as enshrined in the new constitution that forbids any political activity or discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion. Right of return to Rwandans displaced between 1959 and 1994, primarily Tutsis, was enshrined in the constitution, but no mention of the return of Hutus that fled Kagame's RPF forces into the Congo in the great refugee crisis of 1994-1998 or subsequently, is made in the constitution. Nevertheless, the constitution guarantees "All persons originating from Rwanda and their descendants shall, upon their request, be entitled to Rwandan nationality" and "No Rwandan shall be banished from the country."

By law, at least a third of the Parliament representation must be female. It is believed that women will not allow the mass killings of the past to be repeated. Rwanda topped a recently conducted global survey on the percentage of women in Parliament with as much as 49 percent female representation, currently the highest in the world.

The Senate has at least 26 members, each with an 8 year term. At least 1/3 of positions must be held by women. 8 posts are appointed by the president. 12 are elected representatives of the 11 provinces and the city of Kigali. Four members are designated by the Forum of Political Organizations (a quasi-governmental organization that currently is an arm of the dominant political party); one member is a university lecturer or researcher elected by the public universities; one member is a university lecturer or researcher elected by the private universities. Any past President has permanent membership in the Senate. Under this scheme, up to 12 appointees to the Senate are appointed by the President and his party. The elected members must be approved by the Supreme Court.

The 14 Supreme Court members are designated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

The Chamber of Deputies has 80 members, each with a 5 year term; 24 posts are reserved for women and are elected by province; 53 posts can be men or women and are also are elected by local elections; 2 posts are elected by the National Youth Council; 1 post is elected by Federation of the Associations of the Disabled.

The President and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies must be from different political parties. The President is elected every 7 years, and may serve a maximum of 2 terms.

In 2006, however, the structure of the country was reorganized. It is unclear how this affects current elected representation proportions.

The current Rwandan government, led by Paul Kagame, has been praised by many for establishing security and promoting reconciliation and economic development, but is also criticised by some for being overly militant and opposed to dissent. The country now has many international visitors and is regarded as a safer place for tourists, with only a single isolated mortar attack in early 2007 around Volcanoes National Park near Gisenyi.

With new independent radio stations and other media arising, Rwanda is attempting a free press, but there are reports of journalists disappearing and being apprehended whenever articles question the government. The transmitter for Radio France International was banned by the government in Rwanda in 2006 when it became critical of Kagame and the RPF.

Administrative divisions

Main articles: Provinces of Rwanda and Districts of Rwanda

Map of Rwanda

Satellite image of Rwanda

Rwanda is divided into five provinces ([intara] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) and subdivided into thirty districts ([akarere] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). The provinces are:

• North Province
• East Province
• South Province
• West Province
• Kigali Province

Prior to 1 January 2006, Rwanda was composed of twelve provinces, but these were abolished in full and redrawn as part of a program of decentralization and reorganization.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Rwanda

This small country is located near the center of Africa, a few degrees south of the Equator. It is separated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo by Lake Kivu and the Ruzizi River valley to the west; it is bounded on the north by Uganda, to the east by Tanzania, and to the south by Burundi. The capital, Kigali, is located in the centre of the country.

Rwanda's countryside is covered by grasslands and small farms extending over rolling hills, with areas of rugged mountains that extend southeast from a chain of volcanoes in the northwest. The divide between the Congo and Nile drainage systems extends from north to south through western Rwanda at an average elevation of almost 9,000 feet (2,740 m). On the western slopes of this ridgeline, the land slopes abruptly toward Lake Kivu and the Ruzizi River valley, and constitutes part of the Great Rift Valley. The eastern slopes are more moderate, with rolling hills extending across central uplands at gradually reducing altitudes, to the plains, swamps, and lakes of the eastern border region. Therefore the country is also fondly known as "Land of a Thousand Hills" ([Pays des milles collines] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). In 2006, a British-led exploration announced that they had located the longest headstream of the River Nile in Nyungwe Forest.

Climate

Rwanda is a tropical country; its high elevation makes the climate temperate. In the mountains, frost and snow are possible. The average daily temperature near Lake Kivu, at an altitude of 1,463 m (4,800 feet) is 23°C (73°F). Rwanda is considered the lightning capital of the world, due to intense daily thunderstorms during the two rainy seasons (February–May and September–December). Annual rainfall averages 830 mm (31 inches) but is generally heavier in the western and northwestern mountains than in the eastern savannas.

Transport

Main article: Transport in Rwanda

The transport system in Rwanda centres primarily around the road network, with paved roads between the capital, Kigali and most other major cities and towns in the country. Rwanda is also linked by road with other countries in East Africa, via which the majority of the country's imports and exports are made. The country has an international airport at Kigali, serving one domestic and several international destinations, and also has limited water transport between the port cities on Lake Kivu. A large amount of investment in the transport infrastructure has been made by the government since the 1994 genocide, with aid from the European Union, China, Japan and others.

The principal form of public transport in the country is the share taxi, with express routes linking the major cities and local services serving most villages along the main roads of the country. Coach services are available to various destinations in neighbouring countries.

In 2006, the Chinese government proposed funding a study for the building of a railway link from Bujumbura in Burundi to Kigali in Rwanda to Isaki in Tanzania. A delegation from the American railroad BNSF also met with President Paul Kagame to discuss a route from Kigali to Isaki and at the same time the government announced that it had selected a German consulting company to undertake pilot work for the proposed mail line.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Rwanda

Rwanda is a rural country with about 90% of the population engaged in (mainly subsistence) agriculture. It is landlocked with few natural resources and minimal industry. Primary exports are coffee and tea, with the addition in recent years of minerals (mainly Coltan, used in manufacture of electronic and communication devices such as mobile phones) and flowers. Tourism also is a growing sector, notably around ecotourism (Nyungwe Forest, Lake Kivu) and the world famous and unique mountain gorillas in the Virunga park. It has a low gross national product (GNP), and it has been identified as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC). In 2005, its economic performance and governance achievements prompted International Funding Institutions to cancel nearly all its debts.

According to the World Food Programme, it is estimated that 60% of the population live below the poverty line and 10-12% of the population suffer from food insecurity every year.

Land management is the single most important factor in the conflicts in East Africa.

Interestingly, although the feudal system of land use disappeared with the "Social Revolution" of 1959, sharecropping reappeared following the return of the RPF government in 1994, with the land use policies of the new RPF government being formalized in the 2005 land use laws.

These land use laws were meant to transform a jumble of small, fragmented, and minimally productive plots into more prosperous larger holdings producing for global (as well as for local) markets. The government is to determine how land holdings will be regrouped, which crops will be grown, and which animals will be raised. If farmers fail to follow the national plan, their land may be requisitioned with no compensation, and their land can be given to others.

Although a movement for individual ownership of land arose at the time of independence, land scarcity over much of Rwanda made this impractical over the long term. The current land reform system is somewhat similar to the "igikingi" system of land control that the Tutsi monarchy, and then the Belgian colonial government, used prior to the time leading up to independence.

Northwest Rwanda had traditionally used a system of locally controlled land collectivisation schemes, which were not under the Mwami's central control, called "ubokonde bw' isuka" in pre-colonial times.

It is therefore the northwest of Rwanda that objects most strongly to the central control of land policy reminiscent of igikingi, taking control away from local owners. Some farmers who resisted the policy when it was begun in the 1990s were punished by fines or jail sentences; the policy remains the source of many disputes.

The law also affirms the policy of obligatory grouped residence under which persons living in dispersed homesteads must move to government-established "villages" called imidugudu.

Instead of each family living on his own land, communal villages would be re-established, freeing up, presumably, more arable land.

When implemented on a large-scale in the late 1990s, authorities in some cases used force, fines, and prison terms to make Rwandans relocate.

At least two imidugudu were created in northwestern Rwanda in 2005, leading to land loss for local farmers. Although the law claimed to accept the validity of customary rights to land, it rejected the customary use of marshlands by the poor and abolished important rights of prosperous landlords (abakonde) in the northwest.

However, the policy also ensured the ability of the government to exercise eminent domain for environmental reasons, which it did in 2007 by evicting encroaching settlers from the shores of Lake Kivu in an effort to protect the fragile environment there.

The government has also looked at ways to extract methane from Lake Kivu to help with the country's energy needs.

There is no capital market in Rwanda in the traditional sense. The government primarily provided economic services until recently. The monetary and financial markets are dominated by 9 banks and 6 insurance companies in which the state continues to be a major shareholder. Over 200 micro-credit institutions (also known as micro-finance institutions), often financed by international donors, sprung up in Rwanda (especially since 2004), but many were unregistered, unregulated, and often mismanaged. Several were shut down by the Rwandan government in 2006.

In September 2006, the World Bank approved a US$10 million grant to Rwanda to develop information and communication technology.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Rwanda

Most Rwandans speak Kinyarwanda. Before the arrival of European colonists, there was no written history. Today, the nation is roughly 84% Hutu, 15% Tutsi, and 1% Twa, with smaller minorities of South Asians, Arabs, French, British, and Belgians. The nation is some 56.5% Roman Catholic, 26% Protestant, 11.1% Adventist, and 4.6% Muslim, original beliefs 0.1%, none 1.7% (2001).

Culture

Further information: [[:Music of Rwanda, Literature of Rwanda and List of writers from Rwanda]]

The pygmy Twa are considered one of the oldest races on earth, according to mitochondrial dNA analyses. Along with the Efé and other BaMbuti of the Ituri region, the BayAka of Central African Republic, the San (Bushmen) of Namibia, and the Hadzabe of Tanzania, they represent the remains of the some of the oldest cultures on earth. As with some of the other groups, some Twa still pursue a hunter-gatherer type of existence (in the Nyungwe Forest National Park), although the majority have been forced into menial positions in society with the ongoing loss of their land. With the new emphasis on "non-racialism" in Rwanda, their rights are even fewer and they occupy the fringes of Rwandan society.

Films featuring Rwanda

• Gorillas in the Mist (1988): Feature film dramatizing the work of American ethologist Dian Fossey, who studied gorillas in Rwanda's mountain forests until her murder there in 1985.
• Hotel Rwanda (2004): Feature film dramatizing the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand threatened Tutsi refugees during the 1994 genocide.
• Shooting Dogs (2005): Dramatic feature film based on the true story of a Catholic priest and a young idealistic English teacher caught in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
• Sometimes in April (2005): Dramatic feature film focusing on the experiences of an intermarried Hutu-Tutsi family during the 1994 genocide.
• Un dimanche à Kigali (2006): Dramatic feature film relating the love story between a foreign journalist and local woman, against the backdrop of the genocide. The film is an adaptation of the Gil Courtemanche novel A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali.
• 100 Days of Slaughter (2004).
• Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire (2004): Documentary following UNAMIR commander Roméo Dallaire, as he visits Rwanda ten years after the genocide; based on his book titled Shake Hands With the Devil.
• Shake Hands with the Devil (2006 film): Dramatic feature film adaptation of the same autobiographical book by Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire; in production (June 2006).
• Back Home (2006): Documentary directed by J.B. Rutagarama, a survivor of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. A personal journey toward understanding what led to the genocide and forgiving those who murdered his family.
• In the Tall Grass (2006): A documentary by J. Coll Metcalfe. On Rwanda's network of informal, community courts called gacaca. Gacaca seek truth and remorse, not punishment. Hundreds of thousands of war criminals and survivors view the process with a mixture of hope and apprehension.

See also

• Association des Scouts du Rwanda
• Communications in Rwanda
• Education in Rwanda
• Foreign relations of Rwanda
• Holidays in Rwanda
• Islam in Rwanda
• List of Rwanda-related topics
• List of cities in Rwanda
• Military of Rwanda
• Pro-Femmes Twese Hamwe
• Rwandan genocide

Further reading

For books specifically dealing with the Rwandan Genocide, see Bibliography of the Rwandan Genocide

• Bradt Tavel Guide: Rwanda Janice Booth and Philip Briggs
• Lonely Planet: East Africa
• Land of a Thousand Hills : My Life in Rwanda Rosamund Halsey Carr and Ann Howard Halsey
• Rwanda: The Land God Forgot (2002) by Meg Guillebaud detailing the history of the Christian church in Rwanda, analyzing some of the causes behind the genocide and the path to future.
• Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza

External links

Government

• The Republic of Rwanda (only English) official government site
• Republic of Rwanda unofficial
• Rwanda Parliament (Kinyarwanda, French, English) official site

News

• East African Business Week business news for Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi
• The Puliltzer Center on Crisis Reporting American Teens, Rwandan Truths (Video)
• AllAfrica.com — Rwanda news headline links
• IRIN News for Rwanda, from the United Nations
• 'Free News Monitoring' Free News for Rwanda

Overviews

• Rwanda newsLocal news for Rwanda
• BBC News Country Profile — Rwanda
• CIA World Factbook — Rwanda
• Guardian Unlimited — Special Report: Rwanda
• Open Directory Project — Rwanda directory category
• US Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports — Rwanda
• US State Department — Rwanda includes Background Notes, Country Study and major reports

Tourism

• Rwanda travel guide - very detailed and up-to-date
• Template:Wikitravel
• L'Afrique dot com Hundreds of photos and articles (in English and French)
• Rwanda National Tourist Board (ORTPN) official site
• Rwanda Safari and Travel Guide Guide for Africa
• National Museum of Rwanda official site
• The Rwanda Online Video Guide Chawbacon.org allows you to download and watch video clips (129) about Rwanda. They provide a visual representation of information provided by traditional guides like The Bradt Travel Guide and Lonely Planet. All aspects from guest rooms to game parks are presented in 10 MB or less.
• Rwanda Travel GuideProvide Information about Rwanda tourism, culture and wildlife.

Other

• Voices of Rwanda Rwanda Testimony Film Project
• Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting Rwanda Human Conflict and Environmental Consequences (Video)
• Survivors Fund Representing and supporters survivors of the Rwandan genocide
• Photos of Miss Rwanda (L'Afrique)
• Rwanda online Rwanda directory and Portal.
• International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda official site
• Global Issues — Conflict in Rwanda
• Rwanda Development Gateway
• Rwanda: Articles
• The Borgen Project
• Rwanda: a history of Empire and exploitation 1894–1990
• ASSIST a.s.b.l. Rwandan NGO serving vulnerable children and youth
• The 800,000 Project Information on a humanitarian art-in-action installation piece memorializing the victims of the Rwandan genocide and raising funds to establish local water wells
• Project RwandaFurthering the economic development of Rwanda through initiatives based on the bicycle as a tool and symbol of hope. Our goal is use the bike to help boost the Rwandan economy as well as re-brand Rwanda as a beautiful and safe place to do business and visit freely
• UNESCO Nairobi office on HIV/AIDS in Rwanda
• RWANDA The enduring legacy of the genocide and war
• Homepage of the Rwanda GovNet Project
• Kigali Coders software consulting