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Rwanda
The 1959 Hutu revolution, backed by the Belgian administration, overturned the Tutsi monarchy before the UN ended the Ruanda-Urundi trusteeship on 1 July 1962; Kayibanda's Parmehutu took power in a republic.
- Independence
- July 1, 1962
- Before
- Ruanda (Ruanda-Urundi, Belgian-administered UN Trust Territory)
- Metropole
- Belgium
- Leader
- Grégoire Kayibanda
- Transition
- Negotiated
- Movement
- Parti du Mouvement de l'Émancipation Hutu (Parmehutu), led by Grégoire Kayibanda
A Mandate Ruled Through the Court
Belgian troops occupied German Ruanda-Urundi in 1916, and the League of Nations awarded Belgium a B-class mandate over the territory on 20 July 1922, converted into a United Nations trusteeship in December 1946. Belgium ruled through the Tutsi court and chiefs of the Rwandan kingdom, deposing the unbaptised king Musinga in 1931 in favour of his son Mutara III Rudahigwa. From 1935 identity cards fixed every subject as Tutsi, Hutu or Twa, hardening a social hierarchy into an administrative one. Catholic seminaries produced a small Hutu counter-elite that would lead the assault on that order.
The Bahutu Manifesto and the Muyaga
On 24 March 1957 nine Hutu intellectuals led by Grégoire Kayibanda published the Bahutu Manifesto, demanding an end to the Tutsi 'monopoly' of power. Rudahigwa died suddenly in July 1959; his successor Kigeli V and the royalist UNAR party pressed for rapid independence under the monarchy. On 1 November 1959 an attack on the Hutu sub-chief Dominique Mbonyumutwa set off the muyaga, a peasant uprising in which Tutsi homes were burned. Colonel Guy Logiest, made special resident by Belgium, replaced more than half the Tutsi chiefs with Hutu, mostly from Kayibanda's Parmehutu.
From Gitarama to the Trusteeship's End
Parmehutu won 160 of 229 communal seats in the elections of June and July 1960, and Kigeli V fled the country that month. On 28 January 1961 Hutu local leaders meeting at Gitarama proclaimed a republic with Mbonyumutwa as interim president. A UN-supervised referendum on 25 September 1961 rejected the monarchy and Kigeli by about 80 percent, and Parmehutu won the legislative election held the same day; Kayibanda was elected president on 26 October. General Assembly Resolution 1746 (XVI) of 27 June 1962 ended the trusteeship, and Rwanda became independent on 1 July 1962.
Chronology
- 20 July 1922 — League of Nations mandate over Ruanda-Urundi awarded to Belgium
- 24 March 1957 — Bahutu Manifesto published
- 1 November 1959 — Attack on Dominique Mbonyumutwa sparks the Hutu uprising
- June–July 1960 — Communal elections: Parmehutu wins 160 of 229 seats
- 28 January 1961 — Coup of Gitarama: republic proclaimed
- 25 September 1961 — UN-supervised referendum abolishes the monarchy; Parmehutu wins legislative election
- 27 June 1962 — UN General Assembly Resolution 1746 (XVI) ends the trusteeship
- 1 July 1962 — Independence; Kayibanda president
- 5 July 1973 — Juvénal Habyarimana overthrows Kayibanda
Aftermath
Some 150,000 to 300,000 Tutsi had fled by the early 1960s; an official count in late 1964 put the refugees at 336,000. Kayibanda ruled a one-party Hutu state until his defence minister, Juvénal Habyarimana, overthrew him on 5 July 1973. A refugee-led Rwandan Patriotic Front invaded in 1990, and after Habyarimana's death in April 1994 extremist Hutu forces carried out a genocide of roughly 100 days in which more than 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed.
Legacy
Rwanda's independence was the outcome of an internal revolution rather than a struggle against the coloniser, and the ethnic majoritarianism it institutionalised, with Belgian backing, shaped the refugee crises and the violence that culminated in 1994.