Rwanda

Rwanda is a republic. The state and government are headed by a president, who is vested with extensive powers: he appoints and removes all high civil, military, and judicial officials; he appoints, accredits, and recalls ambassadors; he concludes international treaties and agreements; and he has the right to declare a state of emergency. The government consists of 12 ministers appointed by the president. The prefectures and communes are administered by prefects and burgomasters appointed by the president; communal councils include both elected officials and appointed officials (for example, burgomasters).

The judicial system of Rwanda includes a Supreme Court (court of highest instance), an appellate court, courts of first instance, and a number of special courts, such as military tribunals, commercial courts, and criminal-correction courts.

Most of Rwanda is a rugged upland, with elevations ranging’ between 1,500 and 2,000 m and composed primarily of Precam-brian crystalline and metamorphic rocks. The more elevated western rim of the upland is between 2,500 and 3,000 m in elevation and drops off abruptly to Lake Kivu in the west. The volcanic Virunga mountains, including Mount Karisimbi, which rises to an elevation of 4,507 m, are in the extreme northwest.

The climate of Rwanda is subequatorial. There is a rainy season, and temperatures are moderated by the region’s considerable elevation. In Kigali, situated at an elevation of 1,550 m, the monthly temperature averages about 20°C–21°C the year round. Annual precipitation is approximately 1,000–1,500 mm, and in the Virunga mountains, 2,000 mm. The dry season is from June through August or September. The dense network of rivers lies mostly in the Nile River basin. The largest river is the Kagera; there are many small lakes in its basin.

The dominant vegetation is second-growth savanna vegetation, which has replaced the deciduous and evergreen tropical forests cut down by man; red humic and ferralitic mountain soils predominate. The Virunga mountains have rain forests and high-mountain tropical vegetation. Wildlife, once abundant, has been drastically reduced, and most of the large animals survive only in preserves. Buffalo, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, warthog, zebra, lion, leopard, crocodile, and various species of antelope are found in Kagera National Park in the northwest; the mountain gorilla is found in the Volcanoes National Park in the northwest.

Three ethnic groups in the Bantu-Banyaruanda language family make up more than 80 percent of the population of Rwanda: Hutu (Bahutu), Tutsi (Batutsi or Watutsi), and Twa (Batwa). Of these, Hutu account for 90 percent, Tutsi 9 percent, and Twa 1 percent. Rwanda’s other inhabitants include Europeans, especially Belgians, and Asians. Kinyarwanda and French are the official languages. More than half of the population are Christian (Roman Catholic). Many retain local traditional beliefs. The Gregorian calendar is the official calendar.

Between 1963 and 1972 the population increased at a rate of 3.2 percent per year. About 1.9 million persons are economically active; about 91 percent work in agriculture (1970). Seasonal employment in industry in Rwanda and neighboring countries is common among the rural population. The average population density is about 152 persons per sq km (1973). The overwhelming majority of the population lives in rural areas, where separate farmsteads predominate. Only 2 to 3 percent live in cities; the largest cities are Kigali (1974 population, 30,000), Butare, Ruhengeri, and Gisenyi.

Little is known of the history of Rwanda before the advent of the Europeans. Bantu-speaking tribes subjugated tribes of Pygmies, the aboriginals. Between the 14th and 16th centuries, Nilo-Hamitic tribes moved from the north into what is now Rwanda.

In the centuries that followed, a feudal state emerged, and with it, the main ethnic groups; the Hutu, descended from the Bantu-speaking tribes; the Tutsi, descended from the Nilo-Hamitic tribes that settled the area in the 14th and 15th centuries; and the Twa, who are Pygmies. The Tutsi, who were for the most part stock raisers, dominated the country. From them emerged the Rwandan feudal elite and the dynasty of Rwandan kings. Most of the Hutu were oppressed farmers, and the Twa were the outcasts of Rwandan society.

A centralized Rwandan state came into existence late in the 19th century. However, the Hutu principalities in the north long refused to submit to the king; they were included in the kingdom only in the 1920’s by the military force of the colonialists. Rwanda attained its greatest power under King (mwami) Kigeri Rwabugiri (ruled 1853–95), who expanded the kingdom during his reign. He was absolute ruler of the country, owner of all land and livestock in the state, and the possessor of a strong standing army. The reign of his successor, King Yuhi Musinga (ruled 1895–1931), was marked by internecine wars, a crisis of royal authority, and the colonial enslavement of the country.

German colonialists began moving into Rwanda in the 1890’s. In 1898 the military authorities established a German residence in Kigali, and King Musinga recognized the authority of the resident. Rwanda was made part of German East Africa. During World War I, Belgian troops occupied Rwanda in 1916. After the war, Rwanda and neighboring Burundi were joined together in a single administrative unit, Ruanda-Urundi, a League of Nations mandate administered by Belgium. On Aug. 21, 1925, Ruanda-Urundi was administratively united to the Belgian Congo, of which it became a separate vice-government. In December 1946 the UN declared Ruanda-Urundi a Belgian trust territory.

The Belgian colonialists retained the system of indirect rule that had been introduced by the Germans. The king kept his throne, but the Belgian resident superivised all his actions; the Belgian resident was himself subordinate to the vice-governor-general, known from 1959 as the general resident. Local chiefs carried out administrative and judicial functions under the supervision of the Belgian administration. The Belgian administration carried out certain reforms in Rwanda—most importantly, the abolition of a number of feudal duties and the head tax.

After World War II, African society in Rwanda underwent certain changes. As commodity export crops, such as coffee and cotton, were grown on a wider scale, a well-to-do Hutu rural elite emerged, an elite that was economically tied to Belgian companies. The new social strata expressed dissatisfaction with the feudal vestiges and with the privileges of the Tutsi. The Belgian colonialists attempted to win the support of the rural elite.

At the end of the 1950’s, the anti-imperialist movement in Rwanda took on an organized character. Of the many political parties then formed, two were of lasting importance: the Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement (Parmehutu), founded in 1959 and later renamed the Republican Democratic Movement Parmehutu, or RDM Parmehutu; and the Ruandese National Union (UNAR), also founded in 1959. The program of the Parmehutu party provided for the complete separation of Rwanda from Burundi, defense of the interests of the Hutu people, and an end to feudal privileges. It also called for Africanization of the Rwandan administration; however, it did not at first demand an immediate end to the Belgian trust. The UNAR, formed by the upper and middle groups of the Tutsi hierarchy, demanded the withdrawal of Belgian troops, the creation of an independent federation of Rwanda and Burundi, and the setting of an exact date for the granting of independence.

As the liberation movement grew, the Belgian colonialists, seeking to maintain their dominance, exploited and in every way inflamed the hostility between the Hutu and the Tutsi. At the end of 1960, with the help of the Belgian administration, the first provisional government was formed, headed by the founder of the Parmehutu, G. Kayibanda, and consisting primarily of Parmehutu leaders. On Jan. 28, 1961, the monarchy officially ceased to exist, and Rwanda was declared a republic. In the first general elections to the Legislative Assembly, held in September 1961, the Parmehutu, with 77 percent of the vote, won a resounding victory. In a referendum held at the same time, the majority of the voters (83 percent) declared their opposition to the monarchy. Meanwhile, the Rwandans were insistently demanding independence.

On June 27, 1962, a session of the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an end to the Belgian trusteeship over Ruanda-Urundi as of July 1, 1962. On July 1, 1962, Rwanda was declared an independent state. The leader of the RDM Parmehutu, Kayibanda, was elected president of the Republic of Rwanda by the Legislative Assembly (from November 1962, the National Assembly). In November 1962 the republic’s constitution was adopted. Rwanda has been a member of the UN since September 1962.

In the first years of Rwanda’s independence, relations between the two main ethnic groups—the Hutu and the Tutsi—came to a head. Between late 1963 and 1965 the Hutu and Tutsi fought bloody clashes. Kayibanda’s government took measures to develop the country’s economy; at the same time, however, it concluded a series of agreements with Western countries, thus increasing Rwanda’s economic dependence upon Western monopolies. In 1963, Rwanda joined the Afro-Malagasy Union (from 1974 the Afro-Mauritian Common Organization).

On July 5, 1973, the government of Rwanda was overthrown. President Kayibanda was arrested and the National Assembly and RDM Parmehutu party disbanded. Major General J. Habyarimana, minister of the national guard and police in the previous government, took power, assuming the responsibilities of president of the republic, chairman of the newly created Committee for National Peace and Unity, head of state, and minister of national defense. The new government continues the policy of attracting Western capital and supports African regional cooperation. Diplomatic relations between Rwanda and the USSR were established in October 1963.

Rwanda has an underdeveloped and agrarian economy. Foreign, chiefly Belgian, capital is strongly entrenched in the Rwandan economy, particularly in industry and commerce. At the same time, the state and the cooperatives are playing an increasingly larger role in the economy; thus, the company Rwandex, 50 percent of whose stock is owned by the state, and the cooperative Trafipro are increasingly more active in export operations and in the importation of several food and industrial commodities.

Economic development plans that give a high priority to agriculture have been implemented since 1966. The gross domestic product was 25.6 billion Rwandan francs in 1973; of this, agriculture accounted for more than 60 percent and industry, together with construction, for only about 8 percent. The per capita gross domestic product was about $50 annually.

Agriculture. Small and dwarf peasant holdings are the rule in agriculture; the average family plot is between 0.6 and 1 hectare (ha). A few peasant farms are joined in cooperatives, primarily supply and marketing cooperatives; cooperatives are encouraged by the government. Seventy percent of Rwanda’s land area, or 1,765,800 ha, is suitable for agriculture; of this, cultivated land, including fallow land, accounts for 30 percent, and pastureland, 31 percent.

The peasants of Rwanda rely on hoe cultivation based on shifting agriculture; methods of intensive farming—such as terracing and irrigation—are used but rarely. New lands are being reclaimed; paysannats, planned peasant settlements that specialize primarily in the production of export crops, are being built on the reclaimed lands. The three chief export crops—coffee, tea, and pyrethrum—account for 60 percent of the gross national product. The main export crop is coffee; in 1973, 24,000 ha planted in coffee yielded 15,500 tons of coffee beans. Tea was planted on 4,100 ha and yielded a harvest of 2,800 tons. Pyrethrum, planted on 3,200 ha, yielded 57 tons of extract. Cotton (about 300 tons of raw cotton) and cinchona (311 tons of bark) are also grown for export.

The chief food crops are beans (160,000 ha, 133,000 tons in 1973), sorghum (131,100 ha, 141,600 tons), corn (55,000 ha, 55,000 tons), yams (73,600 ha, 426,000 tons), manioc (30,000 ha, 360,000 tons), and bananas (156,000 ha, 1.767 million tons). Other crops, grown primarily for domestic consumption, include sugarcane, peanuts, and tobacco. Livestock are pastured, which has resulted in extremely low productivity; but stock raising nonetheless plays an important role in the consumer sector. In 1973 there were 740,000 head of cattle, 53,000 hogs, 628,000 goats, and 243,000 sheep. There are also poultry farming (chickens and ducks) and beekeeping. Lake Kivu and other lakes yield fish.

Industry. Industry is only beginning to develop in Rwanda. In 1972, 33 million kilowatt-hours (kW-hr) of electricity were generated. Rwanda has hydroelectric power plants at Ntaruka (11.2 megawatts) and Gisenyi (1.2 megawatts) and several steam power plants. In addition, Rwanda obtains electric power from the Mururu Hydroelectric Power Plant in Zaire; power lines run from the plant directly to Kigali.

The mining industry, controlled chiefly by Belgian capital, is growing in importance. A joint Belgian-Rwandan mining company, 49 percent of whose stock is owned by the state, has recently been organized. Cassiterite (yielding 2,030 tons of tin in 1973), tungsten (688 tons), columbite-tantalite, and beryl are mined. Natural gas—about 1 million cu m of methane—is extracted from Lake Kivu by underwater drilling.

The manufacturing industry consists primarily of small enterprises for the initial processing of agricultural products, such as coffee beans, tea, and pyrethrum, and small enterprises of the food and condiment industry, such as breweries, flour mills, sugar refineries, milk plants, vegetable-oil mills, and plants for the production of soap and tobacco. Rwanda also has a plant for the production of aluminum ware, a paint factory, and enterprises for the assembly of transistor radios. There are several state-owned enterprises, some for the processing of pyrethrum and tea.

Transportation. Motor vehicles are the primary means of transportation in Rwanda. There are 8,000 km of roads, including 3,100 km of highways. Various commercial vessels ply Lake Kivu, calling at the ports of Kibuye, Gisenyi, and Cyangugu. There is an international airport at Kigali and several local airports. Rwanda ships its exports through the seaports of Mombasa (Kenya), Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania), and Matadi (Zaire).

Foreign trade. In 1973 the total value of Rwanda’s exports came to 2.37 billion Rwandan francs, and that of its imports, 2.844 billion Rwandan francs. Coffee accounted for 62.5 percent of the value of Rwanda’s exports, cassiterite for 15.8 percent, tungsten for 5.2 percent, tea for 7.1 percent, pyrethrum for 4 percent, and hides, cinchona bark, and raw cotton for the rest. The main imports are textiles, food, machinery and equipment, transportation equipment, and petroleum products. Rwanda’s exports go primarily to the USA (40 percent by value) and to Belgium and Luxembourg (28 percent). Rwanda’s imports come primarily from Belgium and Luxembourg (17 percent), Japan (15 percent), the Federal Republic of Germany (11 percent), and the USA (17 percent). Trade relations with the USSR and other socialist countries are growing. The USSR and Rwanda signed a trade agreement in May 1974.

The monetary unit is the Rwandan franc; 92.8 Rwandan francs equal US$ 1 (April 1975).

Medicine and public health. According to the World Health Organization, births averaged 51.8 per 1,000 inhabitants per year in the period 1965–70, and mortality, 23.3 per 1,000. Infant mortality, which is very high, averaged 132.8 deaths per 1,000 live births. Infectious and parasitic diseases are the most common diseases and the leading causes of death. The most widespread (1972) are malaria, amebiasis, pulmonary tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, various strains of typhus and paratyphoid, venereal diseases, leprosy, and childhood diseases.

Rwanda has 22 hospitals, with 3,300 beds (1971); 11 are state hospitals, with 2,000 beds. If smaller medical facilities, maternity homes, a rehabilitation center, and a tuberculosis center are taken into account, the total number of beds is about 5,000, more than 3,000 of which are in state medical facilities. There are only 1.3 beds per 1,000 persons (1971). Rwanda has a mobile leprosy unit, a national institute of public health, and an experimental and educational health care center for mothers and children.

In 1971, Rwanda had 67 physicians, (1 physician per 57,000 inhabitants), 25 of whom were native Rwandans. In 1972 and 1973 there were 28 native Rwandan physicians, 20 of whom had been trained at the National University of Rwanda in Butare. In 1971 there were also 158 doctors’ aides and more than 800 intermediate-level medical personnel, who had been trained at five medical schools in Rwanda. In 1970 expenditures for public health made up 6.5 percent of the state budget.

Veterinary services. Several particularly dangerous animal diseases are found in Rwanda, including rinderpest, cattle peripneumonia, rabies, anthrax, foot-and-mouth disease, and Newcastle disease. Trypanosomiasis, piroplasmidoses, and helminthiases are common. Because of poor veterinary services and ignorance of good veterinary practices on the part of many stock raisers, the struggle against infectious diseases in animals has been difficult.

In the late 1960’s about 80 percent of the adult population of Rwanda was illiterate. A 1966 law providing for free and compulsory primary education is not being implemented. In 1974 tuition was introduced for primary schools, and the tuition in secondary schools and higher educational institutions was increased. Children enter primary school at the age of seven. Primary school lasts six years; instruction is in Kinyarwanda. Secondary school lasts six years (two courses of study, each of three years); instruction is in French. There were 416,000 primary-school pupils in the 1970–71 academic year, and about 9,000 secondary-school students. Of the latter, 6,500 were in standard-curriculum schools, 1,000 were in technical schools, and 1,500 were in pedagogical schools.

The National University of Rwanda, located in Butare, has faculties of letters, medicine, sciences, and social and economic sciences. It was founded in 1963 and has a library of 49,000 volumes. In the 1970–71 academic year, it had more than 400 students. The National Pedagogical Institute, also in Butare, had 250 students in the 1974–75 academic year.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry operates the Institute of Agronomical Sciences of Rwanda (founded 1932), located in Butare. The National Institute for Scientific Research (founded in 1947 as the Central African Institute of Scientific Research) is associated with the National University of Rwanda. Under a 1964 agreement, supervision of the institute was entrusted to Belgium for a period of 12 years; the institute includes the Museum of Rwanda. In 1965, with the aid of UNESCO, the Center for Research of Pedagogical Documentation was founded in Kigali. The Rwandan Academy of Culture was founded in 1971.

There are several weekly newspapers in Rwanda, including Imwaho (founded 1960; circulation 5,500 in 1974), which is published in Kinyarwanda; Rwanda-Carrefour d’Afrique (founded 1962; circulation 3,500), published in French; and Kinya Mateka (founded 1959; circulation 7,000–8,000), published by the Catholic church in both Kinyarwanda and French.

The government has broadcast radio programs since 1965. The radio station in Kigali transmits in Kinyarwanda, French, Swahili, and English. The Federal Republic of Germany’s Deutsche Welle has had a radio relay station in Rwanda since 1968.

Literature. Historically, Rwanda has seen the development of three basic kinds of oral poetry—dynastic, military, and pastoral—each with professional authors and professional performers. A. Kagame (born 1912)—abbot, historian, linguist, ethnographer, and student of Rwanda’s oral tradition—is the founder of Rwanda’s written literature and the author of several narrative poems in Kinyarwanda. His most important poem is lsoko y’Amajyambere (1949), an epic poem about the advent of the Christian church in Rwanda. The epic’s first two parts—Divine Pastorale (1952) and The Birth of the Universe (1955)—have come out in French.

S. Naigiziki (born 1915) is a prose stylist and the first Rwandan author to write in French. He has written an autobiographical novel in two parts—Rwandan Escapade (1950) and My Fears at Thirty (1955)—and a play, The Optimist (1954).

The poet Bruno Nkuliyingona and the prose writers Victoria Kantengwa and Agnès Niyonkindi made their debut in a literary competition held in Rwanda in 1970. Nkuliyingona writes in Kinyarwanda; Kantengwa and Niyonkindi write in French.

In independent Rwanda, literary activity has concentrated on drama with essentially a didactic character. Plays—whether those by local authors or those adapted from the European classics—are not published but are staged by amateur theater troupes.

Traditional rural dwellings in Rwanda are for the most part situated on hillsides and are generally enclosed by paling. The traditional Banyarwanda dwelling is a round hut made of clay packed over a wooden framework and thatched with layers of rushes arranged in a spiral pattern. The interior is divided by partitions into several separate sections. Some houses are done in the European style. Basket weaving, mat weaving, and the manufacture of metal ornaments and wooden utensils are the most common arts and crafts.

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