A Critical Analysis of the Rwanda-Burundi Genocide and the Sociopolitical Implications of Colonial Rule in Africa

When speaking of perceptions, it seems as thought the way in which Belgian colonizers interpreted the stratification among the natives to be on ethnic lines, contrary to the actuality, that it was a society structured by tribalism and industry. What became a matter of “ethnicity” could not truly have been defined in those terms prior to the Tutsi-Hutu identification cards because the two groups did not in fact differ with regards to race, religion, language and national or cultural origin. Perhaps Europeans saw classification on artificial nationalistic terms as much more meaningful than in terms of class, a feeling which may have been greatly motivated by a long history of nation-building in most European countries. That is not to say class did not exist in European nations, but realist notion may have motivated them to believe it was more important to be separated from outsiders.

Just before the region gained independence in 1962 the Huts in Rwanda began a series of attacks against the Tutsi-led Belgian government killing thousands of Tutsis and sending 130,000 more into neighboring counties (DRC, Uganda and Burundi). As a result, Rwanda maintained a largely Hutu-dominated population strengthened by the abandoned plantations and cattle from the Tutsis who had fled seeking asylum, while Burundi, having gained a large influx of Tutsis refugees, grew to be a majority-Tutsi state. Burundi, stricken with the sudden overpopulation and scarcity of resources retaliated against the Hutus in attempts to regain control over the once Tutsi Rwanda region, only prompting a more violent massacre of over 10,000 more Tutsis. Rwanda soon became a one-party dictatorship when Habyarimana, a Hutu, overthrew the Belgian-appointed leader. Under his regime he continued the practices of ethnic discrimination developed by the Belgians, only in turn favoring the Huts, and refused to allow the Rwandan Tutsis to return home. Anti-Tutsi and pro-Tutsi sentiments were worsened to the point of extremism when greater freedom of press and political speech was granted, allowing for the publication of widespread propaganda such as the “Hutu Ten Commandments” and the “Hutu Power” newspaper Kangura (Wake Them Up)4 (Magnarella, 26-7).

Under United Nation pressure Habyarimana signed the Arusha Agreement calling for greater Tutsi representation both in the government and in the armed forces, as well as the opening of Rwanda’s borders to all Tutsi refugees. Hutu radicals were unwilling to give up their power over the Tutsis, and April 6, 1994 a plane carrying Habyarimana on his return from Dar es Salaam, was shot down5, supposedly by a Hutu member of the president’s own military guard. Only hours later, Hutu militiamen armed with machetes began the outright murder of any Tutsi, political opposition, Hutu dissident, and UN humanitarian forces (including a number of Belgian troops). Eventually the Rwanda Patriotic Front managed to defeat the Hutu militias and, after having declared a ceasefire, attempted to create a new government, attempting once again to maintain the parameters of the Arusha Accords. The death toll, the number of displaced persons and the sociopolitical chaos is all at this point irrelevant. It was an irrational act drawn from the abstract animosities developed through years of severe psychosocial intervention by foreign governing practices. “The origin of the violence is connected to how Hutu and Tutsi were constructed as political identities by the colonial state, Hutu as indigenous and Tutsi as alien” (Mamdani, 34). The Belgians somehow managed to inadvertently create overwhelming Hutu nationalism fueled by a deep hatred for those who had been unjustly favored by a white power. As a result the Tutsis became a pawn in the Belgium government’s plans to expand their power and Hutus perceived this as the ultimate threat of internal betrayal.

This section is particularly relevant because it permits the mapping of society along the lines of evolutionary progress. According to the Marxist analysis, the ‘orthodox’ path of societal advancement will carry all societies through the primitive state of communes to feudalism. In pre-colonial African societies this progression had already commenced to the point where informal trade agreements among individuals and small groups had been established. Climate and topography of a region generally prompt the onset of a certain governing practices that best lend themselves to the accessibility of food and shelter. Before the arrival of Western influences, equatorial east African agriculture remained on a small-scale due to the unavailability of large expanses of land that could easily be cultivated. With productivity remaining low, and the difficulty in conservation of plantation corps, communities were never confronted with the dilemmas associated with accumulation of surplus. The onset of surplus productivity traditionally transitions into a society of internal exploitation practices and creation of a lower class. In the Rwanda-Burundi region, however, coexistence and collective ownership took precedence over pre-capitalist aristocracies (Gakou). In the United States, slavery was the response to the need for a large peasant class that could be repressed and uncompensated for their labor. The rigid class structure existing in Africa was limited to the community level, usually within tribes. Although the groups were already differentiated through industry and possibly wealth, there was never an apparent superiority with regards to ethnicity (Green, 733-755). There was an almost mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship wherein the three groups could exchange among their respective trades.

Upon arriving in Africa, Belgians became aware of the lack of central power in a number of countries, which implied a significant weakness when it came to unifying defenses against colonial invaders. Powers seeking to expand will not attack stronger nations unless they feel threatened by their political influences or their military capabilities. It was almost as though they could rule over Belgian East Africa by turning its people against each other – essentially it was a divide and conquer tactic. If nations as a whole act upon the model of the individual man in the state of nature as theorized by Hobbes, then it would only be logical for Belgium to act in this way. There was no bond of loyalty or nationalism between the European colonizers and the African colonies; from the perspective of the Western World Africa was a distant and uncivilized land. But what it symbolized is of utmost importance. It was essentially the tiebreaker between the great powers of the world; those that reaped the most benefits from their colonies in Africa would extend their power on an international scale. From a purely security standpoint, it would be important for countries to build up their strength by gaining more resources to improve military capabilities, extending their power stations throughout the world and simply rise as a dominating world power. Politically speaking, colonization was a rational and necessary step that had to be taken in order to be a competitor and avoid being conquered by another.

Another dimension that may help in distinguishing whether colonialism did in fact have an abnormal influence on changing the course of history in some of its territories is realizing the international response to the matter. The United Nations (UN) seems to be asking themselves just this: that we must “consider the causes and consequences of those ills which, historically, have been brought about largely by slavery, colonialism and wars of conquest.” The United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights Resolution 2002/5 clearly acknowledges the humanitarian aspect of the tragedy of colonialism as “crimes against humanity.” Reparations are directly addressed as something that the Powers are responsible to acknowledging. Having said that, it is not traditionally a matter of reimbursement monetarily but it is rather a societal paradox. Because the UN calls for improvement in the education system, it gives strong indications that the affects of colonialism had lasting psychosocial impacts that can only be reversed through teaching responsible human rights. This also makes allusions for gaining accountability for the matter not only in offering some type of assistance but because offering some type of external responsibility by a party not directly involved in the ongoing conflict could offer a chance for engagement. This is not to say that hatred for the western world is a safer option, or that we should arbitrarily point fingers, yet it sets precedence for the bipolarity of certain conflicts such as between the Huts and the Tutsis to be reevaluated where they can gain common ground.

Many theories hold that it is conflict over scarcity and unequal distribution of resources that creates a platform for civil wars to break out. Rwanda and Burundi, along with many of their African neighbors were in a state of extreme scarcity due to the lack of farming technology, harsh natural conditions and the lack of access to health care and education. “No matter how depressing these facts may seem, we need to keep in mind that there is no necessary connection between a drastic reduction in resources and deadly human conflict” (p. 198). During the genocide, killing was in no way arbitrary - it was purposeful murder of historically implicated groups that had been defined in Belgian terms. The relationship between the Hutus and the Tutsis was so imbalanced that it essentially nourished ethnic fundamentalism on both sides.

Upon conceptualizing the theory of colonialism it may have been attractive to take the approach blaming European governments for their implication of destructive political and economic policies in their host countries. No one wants to believe that certain civilizations are not capable of evolving in the same way the Western world has, and here lies the problem. It has become so socially unacceptable to distinguish certain ideologies as less successful, but, and I find this to be one of the greatest benefits of being raised in Africa, the truth of the matter is that a great deal of African society does not revolve around the capitalist norm. Without realizing the damages, societal norms are being disrupted in order to make them fit impractical Marxian laws of evolution, when it may altogether be possible that certain societies do not fit the mold.

In light of maintaining an unbiased argument it is important to take the side of the aggressor as well as the victim. Development comes at a price, and in this zero-sum world it usually comes at the cost of another. Colonialism may well have been a power struggle between countries that had already reached an advanced level of development and weaker civilizations throughout the world were simply a means of determining which of them would become the most powerful. The truths of international politics dictates that exploitation is not much more than a survival mechanism, and in this sense Belgium profited substantially from their colonies which have since been left with political chaos, bankruptcy, inflation, overpopulation and reasonably incapable to developing any time in the near future. I warn against the damages of allowing nations to adopt the role of victim – it will not instill confidence and certainly does not bring justice to tyrannical leaders who managed to gain control after colonialism left.

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1.) Some 15 years later, in attempt to redeem himself to the European public, he inserted a simple math problem instead the elitist phrase.

2.) Once genocide broke out between the Hutus and the Tutsis those related to a member of the opposite group were also targeted as complacence.

3.) Ironically enough when the Hutu militiamen conducted their mass genocide of any and all Tutsis, in a symbolic act of retaliation they ordered Hutus to kill them and “eat their cows.”

4.) Featured on the cover page of this paper, in December 1993, reads: "What arms could we use to destroy the inyenzi (cockroaches; meaning Tutsis) for good?" This magazine was published under the leadership of the First Lady of Rwanda.

5.) I remember being sent home from school on this strange and unsettling day for fear riots would break out in Tanzania’s capital city, were we were living at the time.

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Gakou, Mohamed Lamine. Crisis in African agriculture. London: Zed Books, United Nations University, 1987. Print.

Green, Lezlie L, Gender Hate Propaganda and Sexual Violence in the Rwandan Genocide: An Argument for Intersectionality in International Law, 33(3) Columbia Human Rights Law Review (2001- 2002), 733-776

John A. Berry and Carol Pott Berry (eds.), Genocide in Rwanda: A Collective Memory. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1999. 201 pp.

Magnarella, Paul. "Explaining Rwanda’s 1994 Genocide." Center On Rights Development 2.1 (2002): 25-34. Print.

Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. 364 pp.

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