SUMMARY
The non-state conflict between the Hutu and the Tutsi have been fought in the three countries Burundi, Rwanda and DR Congo. The conflict have been intermixed with both genocide and armed conflict which has aggravated the enmity between the groups. The relationship between the two sides has its roots in the colonial time but the violence escalated after independence.
In Burundi despite their demographic disadvantage, the Tutsi have traditionally been the politically dominant ethnic group. In addition to holding power, the Tutsi have since independence in 1962 largely controlled most key state functions, including the army. While earlier Burundi history reveals rather malleable ethnic identities-in fact, antecedent revolts were organized predominantly on the basis of regional identities-the 1960s brought the emergence of a more rigid, dichotomous Hutu-Tutsi opposition. Ethnic skirmishes and intermittent massacres have taken place as elites in each ethnic group have grappled for power over the past decades, often taking the form of Hutu uprisings brutally put down by the Tutsi-dominated army.
Tutsi-led military regimes ruled until 1993, when Hutu moderate Melchior Ndadaye was elected president in Burundi’s first democratic elections, sparking ethnic violence between the Hutu and the Tutsi. Elements of the Tutsi-dominated army, ostensibly fearing its own marginalization, assassinated Ndadaye. According to analysts, the violence that followed was motivated by the aim to gain or recapture political power and mainly orchestrated along ethnic lines. The widespread conviction that the other group would wipe them out if they could, served as a strong mobilizing force, manipulated by elites in their political strategies. Developments in the surrounding region, such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide, were used to corroborate the validity of such fears and the necessity of continued ethnic-based struggle.
In this context heavy violence between the Hutu and the Tutsi population of Burundi was intermixed with Government of Burundi and, after the 21 October 1993 coup, FRODEBU one-sided attacks on the population throughout 1993.
In Rwanda the Hutu regimes of Kayibanda and Habyarimana (from independence until 1994) promoted the interests of the Rwandan ethnic Hutu majority at the expense of the minority Tutsis. Tutsis were systematically discriminated against, and the civil administration and the army were composed almost completely of Hutus. Both leaders espoused virulent Hutu nationalism as their ideology, and massacres of Tutsis were carried out at times from 1959 and onwards, oftentimes when the government attempted to rally support in times of crisis, such as when the FPR (Front Patriotique Rwandais; Rwandan Patriotic Front), an organization composed mainly of Tutsis, began its rebellion in 1990. Massacres increased in number towards the end of Habyarimana’s regime and culminated in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The reasons for targeting the Tutsi minority are many, based both on history, myths, and the political agenda of the early 1990s. The Tutsi had been the feudal kings of Rwanda before independence, Hutu (and Tutsi) mythology presented the Tutsi as racially superior, and Tutsis were also seen as being FPR collaborators, bent on toppling the Hutu regimes, to name but a few motives. That ordinary Rwandan peasants and youths, as well as government soldiers and militias, could be made to perpetrate mass-scale killings is commonly explained by factors specific to the Rwandan context, comprising such explanations as a tradition of obedience to leaders coupled with an extremely effective bureaucracy, illiteracy and a lack of education allowing people to believe propaganda regarding the evil nature of the Tutsis and the righteous nature of the Hutus, institutionalized desensitization to violence through decades of violent repression, and finally, the spoils to be gained from those murdered. Large campaigns of incitement, for example by popular ‘Hutu Power’ radio broadcasts, also served to affect the attitudes of Rwandan society.
The Hutu regime was ousted in the summer of 1994 by the FPR, which took up the government seat of Rwanda. This new government and its soldiers in turn began to persecute the Hutu population, killing thousands in what is commonly referred to as revenge killings. The FPR denies that it had proclaimed a strategy of striking back at those responsible for (and those who took part in) the genocide, but nevertheless the FPR's soldiers, when in government, attacked Hutu civilians with deadly outcomes. Violence against Hutu civilians continued even after government power had been more or less consolidated by the FPR. The one-sided violence by the new government of Rwanda became intermixed with the Hutu-Tutsi conflict as revenge killings also occurred between Hutu returnee refugees and Tutsi genocide survivors in some villages.
The violence spread to DR Congo (Zaire) after millions of Hutu fled to the country after the FPR victory in Rwanda. From 1995 the Government of Rwanda fought an insurgency campaign against Hutu rebels, comprised of members of the former Rwandese army, former Interahamwe members and Hutu refugees in the eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire). The violence between the Hutu and Tutsi became intermingled with both the DR Congo (Zaire): Government conflict and in more resent episodes conflicts between armed groups connected to the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.
The non-state conflict between Hutu and Tutsi was first included in UCDP data in 1993. The 21 October coup, was accompanied by extremism and turbulence and ethnic violence between in the general population. In one event Hutus rounded up Tutsi men and locked them up in a service station. In the evening, the station was burned down killing more then 25 of the captives.
