Rwanda

Landlocked country in central Africa, bounded north by Uganda, east by Tanzania, south by Burundi, and west by the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).

Government

The 1978 constitution, amended in 1991 and 1995, provides for a president and a single-chamber legislature, the 70-member National Development Council (CND), both elected by universal adult suffrage for a five-year term. The president, who may be re-elected up to the age of 60, appoints a prime minister and council of ministers. At the end of the civil war in July 1994, a Transitional National Assembly was formed and multiparty elections scheduled for 1999.

History

The population comprises two ethnic groups: the Hutu majority, dominated (until the late 1950s) by the Tutsi minority; there is also a pygmy minority, the Twa.

Rwanda was linked to the neighbouring state of Burundi, 1891-1919, within the empire of German East Africa, then under Belgian administration as a League of Nations mandate, and then as a United Nations (UN) trust territory.

In 1961 the Tutsi monarchy was abolished, following a Hutu uprising, and Ruanda, as it was then called, became a republic. It achieved full independence in 1962 as Rwanda, with Grégoire Kayibanda as its first president. Fighting between the Hutu and the Tutsi, which had broken out in 1959, resulted in the loss of some 20,000 lives before an uneasy peace was agreed in 1965.

After independence

Kayibanda was re-elected president in 1969, but by the end of 1972 the civil warfare had resumed, and in 1973 the head of the National Guard, Maj-Gen Juvenal Habyarimana, led a bloodless coup, ousting Kayibanda and establishing a military government. Meetings of the legislature were suspended, and the Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND) was formed as the only legally permitted political organization. A referendum held at the end of 1978 approved a new constitution, but military rule continued until 1980, when civilian rule was adopted.

In October 1990, a Tutsi rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR), invaded from Uganda (where many Tutsis had fled after independence). Under pressure from the FPR, the government promised to reform the constitution, allowing other political parties to operate, and a power-sharing agreement was signed in September 1992. In January 1993 it was repudiated by the FPR, but talks resumed and in August 1993 a peace accord was formally signed. A UN mission was sent to monitor its implementation, which included the setting up of an interim government.

Civil war escalates

In April 1994 President Habyarimana and Burundian president, Cyprien Ntaryamira, were both killed when their plane was shot down over the Rwandan capital, Kigali. With fears that the FPR were responsible, fighting renewed and within weeks hundreds of thousands of Rwandans, mostly civilians, had been killed and many thousands more had fled to neighbouring countries. As FPR forces closed in on Kigali, the interim government fled the capital. Reports emerged of Hutu terror bands (machetti), which roamed areas of the countryside still controlled by government forces, shooting and hacking to death Tutsi civilians, in what appeared to be a coordinated attempt at genocide.

French troops were drafted in June 1994 as part of a humanitarian mission to protect civilians and a French-controlled ‘safe zone’ was established in the southwest. In July 1994 the FPR, now in control of most of the country, announced a ceasefire and (as it had pledged to do) established a transitional coalition government, including many moderate Hutus. Pasteur Bizimungu - a senior FPR member, although himself a Hutu - was appointed as interim head of state. Faustin Twagiramungu of the Hutu-oriented National Revolutionary Development Movement (MRND) became prime minister.

Humanitarian crisis

Prior to the ceasefire, a final Tutsi offensive in the northwest prompted a mass exodus of refugees, mainly Hutus fearing reprisals, into neighbouring Zaire. As many as 2 million refugees were estimated to have crossed the border within the first week. Scarcity of water and poor sanitary conditions hampered aid workers' efforts to accommodate them and the refugee camp at Goma was hit by a cholera epidemic in which thousands died. An international relief effort was subsequently launched, and efforts made to encourage the refugees to return to Rwanda, but fear of reprisals made many unwilling to do so. There were also reports of government human-rights abuses.

Bizimungu's presidency 1994-2000

In August 1995 President Bizimungu dismissed Prime Minister Twagiramungu after the latter openly criticized the domination of his government by the FPR. Pierre Celestin Rwigema, also of the MRND, became the new premier. A war crimes tribunal, set up in Tanzania to try individuals suspected of having planned or participated in atrocities during the Rwandan civil war, issued its first indictments in November 1995.

In October 1996 Rwanda and Zaire were on the point of war as Rwanda supported the massacre of Hutus by Tutsis in Zaire. A massive refugee problem was averted when most of the refugees were allowed to return peacefully to Rwanda, but violence began again in January 1997 when Hutu extremists embarked on a wave of Tutsi killings, apparently in an attempt to wipe out those likely to testify against them before the war crimes tribunal. In August 1997, several hundred Rwandan Hutu militiamen carried out a massacre of refugees in a camp run by the UN refugee agencies housing Tutsis from former Zaire in Rwanda's northwestern region of Gisenyi, slaughtering more than 130 refugees as they slept. In December 1997 suspected Hutu rebels attacked a camp for Tutsi refugees in northwestern Rwanda, killing 271 people. In October 1998 the Rwandan army killed 378 rebels in an operation to clear rebels from the northwest.

Rwanda in June 1999 declared a unilateral ceasefire with the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Chad, which had supported President Kabila of Congo, withdrew its troops. Diplomatic efforts to end the war intensified, but so did fighting near the diamond-mining town of Mbuji-Mayi.

The government of Rwanda in June 1999 extended its mandate to rule for another four years. The Hutu president, Pasteur Bizimungu, resigned in March 2000 after distancing himself from his Tutsi-dominated party, the Rwanda Patriotic Front. Paul Kagame, the Tutsi vice-president and former rebel who was instrumental in the 1994 coup, was installed as interim president. His status as the real power in Rwanda since 1994 was made formal in April 2000 when the parliament and cabinet voted to install him in the role of president. Bernard Makuza became prime minister, heading a new cabinet.

Convictions for genocide

By April 2000, Rwandan courts had sentenced more than 300 people to death for their part in the 1994 genocide; around 120,000 people still awaited trial. The Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, apologized for his country's failures during the genocide. Belgium had withdrawn its peacekeeping troops after ten of its paratroopers were tortured and killed. In April 2001, the Rwandan government agreed to hand over to the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal army officers who were suspected of having committed atrocities during the genocide. In June, a Belgian court sentenced two Rwandan nuns to 12 and 15 years in prison, a university professor to 12 years, and a former government minister to 20. They were responsible for helping to murder 7,000 people as part of the genocide.

AIDS epidemic

The Rwandan government said in late January 1999 that more than 2,000 Rwandan prisoners accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide had died of AIDS during 1998 while awaiting trial. The government's AIDS Control Centre estimated that around 11% of the country's 8 million people were HIV positive.

Involvement in Congo

Involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continued as troops from Uganda and Rwanda, supporting different factions of the Congolese rebels, ignored an agreement to an internationally supervised withdrawal from the rebel-held city of Kisangani, and continued to fight. UN secretary general Kofi Annan urged the UN to impose sanctions on Uganda and Rwanda, to force them out of the Congo.

In November 2001, several hundred young people and children were released after years of detention for alleged involvement in the 1994 genocide. However, many thousands of people remained in prison awaiting trial.

Rwanda (redirected from Ruando)