** World Happenings

Today the government of Rwanda began releasing 36,000 people from overcrowded Rwandan jails. Most of those released have confessed to helping carry out the 1994 genocide that left a tenth of Rwanda's people dead.

But they have not faced trial, even after a decade in prison. So, Rwanda's congested courts will turn the people over to village tribunals called "gacaca" (meaning "grass," where these local courts generally hold court). Those found to have planned or led the genocide may go back to government courts and prisons. But for most, the gacaca system is about confession, apology, and reconciliation.

Of course, many survivors and relatives of victims are demanding stronger justice than community shame. And that's not surprising when you look again at what happened in 1994, before then, and even since.

Hutu vs. Tutsi

The Rwandan genocide of 1994 wasn't an isolated event. It was the most horrific in a string of mass murders perpetrated by the Hutu against the Tutsi, and vice versa, since 1962, when Belgium granted independence to Rwanda and Burundi, two neighboring nations in Africa's Great Lakes region.

Who's a Hutu, Who's a Tutsi?

Together, Hutus and Tutsis account for nearly all the people of Rwanda and Burundi. Roughly 90 percent of Rwandans are Hutu, while 9 percent are Tutsi. About 85 percent of Burundians are Hutu, and 14 percent are Tutsi. (The rest are mainly Twa, an indigenous pygmy people.)

Contact between the two groups dates back to the Tutsi's arrival in Hutu territory six centuries ago. But, until the 20th century, they apparently got along well--so well, in fact, that experts now disagree, sometimes vehemently, about the nature of the differences between them.

Nature, or Nurture?

Some say there are racial differences. Tutsis are supposedly taller, thinner, and lighter-skinned, while Hutus are supposedly shorter, thicker, and darker-skinned. Yet others say these biometric measures are groundless, if not racist garbage. They point out that years of intermarriage have long since blurred racial boundaries--if they existed at all.

The Hutu and the Tutsi aren't much different ethnically, either. They speak the same languages (which used to be the Hutu's), follow essentially the same clan and kinship systems (borrowed from Tutsi traditions), and practice the same religions. Many in both groups are now Roman Catholic.

Ancient History, or Recent?

Hutu language and customs were well established in the Great Lakes region when the cattle-herding Tutsi started arriving around 1400. But the Tutsi brought more than livestock. They also brought a more sophisticated understanding of war, which eventually helped them dominate despite smaller numbers.

The Tutsi social and political system centered on a quasi-divine king (the "mwami"), who was surrounded by chiefs and sub-chiefs, each in charge of a single hill. Scholars have compared it to a feudal or caste system, with Hutus at the bottom and Tutsis at the top of the socioeconomic heap. Unlike some such systems, however, there seems to have been a fair amount of movement up and down the heap--at least until westerners arrived at the turn of the 20th century.

The westerners--mainly Belgians--used race not only for classification, but also for colonial administration. They issued ethnic identity cards and discriminated in favor of the minority Tutsi, who they perceived as closer to white. They then repeatedly played the race card to divide and rule Rwanda and Burundi (which they administered as a single entity). Whatever animosity existed between the Hutu and Tutsi before, the Belgians made it much worse.

Scylla, or Charybdis?

By the time Rwanda and Burundi officially came into being in 1962, Hutu-Tutsi antagonism was causing trouble for both nations. A Rwandan Hutu revolt ousted the Tutsi king, who fled the country with some 200,000 other Tutsis. Many ended up in Burundi where, fearing a similar fate, the Tutsi powers-that-be cracked down hard on the local Hutu.

In 1963, a group of exiled Rwandan Tutsis returned home as a rebel army, attempting to overthrow the Hutu government. They failed, but the effort prompted a large-scale massacre of Tutsis by Hutus, followed by smaller-scale reprisals. Then, in 1972, a Hutu uprising in Burundi resulted in widespread massacres by Tutsi-led forces, who killed at least 100,000 people, most of them Hutu.

Worse Comes to Worst

Horrific as they were, these massacres pale in comparison to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Hutu extremists carefully planned, then led, the murder of some 800,000 fellow Rwandans, mostly Tutsi. Hutus who refused to go along were murdered, too. A Hutu-controlled radio station repeatedly urged the nationwide slaughter on, shouting "The graves are not yet full!"

Tutsi-led military forces eventually turned the tables, ousting the Hutu-dominated government and chasing the extremists (along with thousands of other Hutus) out of Rwanda. Across the border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the fighting continued, helping to precipitate a complex regional war that has claimed 3 million lives.

Officially, the Rwandan government now refuses to distinguish between Hutu and Tutsi. In this case, forcing everyone to toe the party line just might be a good idea.

~ Steve Sampson