Post Independence

Despite UN involvement and the achievement of independence, tension between the Hutu and the Tutsi not only continued, but escaladed.  Hutu assaults on the Tutsi spread, sending thousands of additional refugees into neighboring countries.  Extremist Hutu President Kayibanda also set strict laws in retaliation for the inequalities that the Hutu had long suffered.  For example, the Tutsi population obtained only 9 percent of all jobs, school positions, and government appointments, reflective of the fact that they now only comprised 9 percent of the total population (C).  Hutu supremacy was also maintained through the reelection of Kayibanda for president in 1965 and again in 1969 (C).  However, Kayibanda’s administration became so corrupt and brutal that Major General Juvénal Habyarimana led a military coup that drove him out of his position and established a new and relatively calmer period in Rwandan history (C).  This new administration did not create any significant improvement in the treatment of the Tutsi; additionally, the decline in prices for Rwanda’s products, especially tea and coffee, almost led to an economic collapse (C).  It was also easy for Habyarimana to maintain power in Rwanda due to almost total Hutu political dominance, reelecting him as president in 1978, 1983, and 1988 (C).  But in 1990 after a group of Tutsi exliles orgainized by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (known as the RPF) invaded Rwanda with Major Paul Kagame as head, whose purpose was to restore democracy and not to bring the Tutsi back to power, pressure from the UN and Western nations motivated the agreement made at Arusha, Tanzania (A).  This agreement outlined a number of reforms, including the integration of the Rwandan national army with the RPF as well as a transitional national assembly to implement all reforms.  However, after the Hutu extremists rejected this proposal, the Rwandan national state disintegrated into genocide.