Some Interesting Facts
Rwanda is a land-locked country in Central Africa. Bordered by Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania, Rwanda has the densest population in continental Africa in a space approximately the size of Maryland, and is home to approximately 10.1 million people.
The nation is some 56.5% Roman Catholic, 26% Protestant, 11.1% Adventist, and 4.6% Muslim, original or tribal beliefs 0.1%, and 1.7% of those who declare no faith beliefs. According to the World Food Programme, 60% of the population lives below the poverty line and 10-12% of the population suffer from food insecurity every year.
The Earliest Years
The original inhabitants were aboriginal Pygmies called the Twa (or Batwa), (the name means indigenous hunter-gatherers) who came to Rwanda, some say, as many as 35,000 years ago. They are still about 1% of the population in Rwanda, and are known for their skill as potters. The next group to populate Rwanda, probably before 700 A.D., was the Hutu (or Bahutu), who began to arrive from the Congo basin and subsequently cleared much of the traditional hunting grounds of the Twa, chasing them further into the forests. The Hutu constitute about 85% of today’s population. Finally, somewhere between the 10th and the 15th centuries, the taller, lankier cattle farming Tutsi (or Batutsi) came from either the north or the northeast. They currently make up about 15% of today’s Rwandan population.
Eventually, either by conquest or assimilation, a hierarchy was established in which the cattle-owning Tutsis gained superior status to the Hutu farmers and ubuhake, a master-client relationship, became concretized. For centuries, Rwandans were ruled by a series of kings, or mwami, who ruled through several categories of chiefs below them, including cattle, military and land chiefs. The chain-of-command beneath the chiefs was a highly organized pyramid of administrators including, from the top down, leaders of the province, the district, the hill, and the immediate neighborhood. Despite this tight structure and caste system, the society functioned reasonably well through symbiotic relationships.
German East Africa
Despite no European ever having set foot on Rwandan soil, Burundi and Rwanda were assigned to Germany at the Berlin Conference in 1885. It wasn’t until 9 years later that a German captain, Gustav Adolf von Gotzen, visited Rwanda and was received by the Rwandan monarch, King Kigeli IV Rwabugili. At that point, no one in Rwanda had any idea that they had been under German control for nearly a decade!
The Colonial Years
Von Gotzen became Governor of German East Africa and, having found a highly organized country with an effective power structure in place, made the decision to rule “through” the King, believing that that would make the Rwandans loyal to Germany. In 1899, the Germans started exerting influence in the country by placing advisors in the courts of local chiefs, and in 1911, joined the Tutsi monarchy to put down a rebellion of Hutus in the northern part of the country. This helped solidify and reinforce the sense of Hutu resentment and grievance that grew and festered for decades after that, contributing to the 1994 genocide.
(Coming tomorrow: The Belgian Years, Independence, and the Rwandan Genocide)
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