A Hundred Years of Hatred

When Belgian administrators took control of Rwanda after World War I under a League of Nations mandate, they inherited a society with complex social stratifications between Hutu (predominantly farmers), Tutsi (predominantly cattle herders), and Twa (forest-dwelling artisans). These identities were real but permeable — Hutu could become Tutsi by accumulating cattle, and intermarriage was common. The Belgians, influenced by the 'Hamitic hypothesis' — a pseudo-scientific theory that Tutsi were a superior, more 'European' African race — decided to formalize and rigidify these distinctions. In 1933–34, they introduced mandatory identity cards classifying every Rwandan as Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa based on physical measurements (taller, with narrower noses, meant Tutsi) and cattle ownership (more than ten cows meant Tutsi). What had been a social category became an immutable racial identity.

Belgian colonial policy systematically favored Tutsi for education, church positions, and administrative roles, creating a resentful Hutu majority and a privileged Tutsi class that had no basis in pre-colonial Rwanda. Missionaries taught Tutsi children while Hutu children labored. By the 1950s, as African independence movements swept the continent, Belgian policy reversed itself — now supporting a Hutu majority movement against the Tutsi 'aristocracy.' The 1959 Social Revolution, backed by Belgium and the Catholic Church, saw Tutsi homes burned, thousands killed, and 150,000 Tutsi fleeing to Uganda, Burundi, and Congo. Among them was the infant Paul Kagame and his family.

The first Rwandan republic under Grégoire Kayibanda (1962–1973) continued periodic anti-Tutsi violence. The 1973 coup by Habyarimana replaced southern Hutu dominance with northern Hutu, but anti-Tutsi discrimination remained fundamental to state ideology. Exiled Tutsi in Uganda — now a second generation — formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front in 1987. Their October 1990 invasion of Rwanda from Uganda triggered a new wave of anti-Tutsi violence within Rwanda, as Habyarimana's government accused Rwandan Tutsi of being an RPF 'fifth column.' The stage was set for catastrophe.

In August 1993, international pressure forced the signing of the Arusha Accords — a power-sharing agreement between Habyarimana and the RPF that promised refugee return and Tutsi representation in the military. For Hutu extremists clustered around Habyarimana's wife Agathe and her brothers — the 'akazu' — the Accords represented an existential threat. They began accelerating plans for a 'final solution': importing 500,000 machetes from China, training Interahamwe militias, preparing death lists, and establishing a radio station (RTLM) devoted to incitement. The question was not whether the genocide would happen, but when the trigger would be pulled.