Independence to 1994
In 1961 the victorious Hutu-led Parmehutu party, having been elected to power, proclaimed a republic and abolished the Tutsi monarchy. In the following year, 1962, Rwanda achieved independence and Grégoire Kayibanda was elected the first president of the Rwandan Republic. Tutsis became the victims of official discrimination in virtually all public services and in political involvement.
Kayibanda was overthrown by his National Defence Minister Juvénal Habyarimana in a coup in July 1973. Habyarimana's Second Republic claimedto be sympathetic to Tutsis; but this was not borne out in fact. In the years that followed under the leadership of the oneparty system, the National Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND), Tutsis continued to experienced violence, arrests, intimidation and abuse.
Violence was never far from the surface in these times. In 1959 King Rudahingwa of Rwanda had died in mysterious circumstances while under the care of a Belgian doctor. The outbreak of violence that followed marked the beginning of a Rwandan 'social revolution', with a peasant revolt that left 20,000 Tutsis dead. Thousands more were forced to flee as refugees, and an estimated 200,000 settled in Uganda. In 1963-67, 100,000 Tutsis were butchered with machetes and dumped in rivers, and in 1973, Tutsi students were massacred in their thousands.
Habyarimana's regime used ethnicity as a political strategy in order to hold on to power at any cost. Regional divisions increased, with northerners (the president's henchmen) taking over virtually all economic and political power. Meanwhile, Rwandans living in exile were pressing to return to their country of origin, but met no response from the government. Finally, in 1990 the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) launched an invasion from Uganda.
A series of agreements backed by the international community was signed between the RPF and the government of Rwanda to ensure a peaceful settlement of the Rwandan crisis. On 6 April 1994 President Habyarimana signed a peace agreement, but on his way back from Dar-es-Salaam to Kigali his plane was shot down and he was killed.
Some blamed those in his government who were opposed to signing a peace accord; others blamed the RPF; still others said French mercenaries wereresponsible because they feared that Rwanda was about to be given to the RPF. Whatever the reason, within hours of his death lists of names of opposition members, moderate Hutus and prominent Tutsis were produced. The massacres began: in a period of three months over one million people were killed.