Word: hutu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1964-1964
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...clear that some kind of slaughter is taking place; one report estimates the toll at a thousand daily. Almost all the victims are members of the Tutsi (or Watusi) tribe, usually remembered for their great height--many Tutsi are seven feet tall. The people slaughtering the Tutsi are the Hutu, who make up 85% of Rwanda's population...
Genocide, then, is not an inappropriate description of what is happening in Rwanda. Violence between Tutsi and Hutu has long been imminent. For centuries, the Tutsi held the Hutu in a type of feudal boundage. The Belgians allowed Tutsi domination to continue when they took over Ruanda-Urundi (now divided into Rwanda and the Kingdom of Burundi) after World War I. Only in 1959 did the Hutu overthrow the Tutsi's jealously guarded hegemony...
After this revolution, about 75,000 Tutsi fled to neighboring Burundi, Uganda, and Tanganyika. The victory of the Parmehutu (Parti d'Emancipation des Hutu) in elections of October, 1961, further weakened the Tutsi's position. The Tutsi king, or Mwami, went into exile. The number of Tutsi refugees in surrounding territories doubled by July, 1962, when Rwanda and Burundi gained independence...
...Hutu have reason to hate the Tutsi. For years the Tutsi refused to share any power or to intermarry with the Hutu in Rwanda, while their fellow tribesmen in Burundi followed a more flexible policy. And last December, Tutsi refugees launched a futile attack on Rwanda, breaking an uneasy tribal peace. Thousands of Tutsi have been murdered in retaliation since Christmas, and thousands more have had to flee Rwanda...