Word: hutus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bloodshed began after Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, both Hutus, died when their plane crashed at Kigali airport almost two weeks ago. A military team from Belgium, the former colonial power in Rwanda, has concluded that the jet was shot down with rockets belonging to the Rwandan army -- most likely by the presidential guard angered at plans to include Tutsis in the government. The 600-strong guard began murdering all the Tutsis they could find. The army soon joined in, as much to loot as to kill...
...Tutsi rebels have promised not to retaliate against the Hutus and have pledged to end the slaughter. But the refugees know just how many times that promise has been made over the years by both tribes -- and then broken...
...nations of Rwanda and Burundi, where politics is still dominated by the ancient rivalry between the predominant Hutu and minority Tutsi tribes, pure tribal enmity was behind the bloodshed. Last week's violence exploded after a plane carrying Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, both Hutus, crashed Wednesday night on the approach to Kigali airport, killing both leaders. Witnesses reported hearing heavy weapons fire moments before the plane went down. "What happened was not an accident but an assassination," said Jean Damascene Bizimana, Rwanda's ambassador to the U.N. The two leaders were returning from...
After three years of fighting, Habyarimana's regime in Rwanda, made up largely of fellow Hutus, had reached a peace accord with the mainly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front last August. But Habyarimana failed to form an interim government to last until new elections could be conducted. Burundi's Ntaryamira had been elected President in January by the National Assembly after the assassination of fellow Hutu Melchior Ndadaye in a bloody coup attempt last October. With Burundi's army still under the control of the Tutsis, however, Ntaryamira had been unable to stop the rash of ethnic clashes that have killed...
Despite the obvious Tutsi motive for assassinating the two Presidents, the finger of suspicion points at Habyarimana's own battalion-strong palace guard of Hutus, who were incensed that the Tutsis had been given Cabinet posts and that their followers, exiled in Uganda for two generations, were likely to be given land on which to settle in what is Africa's most densely populated country. And indeed, government-appointed Tutsis were an early target of the violence last week. After presidential guards surrounded the house of Prime Minister (and Tutsi) Agathe Uwilingiyimana, 10 Belgian soldiers, part...