What Is the Conflict Between Tutsis and Hutus

The bloody history of Hutu and Tutsi conflict stained the 20th century, from the slaughter of 80,000 to 200,000 Hutus by the Tutsi army in Burundi in 1972, to the 1994 Rwanda genocide. In just 100 days during which Hutu militias targeted Tutsis, between 800,000 and 1 million people were killed. But many observers would be surprised to learn that the longstanding conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi has nothing to do with language or religion — they speak the same Bantu tongues as well as French, and generally practice Christianity — and many geneticists have been hard-pressed to find marked ethnic differences between the two, though the Tutsi have generally been noted to be taller. Many believe that German and Belgian colonizers tried to find differences between the Hutu and Tutsi in order to better categorize native peoples in their censuses. Class Warfare Generally, the Hutu-Tutsi strife stems from class warfare, with the Tutsis perceived to have greater wealth and social status (as well as favoring cattle ranching over what is seen as the lower-class farming of the Hutus). These class differences started during the 19th century, were exacerbated by colonization, and exploded at the end of the 20th century. Origins of Rwanda and Burundi The Tutsis are thought to have originally come from Ethiopia and arrived after the Hutu came from  Chad. The Tutsis had a monarchy dating back to the 15th century; this was overthrown at the urging of  Belgian colonizers  in the early 1960s and the Hutu took power by force in Rwanda. In Burundi, however, a Hutu uprising failed and the Tutsis controlled the country.The Tutsi and Hutu people interacted long before European colonization in the 19th century. According to some sources, the Hutu people lived in the area originally, while the Tutsi migrated from the Nile region. When they arrived, the Tutsi were able to establish themselves as leaders in the area with little conflict. While the Tutsi people became aristocracy, there was a good deal of intermarriage. In 1925, Belgian colonized the area calling it  Ruanda-Urundi. Rather than establishing a government from Brussels, however, the Belgians placed the Tutsi in charge with the support of the Europeans. This decision led to the exploitation of the Hutu people at the hands of the Tutsis. Starting in 1957, the Hutus began to rebel against their treatment, writing a Manifesto and staging violent actions against the Tutsi. In 1962, Belgium left the area and two new nations, Rwanda and Burundi, were formed. Between 1962 and 1994, a number of violent clashes occurred between the Hutus and Tutsis; all of this was leading up to the genocide of 1994. Genocide On April 6, 1994, the Hutu president of Rwanda, Juvà ©nal Habyarimana, was assassinated when his plane was shot down near Kigali International Airport. The Hutu president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was also killed in the attack. This sparked the chillingly well-organized extermination of Tutsis by Hutu militias, even though blame for the plane attack has never been established. Sexual violence against Tutsi women was also widespread, and the United Nations only conceded that acts of genocide had likely happened after an estimated half-million Rwandans had already been killed. After the genocide and the Tutsis regaining control, about two million Hutus fled to Burundi, Tanzania (from where 500,000 were later expelled by the government), Uganda, and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the great focus of Tutsi-Hutu conflict is today. Tutsi rebels in the DRC accuse the government of providing cover for the Hutu militias.