If the colonial period provided the blueprint for ethnic division in Rwanda, the era of decolonization saw that blueprint become a devastating reality. The period between 1959 and 1962, often referred to as the “Hutu Revolution” or the “Social Revolution,” was not a clean transfer of power from colonizer to colonized. It was a violent, chaotic upheaval that inverted the colonial racial hierarchy, institutionalized ethnic majoritarianism, and created a refugee crisis whose consequences would reverberate for decades, ultimately contributing to the genocide of 1994. This was the moment when the theoretical racism of the Hamitic HypothesisHamitic Hypothesis Full Description: A colonial racial theory introduced by European colonizers (Germans and Belgians) to Rwanda. It falsely claimed that the Tutsi were a separate, “Caucasoid” race from North Africa (Hamites) who were naturally superior to the indigenous “Negroid” Hutu. The Hamitic Hypothesis was the intellectual foundation of the division in Rwandan society. Colonial administrators used physical measurements (like nose width and height) to rigidly classify the population. They issued ethnic identity cards and granted Tutsis privileged access to education and administration, while subjecting Hutus to forced labor. Critical Perspective:This theory demonstrates how colonialism manufactured ethnicity. Before European arrival, the distinction between Hutu and Tutsi was largely a fluid class distinction based on wealth (cattle ownership). The colonizers calcified these classes into rigid racial categories. The genocide was, in a tragic irony, a violent acceptance of these colonial lies: Hutu extremists accepted the colonial idea that Tutsis were alien invaders, but sought to destroy them rather than serve them. was translated into a practical political program, setting the nation on a path of irreversible conflict.
The story of Rwanda’s unraveling is one of cynical colonial manipulation, the rise of a resentful and politically awakened Hutu elite, and the tragic plight of the Tutsi population, who were transformed from a privileged administrative class into a persecuted minority and a stateless diaspora almost overnight.
The Gathering Storm: The Post-War Shift and the Rise of Hutu Consciousness
Following the Second World War, the Belgian colonial administration, under pressure from the United Nations trusteeship councilTrusteeship Council
Short Description (Excerpt):One of the principal organs of the UN, established to supervise the administration of “Trust Territories”—mostly former colonies of defeated nations. Its theoretical goal was to prepare these territories for self-government or independence.
Full Description:The Trusteeship Council was the successor to the League of Nations mandate system. It oversaw the transition of territories from colonial rule to independence. The Council suspended its operations in the late 20th century after the last trust territory (Palau) achieved independence.
Critical Perspective:Critically, this system was a form of “sanctified colonialism.” It operated on the paternalistic assumption that certain peoples were not yet “ready” for freedom and required the “tutelage” of advanced Western nations. While it eventually facilitated independence, it ensured that the process happened on a timeline and under terms dictated by the colonial powers, often preserving their economic interests in the newly independent states.
Read more, began to tentatively introduce reforms. A new, educated Hutu elite began to emerge from mission schools and seminaries. This elite was acutely aware of the systemic discrimination they faced. While the best administrative posts and educational opportunities were reserved for Tutsis, they were the ones who read the French revolutionary texts and the newly drafted Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They began to articulate their grievances using the language of democracy and majority rule, but within the rigid ethnic framework the Belgians had created.
The pivotal document of this period was the “Bahutu Manifesto,” published in 1957 in the journal Temps Nouveaux d’Afrique by a group of nine Hutu intellectuals, including the future president Grégoire Kayibanda. The manifesto was a revolutionary text, but its revolution was built entirely on colonial logic. It accepted without question the Belgian-constructed racial categories. It framed Rwanda’s problem as a conflict between a “Hamitic” Tutsi minority, portrayed as “foreign” invaders from the Nilotic region, and an indigenous “Bantu” Hutu majority.
The manifesto argued, “The problem is basically that of the political monopoly of one race, the Mututsi… A ruling race must be the product of a majority will and not that of a minority, no matter how intelligent and advanced it may be.” This was a masterful co-option of Western democratic principles to fight a system of colonial privilege. It did not seek to dismantle the ethnic paradigm; it sought to win within it. The goal was not a unified Rwandan state but a Hutu state, where the “majority” would finally rule.
Simultaneously, the Tutsi elite, sensing the winds of change, were also pushing for independence. King Kigeri V and the Tutsi-dominated political party, Union Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR), advocated for immediate independence and the preservation of the monarchy. They envisioned a independent Rwanda with the existing power structure largely intact. This put them on a direct collision course with both the emerging Hutu parties and the Belgian administration, which was now rapidly shifting its allegiance.
The Belgian Betrayal and the Spark of Violence
The Belgians, in a stunning act of political cynicism, executed a complete volte-face. Having built and supported the Tutsi aristocracy for four decades, they now saw the Hutu majority as the more pliable and pro-Belgian force in a post-colonial world. Fearing a UNAR-led independent Rwanda that might align with anti-colonial voices in the Communist bloc, the Belgians threw their weight behind the Hutu political movements, primarily Kayibanda’s Parti du Mouvement de l’Emancipation Hutu (PARMEHUTU).
This shift from the colonial power was the green light for violence. In November 1959, the long-simmering tensions exploded following an incident involving a PARMEHUTU sub-chief in the Gitarama prefecture. The event triggered a widespread and systematic pogrom known as the “wind of destruction.” Hutu gangs, often encouraged and sometimes organized by Belgian authorities, attacked Tutsi officials, burned their homes, and killed them. The Belgian-run Force Publique frequently stood aside or actively intervened to disarm Tutsis while allowing Hutu violence to proceed.
The scale of the violence was catastrophic. An estimated 10,000 to 100,000 Tutsis were killed, though precise figures are impossible to determine. More than 120,000 Tutsis were forced from their homes and land, becoming internal displaced persons. Crucially, the first major wave of external refugees was created, with tens of thousands fleeing to neighbouring countries like Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania, and the Belgian Congo. This was the genesis of the “Tutsi refugee problem” that would haunt the region for the next 35 years.
In the aftermath, the Belgians completed their political revolution. They replaced hundreds of Tutsi chiefs and sub-chiefs with Hutus, effectively transferring local power at the stroke of a pen. The 1960 local elections, held under this climate of intimidation and with Belgian oversight, were a sweeping victory for PARMEHUTU. In 1961, a coup d’état orchestrated by PARMEHUTU and supported by Belgium abolished the monarchy and declared Rwanda a republic. The UN-supervised referendum in 1961 confirmed this change, and in July 1962, Rwanda achieved independence as a Hutu-dominated state.
The First Republic: Institutionalizing Discrimination
The government of Grégoire Kayibanda that took power at independence was founded on the ideology of “Hutu PowerHutu Power Full Description: A supremacist political ideology that asserted the inherent entitlement of the Hutu majority to rule over the Tutsi minority. It framed the Tutsi population not as fellow citizens, but as a foreign, feudal race of oppressors that needed to be eliminated for the “majority” to be free. Hutu Power was the ideological engine of the genocide. It appropriated the language of democracy (“majority rule”) and twisted it into a justification for totalitarianism. Propagated through media outlets like Kangura magazine and radio stations, it published the “Hutu Ten Commandments,” which criminalized social or economic interaction with Tutsis. Critical Perspective:Critically, this ideology was not an expression of “ancient tribal hatred,” but a modern political phenomenon mirroring European fascism. It was cultivated by the political elite to maintain power in the face of democratization. By framing the conflict as a struggle for survival against a “Hamitic invader,” the state manipulated the population into viewing mass murder as an act of civic duty and self-defense..” The state itself was now an instrument of ethnic majoritarianism. The colonial identity cards remained, legally entrenching the ethnic distinction. A system of quotas was introduced, limiting Tutsi access to secondary education and public sector employment to their proportion of the population (officially 9%).
This institutional discrimination was accompanied by periodic, state-tolerated violence. In 1963, following an incursion by Tutsi refugees from Burundi, the government orchestrated another wave of massacres, killing an estimated 10,000 Tutsis within Rwanda. This pattern repeated itself in 1967 and 1973. Each cycle of violence served to solidify the power of the Hutu elite, justify further discrimination, and swell the ranks of the exiled Tutsi diaspora.
The refugees living in neighbouring countries, particularly Uganda, faced a difficult existence. They were often denied citizenship, land, and the right to work, living in squalid camps for years. They were the “other,” a permanent reminder of the revolution and a potential threat to the new Rwandan state. Their children grew up in exile, hearing stories of a lost homeland and the persecution of their families. It was from this generation of exiled, educated, and militarized young Tutsis that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) would eventually emerge.
The Long Shadow: From Refugee Camps to the RPF Invasion
The connection between the revolution of 1959-62 and the genocide of 1994 is direct and causal. The Hutu Power state created at independence needed a perpetual “Tutsi threat” to maintain its internal cohesion and legitimacy. The existence of the refugee diaspora provided the perfect bogeyman. Government propaganda consistently portrayed the Tutsi refugees not as fellow Rwandans, but as inyenzi—cockroaches—foreign invaders plotting to return and re-enslave the Hutu masses.
This rhetoric escalated dramatically in 1990 when the RPF, composed largely of the children of the 1959 refugees and trained within the Ugandan army, invaded Rwanda. The invasion was the culmination of three decades of exile and failed diplomatic attempts to secure the right of returnRight of Return
Full Description:The political and legal principle asserting that Palestinian refugees and their descendants have an inalienable right to return to the homes and properties they were displaced from in 1948. It is anchored in UN Resolution 194 but remains the most intractable issue in peace negotiations. The Right of Return is central to Palestinian national identity. It argues that the refugee status is temporary and that justice requires restitution. For Israel, this demand is viewed as an existential threat; allowing millions of Palestinians to return would end Israel’s status as a Jewish-majority state.
Critical Perspective:This issue highlights the clash between individual rights and ethno-nationalism. International law generally supports the return of refugees to their country of origin. However, the conflict is trapped in a zero-sum game where the restoration of Palestinian rights is interpreted as the destruction of Israeli sovereignty.
Read more. For the Hutu extremist government, it was not a political challenge but a confirmation of their deepest fears and the validation of their entire ideological project. The war provided the pretext for the radicalization of the Hutu Power movement, the creation of militias, and the dissemination of genocidal propaganda on a mass scale.
When the genocide began in April 1994, the killers did not emerge from a vacuum. They were acting upon an ideology that had been state policy for over thirty years. The “Hutu Revolution” had established the principle that political power belonged exclusively to one ethnic group and that the other was a foreign menace to be eliminated. The refugee crisis of 1959-62 had created a “problem” that, in the twisted logic of genocide, required a “final solution.”
Conclusion: The Unfinished Revolution
The “Hutu Revolution” was a foundational tragedy. It was a revolution that, in seeking to correct one form of oppression—the colonial-backed Tutsi dominance—succeeded only in creating its own, equally brutal mirror image. It failed to transcend the colonial categories and instead built a new state upon them. The promise of majority rule became, in practice, the tyranny of the majority, codified into law and enforced by periodic massacre.
The true legacy of the revolution was not liberation, but a cycle of violence and displacement that locked Rwanda into a deadly dynamic. It created two parallel narratives of victimhood: the Hutu narrative of historical subjugation and the Tutsi narrative of exile and persecution. These competing narratives, both born from the same colonial crucible and hardened in the fires of the revolution, made a shared national identity impossible. The unraveling that began with the first stones thrown in 1959 would not be complete until the hundred days of slaughter in 1994, a grim testament to the fact that a nation founded on exclusion can never truly know peace.
Further Reading:
· Lemarchand, René. Rwanda and Burundi. Praeger, 1970. (A classic early study that provides crucial contemporary analysis of the revolution).
· Newbury, Catharine. “Ethnicity and the Politics of History in Rwanda.” Africa Today, 1995. (An excellent academic article deconstructing the political use of history during this period).
· Mamdani, Mahmood. When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton University Press, 2001. (Contains a vital chapter on the social revolution and its consequences).
· Prunier, Gérard. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. Columbia University Press, 1995. (Provides a detailed narrative of the events of 1959-1962).
· Reyntjens, Filip. L’Afrique des Grands Lacs en Crise: Rwanda, Burundi 1988-1994. Karthala, 1994. (A key work by a leading scholar, though some translations may be required).
· Guichaoua, André. Destins paysans et politiques agraires en Afrique centrale, Tome 1: L’ordre paysan des hautes terres centrales du Burundi et du Rwanda. L’Harmattan, 1989. (Offers a deep socio-economic analysis of the rural dynamics underpinning the revolution).
· Carney, J.J. Rwanda Before the Genocide: Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourse in the Late Colonial Era. Oxford University Press, 2013. (Focuses on the critical role of the Church in this transitional period).
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