Tutsi probably differ genetically from the Hutu - Gene Expression Gene Expression By Razib Khan | August 29, 2011 11:04 pm Paul Kagame with Barack and Michelle Obama I first heard about Rwanda in the 1980s in relation to Dian Fossey’s work with mountain gorillas . The details around this were tragic enough, but obviously what happened in 1994 washed away the events dramatized in Gorillas in the Mist in terms of their scale and magnitude. That period was a time when the idea of “ancient hatreds” leading to internecine conflict was in the air. It was highlighted by the series of wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the Tutsi – Hutu civil wars in Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo. Of the latter the events in 1994 in Rwanda were only the most prominent and well known. After having read Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa I am relatively conscious of the broader canvas of what occurred in Central and East Africa in the 1990s.

Not only was there a conflict between Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda, but a similar dynamic also flared up in Burundi. The tensions are more complex in Congo and Uganda, in large part because there are many ethnic players, and the Hutu role as the antagonists with the Tutsi is divided among many different populations. In trying to distill the complex ethnography of this region in setting the structural parameters of the landscape into which the violence of the late 20th century emerged many pundits have pointed to the role of the Belgian colonial authorities in crystallizing, sharpening, and perhaps even originating the distinction between Tutsis and Hutus. This is not totally unreasonable if you don’t know much. A quick “look up” will confirm that there is no linguistic or religious distinction between the two groups; they share a common culture in many ways. Rather, the differences seem more of class and ecology. The Tutsi minority had a much stronger pastoral element to their economy. The Hutus were conventional farmers, clear legacies of the Bantu expansion which swept from West-Central Africa east and south, all the way to the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean.

As is not uncommon in the history of humankind the pastoral Tutsi tended to dominate the Hutu peasant. This is where the class dimensions are clearest, as the modest Hutu were traditionally ruled by the wealthier Tutsi aristocracy. The problem is when one makes recourse to Platonic thinking when population thinking would be more useful. There are certain average differences between the Tutsi and Hutu, but there is a great deal of overlap. Not all Tutsi were wealthy pastoralists, and not all Hutu were peasant vassals. There was a caste system of a sort, but it was semi-permeable, and the identity of an individual as Hutu or Tutsi was partly conditional on social, economic, and personal circumstances. The key word here is partly. Additionally, the semi-permeability of identity does not imply that these categories emerged from a previously aggregate population. An example of what I’m talking about would be the blood nobility of France in the late 18th century. The vast majority of the hereditary aristocracy derived from those who had been promoted in previous centuries from the gentry class of commoners.

A division between the aristocracy and the commons in France in the 18th century, which loomed so large, and later gave raise to racialist theories, was almost totally a function relatively recent social forces. At this point some of you may point to the international connections of the French aristocracy. For example, the nobility of Normandy not only had Norse ancestors, but also centuries long connections with England. This is wrongheaded. Because aristocratic lineages tend to keep relatively punctilious records it is clear that turnover was so high that over the centuries ethnically based aristocracies melted into the population, and the nobility of the future itself was more than likely not either of novel foreign origin, or uplifted from the local stock (or, as in the case of Hungary, the elites imposed their identity upon the masses, who later seem to have replaced them if ancient DNA surveys of cemeteries are any clue). The application of this sort of framework then seems natural to the Tutsi-Hutu dichotomy.

Because this topic is of great interest there’s an independent entry on this question in Wikipedia, Origins of Tutsi and Hutu : The colonial scholars who found complex societies in sub-Saharan Africa developed the Hamitic hypothesis, namely that “black Europeans” had migrated into the African interior, conquering the primitive peoples they found there and introducing civilization. The Hamitic hypothesis continues to echo into the current day, both inside and outside of academic circles. As scholars developed a migration hypothesis for the origin of the Tutsi that rejected the Hamitic thesis, the notion that the Tutsi were civilizing alien conquerors was also put in question. One school of thought noted that the influx of pastoralists around the fifteenth century may have taken place over an extended period of time and been peaceful, rather than sudden and violent. The key distinction made was that migration was not the same as conquest. Other scholars delinked the arrival of Tutsi from the development of pastoralism and the beginning of the period of statebuilding. It appears clear that pastoralism was practiced in Rwanda prior to the fifteenth century immigration, while the dates of state formation and pastoralist influx do not entirely match. This argument thus attempts to play down the importance of the pastoralist migrations.

Still other studies point out that cultural transmission can occur without actual human migration. This raises the question of how much of the changes around the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the result of an influx of people as opposed to the existing population being exposed to new ideas. Studies that approach the subject of racial purity are among the most controversial. These studies point out that the pastoralist migrants and pre-migration Rwandans lived side by side for centuries and practiced extensive intermarriage. The notion that current Rwandans can claim exclusively Tutsi or Hutu bloodlines is thus questioned. The idea that people have “pure” Tutsi or Hutu “bloodlines” is so easily refuted that we can dismiss it and move on. Even species can hybridize, so the notion that populations which were spatially coexistent for centuries would be able to maintain pure distinctiveness seems ludicrous. But this idea was proposed by Europeans in the 19th and early 20th centuries, influenced by the racialist paradigms ascendant at the time, whereby the Tutsis were conceived as an intrusive Eurasian population which imposed its will upon the primitive Bantu Hutu.

Interestingly these same concepts were resurrected by Hutu demagogues after independence, though the valence of division was altered, insofar as the Tutsi were now no longer vectors of civilization, but alien interlopers who brought contagion. Most of these models are ridiculous on the face of it. But the converse extreme position is that the Tutsi-Hutu division was purely a cultural revolution, and that the Tutsi are as native as the Hutu in terms of the time-depth of their biological ancestry in the region of Rwanda-Burundi. A common observation here is that one couldn’t tell a Tutsi from a Hutu. This sentiment was put into the mouth of Joaquin Phoenix’s character in Hotel Rwanda . But this is obviously wrong. Some Hutu become Tutsi, and some Tutsi become Hutu, and some people have mixed ancestry but undivided identity, but the reality remains that on average the Hutu and Tutsi do look different. This was obvious in Hotel Rwanda itself, the Hutu protagonist’s Tutsi wife was played by a half-white actress. The preconception is that Tutsis are taller and have narrower features.

Paul Kagame, the de facto ruler of Rwanda since 1994, and an ethnic Tutsi, is a perfect exemplar of the prototype Tutsi. He is tall, slim, and has relatively narrow features. No matter the line promoted by the government of Rwanda after the genocide the people of the region are quite aware of Tutsi distinctiveness, or at least the ideal distinctiveness of the Tutsi. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters the author observes that illiterate peasants in the eastern Congo will routinely express skepticism of an individual by bringing up the French form of the word morphology. This scientific term, which describes the exterior and structural phenotype of an individual illustrates the depth of a racial understanding of the difference between the Tutsis and other populations of this region. So what’s the truth here? I can now contribute a little to the elucidation of this question, because I have run the genotype of an individual who is 3/4 Rwandan Tutsi and 1/4 Rwandan Hutu. An N = 1 is not much, but it is far better than 0. There are some genetic studies of these populations, but they don’t use hundreds of thousands of SNPs . I did.

More specifically, a little over 400,000 SNPs. I first ran this individual in a trial set of populations using both ADMIXTURE and Eigensoft . The former partitions the ancestry of an individual into K components, weighted by the contribution of each component. These are not to be taken literally. In this case focus rather on the relatively comparison across populations, rather than the absolute values of each individual. Eigensoft generates PCA plots, which extract out the largest independent dimensions of genetic variation in the population. These dimensions are ordered from larger (1st component) to smallest (nth component). Eventually I discarded most of the non-African populations, as well as the Mozabites. My main focus was on East Africa. I have no Hutu samples, but I do have Luhya from the HapMap. They are a Bantu group from western Kenya, and so presumably relatively good proxies for the Hutu. In the following analyses you should substitute “Hutu” implicitly when you see “Luhya.” The other groups are rather straightforward. I included some Yoruba as a West African outgroup, but left them out of the ADMIXTURE plot because at higher K’s internal structure began to show up.

This didn’t change the overall results, but they don’t inform for the Yoruba. The Sandawe are a Tanzanian group which speaks a language with possible affinities to the Khoe. The figure to the left shows all the individuals in the ADMIXTURE run labeled by population (except the Yoruba). Near the bottom I’ve placed a red marker to point to the Tutsi. Both the PCA and the ADMIXTURE indicate that this Tutsi individual has a strong resemblance to the results for the Masai. Unsurprisingly this individual is shifted somewhat toward the Luhya in the PCA, further confirmation of their Hutu ancestry. We can probably reject an Afro-Asiatic ancestry for the Tutsi, as is claimed by some. This individual consistently shows much closer affinity to the Nilotic Masai than to the Semitic or Cushitic samples from the Horn of Africa. Also, notice the profile of the Bantu of Kenya. These are likely good proxies for the ur-Hutu. The Tutsi individual is far outside of the range of this population. What does this mean?

I think the title says it all: the Tutsi were in all likelihood once a Nilotic speaking population, who switched to the language of the Bantus amongst whom they settled, and from whom they extracted rents. The relationship of the Tutsi and Hutu is not exceptional, and does not require European colonial intervention or meddling. It is a representative of a range of relationships whereby mobile pastoral populations dominate sedentary farmers because of their superior martial prowess (farmers are “sitting ducks”). Quite often this division has some ethnic connotation, such as the Scythian dominion over various sedentary populations in the Ukraine ~2,000 years ago, or Turkic hegemony in late medieval and early modern Russia. Neither the Scythians nor the Turks emerged from the sedentary substrate. Rather, they were intrusive to the region. Despite the interaction and intermarriage between these sorts of populations they generally remain aware of their disparate origins, and conscious of it. The fact that the Tutsis and Hutus do should not surprise that much in this context.

When it comes to some scientific questions, such as the genetic basis of intelligence, the science isn’t quite there to resolve the issues to the satisfaction of all in the room. I believe it will, but it will take time. But in the cases of ethnic identity and its relationship to biology we have the technology. The Tutsis and Hutus in all likelihood derive from two distinctive biological groups, who have not become divided, but rather have amalgamated somewhat over time (culturally and biology). That’s a lot to derive from one 3/4 Tutsi sample, but we have more to go on than just this sample. There has been long a suspicion about the Tutsi’s non-Bantu origins due to phenotype, oral history, and lifestyle. I’m basically confirming what is evident to anyone who has eyes. The reason that the Rwandan authorities don’t emphasize the differences between the Tutsis and Hutus (despite the current Tutsi domination of the government) is because of the history of ethnic violence and genocide in the region. But I do not believe that the genetic differences that are clear here are sufficient or necessary for genocide.

This is famously illustrated by the Yugoslav conflicts of the 1990s, where very biologically similar groups engaged in wars based on their putative differences. Within Africa itself there is no shortage of genocide between groups which are much closer biologically than the Tutsi and the Hutu (e.g., the havoc wrought upon the Bantu Matabele in the early 1980s by the Bantu Shona dominated movement led by Robert Mugabe). It is not the truth we have to fear, but the mythologies which humans distort from the fragments of the truth in furtherance of their own perverse aims. Note: thanks to everyone who spread the word about my quest for a Tutsi genome . I think we just did something really cool here. Moreno Great work! If you had more samples you could write a paper about this. So pastoralists overcome peasants who overcome hunter-gatherers? Is this the ultimate message from history? (I’ve just finished “Guns, germs and steel”) Muzungu Living in Rwanda I’ve pondered over this debate a lot, and this is definitely interesting work but it doesn’t really answer any of the arguments against distinct ethnic groups, based on examination of culture.

For example: 1. Why do the Twa people who are considered the original inhabitants of Rwanda, and who generally keep to themselves share the same language of Kinyarwanda as the Hutu and Tutsi? 2. Why are Tutsi physically similar to the Kikuyu in Kenya, who speak a Bantu language which is relatively close to Kinyarwanda? Any ideas? According to Tishkoff et al. The Maasai were collectively around… ~50% Cushitic The Kikuya from Tishoff et al. and the Hema samples from elsewhere were around… ~40% Cushitic Tutsi and Chwezi: History and Pre-History Tutsi and Chwezi: History and Pre-History Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins I had some correspondence with a reader interested in the relationship of the Tutsi to the Chwezi Empire of the 1200s-1300s. He was querying the relationship of the related Bantu languages of the region and the waves of immigrants or invaders speaking other languages.

This led to a focus on the historical depth of the timeline involved if we want to seriously understand the dynamics of the conflict and cooperation in the Great Lakes area of Africa in recent years. The correspondent points out that the Tutsis derived from one of the ruling families in the Chwezi dynasty. And he rightly noted that the Chwezi royalty and nobility were Bantu speakers. The Chwezi dynasty ruled a large empire that spanned the Great Lakes region. We know that it collapsed under the invasion of the Babito, thought to be an invading warrior people from the north likely in the 1500s-1600s. (Dates vary in the literature, since dates are estimates based on analysis of various traditional oral histories of the various peoples and other factors from the disciplines.) Nilotic These Bito (or Babito with the Bantu prefix for people) are generally thought to be a Nilotic people. These Babito later merged into the Bantu-speaking local population in the upper Great Lakes area of Southwestern Uganda and Eastern Zaire (Democratic of the Congo).

Related clans or lineages of these Nilotes retain slightly different forms of the same Nilotic speech: Acholi, Lang'i, Luo, Lwoo and related in central and northern Uganda and Kenya, all the way back into the Sudan. These various forms of Nilotic speech are much more similar than the still strikingly-similar Bantu languages in the region, consistent with the later historical depth of the Luo/Lwoo speech. With my limited command of the Luo language, even I could hear and interact with Lang'i and Acholi speakers. I could read their New Testaments, even where I could not understand much of their speech. They could understand my Luo. Dispersal Under the force of the Nilotic Bito invading from the north, the ruling family and nobility of Chwezi scattered in different directions. Various names we know related to this dispersal are Nyambo (Tanzania), Hinda and Kiga (Southern Uganda), Nyiginya, Bega, Tutsi and others (Rwanda and Burundi), Basoni (Burundi) and others (Zaire/DRC). Some include the Ganda and related tribes as well, on the northern banks of Lake Victoria/Nyanza.

Many historical sources are available for the details of this scenario and studies of the individual kingdoms that developed out of this dispersal. The names are associated now with various tribal identities in the area, but investigations seems to indicate a general awareness among these peoples that these were and are related peoples or clans. The Bantu languages across the Lakes area are all similar and show ancient relationships. The linguistic affinity of the Bantu group derives from an apparent ancestral speech form, from before the time of Christ. Comparative and Historical Linguistics is one of the disciplines and tools specialists and historians have used to reconstruct the prehistory of the peoples and the region, along with oral traditions, which are critical sources. The Chwezi dynasty scattered under the onslaught of the Nilotic Babito probably around the 1500s-1600s AD. The fleeing nobility retreated, as my correspondent put it, “to the distant parts of the fallen empire.” The name Tutsi referred to one group of these Chwezi nobility who fled the Bito. I have not seen definitive studies and evidence on the historical origin of the name Tutsi. This Bito invasion, however, happened late in the cultural and ethnic history of the Great Lakes region.

When we discuss a possible immigration of Cushite settlers or conquerors in the region, we are thinking of the early time before the establishment of the great Hima-Chwezi Empire we know of in the recent modern era (16th century). The literature on oral traditions and language-culture analysis has indicated about a possible original Cushite migration from the east. Pre-History Much pre-history can be reconstructed from oral traditions. During the decades I lived in East Africa, there were many publications of oral histories, traditional wisdom and legends. The University of Nairobi sent out graduate students and scholars all over the region to gather this precious ancient cultural wisdom before it was lost in the traumatic change of culture Africa was experiencing in the face of modernization. Unfortunately, most of these publications went out of print. Others are hard to get outside of Africa. I bought, read, analyzed and compared these works, probing the history and culture of East Africa. I discussed these matters with my personal friends and cultural informants, formal and informal. I wanted to understand the history and culture of the peoples of East Africa. I was also engaged in training foreigners in the techniques of worldview investigation and understanding of ethnic history of the people among whom they would living and working.

I worked to present and design training for Christian agencies who had stringent requirements for cultural competency and language skill as a criterion for their work among the peoples of Africa. Bantu Chwezi For perspective, let's consider the social and related political situation of the Chwezi Empire at the time of the Lwoo (Bito) invasion. (Also, there are aspects of that incursion which seem to have been gradual and peaceful, as well as the more sudden, militant aspect that no doubt was necessary to dislodge the Chwezi dynasty and their supporting nobility.) The language of the affected peoples would have long been Bantu by the time the Babito came. The earlier elite groups that seem to have come centuries earlier from the Cushite east or the north, would have been culturally and linguistically integrated by this time. Linguistic studies indicate that every incoming wave adopted the speech of their Bantu-speaking subjects. But it appears that the ruling dynasty would maintaining their privileged noble social status, until overthrown by a new invader or usurper people. The Lwoo-speaking invaders are the last great wave, thus players in comparatively recent history, according to the oral histories I have had access to.

Bantu Origins For further perspective, here is the historical scenario we have in mind. The ancestors of what we now know as Bantu-speaking peoples are commonly referred to as Proto-Bantu. The Bantu peoples were still settling in this area in their own migration from only a few centuries before, some say as late as 300-500 BC. You see, this is 1600-2000 years before the Bito invasion. These proto-Bantu, speaking closely related forms of speech, were involved in continuing waves of movement. This seems to be the common pattern around the Great Lakes and the mountains of central and eastern Africa. So the mix of migrants developed in multiple historical and cultural layers. It was gradual and continual. The details are still hidden in pre-history. The specialists and technical analysts try to spin out the best possibilities and most likely picture from archaeology and oral traditions. The Bantu strata is the earliest I am aware of except for the San who were across this whole area , apparently, before the migration of the Bantu-speaking peoples. The two oldest languages (Hadza and Sandawe ) of the San group, now found mostly in southern Africa, are still spoken in northern Tanzania.

Cushite The primary evidence of Cushitic speech I have seen is found by analysts in the Bantu speech of the peoples around the lakes, which indicates an understructure or cultural stream. We can watch for further reports from ongoing analysis and new insights yielded by the specialists that can sharpen and modify our various views from those clues into history in the language. These dispersing groups fleeing the Babito attacks were retreating to other areas where similar Bantu language was already spoken. The Bantu language integration was centuries earlier, maybe 1000-1500 years earlier. Remnants of the Cushite language lives on in certain cultural terms. Technical discussions of this exist in various sources, online and in print. Two recent authors summarize the process of these various layers of settlement, up to the coming of the Babito and their cultural and linguistic absorption into the conquered Bantu-speaking peoples they came to rule. Starting with the "Southern" Nilotes, the earliest Nilotic wave in the southward migration, they explain: "The linguistic evidence indicates that these Southern Nilotes, pushing down the Rift, experienced close contacts with the previously settled Cushite, and considerable intermingling took place.

The Southern Nilotes were followed in their turn by their linguistic cousins the Eastern Nilotes, who also came south along the Rift corridor in the early centuries AD. ... "By this time the Bantu-speaking peoples had also begun to push into the eastern parts of Eastern Africa. A complex process of interaction between the various northern immigrants and the Bantu began. In the process, most of the Cushite speakers, as well as the hunting communities [San and perhaps others], were absorbed. ... "By the fourteenth century AD, the traditions claim that the [legendary god-kings] the Abatembuzi were supplanted by a new dynasty, the Abachwezi, pastoralists from the north, whose original linguistic affiliation is unknown and who are today represented by the Tutsi of Rwanda and Burundi."* You can see from this what I was saying about their being several layers of immigration and absorption. These authors conclude with the linguistic finale of all this when the Babito become established as the last major layer of incoming migrants of various ethnic origins. "The final major influx of migrants into East Africa was yet another group of Nilotic speakers from the north, the Lwoo.

Pushing into Uganda around 1450, the Lwoo Babito dynasty supplanted the Abachwezi. The coming of the Lwoo caused the disintegration of the sprawling Kitara state into a number of new yet still highly centralized kingdoms, such as Bunyoro and Buganda."* The Babito who settled in western Uganda took up the local Bantu language. Martin and O'Meara conclude: "Like the Abachwezi before them, the Babito kings quickly abandoned their Nilotic languages in favor of Bantu speech."* This, then, was a series of waves of immigration, all of which found their accommodation to the dominant established language in the area, some form of Bantu speech. The conqueror was conquered by the speech and generally by the culture of the conquered! Names When I originally addressed this topic, it was specifically in regard to the genocide in Rwanda. It was the specific current local situation that led to this discussion, so naturally Rwanda-Burundi was the region from which the discussion progressed outward in geography and backward in history. Thus the current terms "Hutu" and "Tutsi" were and are necessarily the operative terms.

I have discussed elsewhere how colonial attitudes and procedures created a new dynamic of division and animosity into the already complex social equation. But the colonialists did not make up these terms. They found them in the setting. These had arisen among the people. Oral traditions, archaeology, historical linguistics and other scientific endeavors have enabled specialists to probe the past and consider possibilities for understanding the people in their own terms. The Rwanda government has had a task force working on this since the reconstruction in recent years. A colleague of mine has been a member of that team, collecting all relevant manuscripts, old publications and transcriptions of oral traditions. There is a museum dedicated to this quest. Thus we work backward from our present time, drawing on more authoritative specialist sources to reconstruct the past of peoples who have no written history. Reconsolidation The original Chwezi Empire was already established in a broad area, it seems, before the comparatively late Babito invasion. The refugees from the brunt of the frontal assault fled to the less affected areas of the old Empire, and there arose in those areas less connected local hegemonies that developed into more powerful centralized kingdoms as they reconsolidated.

We depend on specialists, of course, with their more comprehensive and refined view, to clarify some of these details. I appreciate those who specialize in this topic and can give attention to the original sources, who can interpret and sift oral traditions that are so critical to draw out a more comprehensive understanding of the complex cultural history of the Lakes area. The abstract application of any simple rule about conquerors always imposing their language, however, is quite problematic, as we can see from the scenario above. The Bito Lwoo speakers merged with the conquered to become part of the Bantu language stream and became part of the ethnicities they conquered, leaving primarily the political structures as their heritage. Conquered Conquerors There are situations where conquerors imposed their language, but it less common. If you look over the breadth of history and peoples, it is common to see situations where conquerors have taken up the language of the people they conquered. In fact it tends to be the general rule. An excellent example is found in the largest people of Eastern Africa, the Kikuyu in Central Kenya. I lived for most of 25 or so years. I learned their language and studied their history and traditions.

The Kikuyu are a mélange making up a Bantu-speaking people. But their own oral traditions, language analysis and a reconstruction of their cultural history are consistent in pointing out that there were many other cultural sources that moved in from other areas, some more peaceful than others. But these incoming peoples, as well as what seems to be a previous Cushitic people already there, speak a Bantu speech very similar to other forms of speech in the region. Neighbouring peoples also have traditions of Cushitic or Nilotic peoples coming in. The language and cultural history of most peoples of the world is very complex like this. America A similar pattern occurred with the Maya in Central America, where incoming Aztec (Nahuatl) speakers moved in aggressively but took up the language of the locals, and finally became a clan of the Maya, helping them in defense against later Aztec clans coming against their territory from farther north. Elsewhere we find similar situations. Europe The Germanic tribes marauding into Europe from the northeast and coming down into the Roman Empire (areas now Turkey westward to Spain) all commonly accepted the local language. In the less-populous northern areas they tended to keep their Germanic dialects. The Franks are a great example.

They learned Latin, and became Roman in outward culture. Their culture and language became what we know as French, and their Latin Frankish language became the common language of Europe. Rome The Romans learned Greek and wrote their documents and literature in that language until late in the first century of the Christian era, when they began writing more formal works in Latin. Greek was the language of administration of the Roman Empire. English – A Double Transition The Normans (Northmen, a group of the Germanic Vikings) conquered an area of territory of the Franks, who the earlier Germanic people who had already given up their Germanic language for Latin. The Normans took up Frankish Latin (French) and gave up their German language. In 1066, a Norman Duke conquered Great Britain, ruled by the Saxons and Danes, and they used their own Frankish Latin (French) for administration. Their French language affected the language of the Saxons, which came to be known as English. The Saxon nobles had to learn French to interact with their new Norman lords, and many terms entered the speech of the common people too.

But finally the Normans became more English than French, partly because of the constant wars with the Franks for territories on the continent. Norman French died out in favor of English, changed and updated, sturdy, stubborn and strong with the incorporated Norman-French terms, usages and concepts. Thus the Normans, a great conquering people who ruled the English territories from 1066 until about 1765, gradually gave up their Norman French language in favor of English, after they had already replaced their Viking language with the French of the people they had conquered in Europe. Changing Languages These are only a few common examples of conquerors taking up the language and culture of the people they conquered. Numerous examples are on record from various continents. Sometimes the language of the conquerors prevails, sometimes the language of the conquered prevails. There are many factors that determine this. We just have to investigate each case and see what actually happened. No universal rule can determine that a conqueror cannot learn the language of the conquered. We investigate and find it has happened over and over again in the history of humanity. Understanding Everywhere you want to look, human culture is rich and complex.

The range of human history entails mixes and mélanges of various human populations moving from one area to another due to various causes, some natural some human. It is sad that histories and facts can be distorted and twisted for venial purposes, and false conclusions drawn either because of irresponsibility or malice. I am grieved by the simplistic distortions that occur because people draw conclusions or make accusations without really seeking all the facts. And the terminology used can be a problem. We get caught in a quandary, don’t we, trying to find ways to honestly look at the facts of the matter, while searching for ways to defuse the emotional prejudices to sort through all the dynamics. It is hard to decide at times what to say or how much to say without getting bogged down or confused with details. But I love to study and analyze, in the hope of facilitating an honest mutual understanding among humans of different cultures, clan and continents. ______________________________________ *Phyllis Martin, Patrick O'Meara, Africa Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1995), p 92.

#v=onepage&q=babito%20dynasty&f=false Related on this Site: South Africa is home to the _____________ groups, who are indigenous, or native, to the region. A. Hutu and Tutsi B. Kikuyu and Masai C. Zulu and Xhosa D. Ndebele and Baganda You have new items in your feed. Click to view. Question and answer South Africa is home to the _____________ groups, who are indigenous, or native, to the region. A. Hutu and Tutsi B. Kikuyu and Masai C. Zulu and Xhosa D. Ndebele and Baganda C. Zulu and Xhosa. Do you have another question? [smile] Get an answer South Africa is home to the _____________ groups, who are indigenous, or native, to the region. A. Hutu and Tutsi B. Kikuyu and Masai C. Zulu and Xhosa D. Ndebele and Baganda Original conversation User: South Africa is home to the _____________ groups, who are indigenous, or native, to the region.

A. Hutu and Tutsi B. Kikuyu and Masai C. Zulu and Xhosa D. Ndebele and Baganda Weegy: C. Zulu and Xhosa. Do you have another question? [smile] MissJoJoKnows |Points 113| User: Pressure from the Arabian Plate pressing against the Eurasian Plate created A. mountains in Iraq and Oman. B. fold traps in the African Plate. C. the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. D. a broad valley along the shores of the Red Se Weegy: Pressure from the Arabian Plate pressing against the Eurasian Plate created mountains in Iraq and Oman. jeifunk |Points 48045| User: Oil is financially important in Iran because A. oil purchases are the country’s greatest expense. B. oil sales are a major part of the country’s income. C. oil spills have meant expensive environmental clean-up. D. oil exploration requires a large part of the country’s budget. Weegy: The answer is B) oil sales are a major part of the country s income.

samn |Points 4603| User: The border between South Korea and North Korea is referred to as a(n) A. demilitarized zone. B. peaceful zone. C. war zone. D. economic zone. Weegy: The border between South Korea and North Korea is referred to as a(n) A. demilitarized zone. selymi |Points 19579| User: Which country invaded Afghanistan in the 1970s? A. The Soviet Union B. The United States C. Pakistan D. India Join our e-mail list Rwanda: A Brief History of the Country By 1994, Rwanda’s population stood at more than 7 million people comprising three ethnic groups: the Hutu (who made up roughly 85% of the population), the Tutsi (14%) and the Twa (1%). Prior to the colonial era, Tutsis generally occupied the higher strata in the social system and the Hutus the lower. However, social mobility was possible, a Hutu who acquired a large number of cattle or other wealth could be assimilated into the Tutsi group and impoverished Tutsi would be regarded as Hutu.

A clan system also functioned, with the Tutsi clan known as the Nyinginya being the most powerful. Throughout the 1800s, the Nyingiya expanded their influence by conquest and by offering protection in return for tribute. Ethnic Conflict Begins The former colonial power, Germany, lost possession of Rwanda during the First World War and the territory was then placed under Belgian administration. In the late 1950’s during the great wave of decolonization, tensions increased in Rwanda. The Hutu political movement, which stood to gain from majority rule, was gaining momentum while segments of the Tutsi establishment resisted democratization and the loss of their acquired privileges. In November 1959, a violent incident sparked a Hutu uprising in which hundreds of Tutsi were killed and thousands displaced and forced to flee to neighboring countries. This marked the start of the so- called ‘Hutu Peasant Revolution’ or ‘social revolution’ lasting from 1959 to 1961, which signified the end of Tutsi domination and the sharpening of ethnic tensions.

By 1962, when Rwanda gained independence, 120,000 people, primarily Tutsis, had taken refuge in neighboring states to escape the violence which had accompanied the gradual coming into power of the Hutu community. A new cycle of ethnic conflict and violence continued after independence. Tutsi refugees in Tanzania and Zaire seeking to regain their former positions in Rwanda began organizing and staging attacks on Hutu targets and the Hutu government. Ten such attacks occurred between 1962 and 1967, each leading to retaliatory killings of large numbers of Tutsi civilians in Rwanda and creating new waves of refugees. By the end of the 1980s some 480,000 Rwandans had become refugees, primarily in Burundi, Uganda, Zaire and Tanzania. They continued to call for the fulfillment of their international legal right to return to Rwanda, however, Juvenal Habyarimana, then president of Rwanda, took the position that population pressures were already too great, and economic opportunities too few to accommodate large numbers of Tutsi refugees.

The Civil War In 1988, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was founded in Kampala, Uganda as a political and military movement with the stated aims of securing repatriation of Rwandans in exile and reforming of the Rwandan government, including political power sharing. The RPF was composed mainly of Tutsi exiles in Uganda, many of whom had served in President Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army, which had overthrown the previous Ugandan government in 1986. While the ranks of the RPF did include some Hutus, the majority, particularly those in leadership positions, were Tutsi refugees. On 1 October 1990, the RPF launched a major attack on Rwanda from Uganda with a force of 7,000 fighters. Because of the RPF attacks which displaced thousands and a policy of deliberately targeted propaganda by the government, all Tutsis inside the country were labeled accomplices of the RPF and Hutu members of the opposition parties were labeled as traitors. Media, particularly radio, continued to spread unfounded rumours, which exacerbated ethnic problems.

In August 1993, through the peacemaking efforts of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the governments in the region, the signing of the Arusha peace agreements appeared to have brought an end to the conflict between the then Hutu dominated government and the opposition Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). In October 1993, the Security Council established the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) with a mandate encompassing peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and general support for the peace process. From the outset, however, the will to achieve and sustain peace was subverted by some of the Rwandan political parties participating in the Agreement. With the ensuing delays in its implementation, violations of human rights became more widespread and the security situation deteriorated. Later, evidence demonstrated irrefutably that extremist elements of the Hutu majority while talking peace were in fact planning a campaign to exterminate Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Genocide On 6 April 1994, the deaths of the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda in a plane crash caused by a rocket attack, ignited several weeks of intense and systematic massacres.

The killings - as many as 1 million people are estimated to have perished - shocked the international community and were clearly acts of genocide. An estimated 150,000 to 250,000 women were also raped. Members of the presidential guard started killing Tutsi civilians in a section of Kigali near the airport. Less than half an hour after the plane crash, roadblocks manned by Hutu militiamen often assisted by gendarmerie (paramilitary police) or military personnel were set up to identify Tutsis. On 7 April, Radio Television Libres Des Mille Collines (RTLM) aired a broadcast attributing the plane crash to the RPF and a contingent of UN soldiers, as well as incitements to eliminate the "Tutsi cockroach". Later that day the Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana and 10 Belgian peacekeepers assigned to protect her were brutally murdered by Rwandan government soldiers in an attack on her home. Other moderate Hutu leaders were similarly assassinated. After the massacre of its troops, Belgium withdrew the rest of its force.

On 21 April, after other countries asked to withdraw troops, the UNAMIR force reduced from an initial 2,165 to 270. If the absence of a resolute commitment to reconciliation by some of the Rwandan parties was one problem, the tragedy was compounded by the faltering response of the international community. The capacity of the United Nations to reduce human suffering in Rwanda was severely constrained by the unwillingness of Member States to respond to the changed circumstances in Rwanda by strengthening UNAMIR’s mandate and contributing additional troops. On June 22, the Security Council authorized French-led forces to mount a humanitarian mission. The mission, called Operation Turquoise, saved hundreds of civilians in South West Rwanda, but is also said to have allowed soldiers, officials and militiamen involved in the genocide to flee Rwanda through the areas under their control. In other areas, killings continued until 4 July 1994 when the RPF took military control of the entire territory of Rwanda.

The Aftermath of the Genocide Government officials, soldiers and militia who had participated in the genocide fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), then known as Zaire, taking with them 1.4 million civilians, most of them Hutu who had been told that the RPF would kill them. Thousands died of water-borne diseases. The camps were also used by former Rwandan government soldiers to re-arm and stage invasions into Rwanda. The attacks were one of the factors leading to the war between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo that took place in 1996. Former Rwandan forces continue to operate in the DRC alongside Congolese militia and other armed groups. They continue to target civilian populations and cause deaths, injury and harm. The Rwandan government began the long-awaited genocide trials at the end of 1996. The delay was due to the fact that the country had lost most of its judicial personnel, not to mention the destruction to courts, jails and other infrastructure. By 2000, there were over 100,000 genocide suspects awaiting trial.

In 2001, the government began implementing a participatory justice system, known as Gacaca, (pronounced GA-CHA-CHA) in order to address the enormous backlog of cases. Communities elected judges to hear the trials of genocide suspects accused of all crimes except planning of genocide or rape. The defendants in Gacaca courts have been released provisionally awaiting trial. The releases have caused a lot of unhappiness among survivors who see it as a form of amnesty. Rwanda continues to use the national court system to try those involved in planning genocide or rape under normal penal law. These courts do not offer provisional release for genocide defendants. The Gacaca courts give lower sentences if the person is repentant and seeks reconciliation with the community. These courts are intended to help the community participate in the process of justice and reconciliation for the country. At the international level, the Security Council on 8 November 1994 set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, currently based in Arusha, Tanzania. Investigations began in May 1995. The first suspects were brought to the court in May 1996 and the first case began in January 1997.

The UN Tribunal has jurisdiction over all violations of international human rights that happened in Rwanda between January and December 1994. It has the capacity to prosecute high-level members of the government and armed forces that may have fled the country and would otherwise have gone unpunished. The court has since convicted the Prime Minister during the genocide Jean Kambanda, to life in prison. It was also the first international court to convict a suspect for rape as a crime against humanity and a crime of genocide. The court also tried three media owners accused of using their respective media to incite ethnic hatred and genocide. By April 2007, it had handed down twenty-seven judgments involving thirty-three accused. Sexual Violence and Genocide Against Tutsi Women Sexual Violence and Genocide Against Tutsi Women Llezlie L. Green excerpted From: Propaganda and Sexual Violence in the Rwandan Genocide: an Argument for Intersectionality in International Law, 33 Columbia Human Rights Law Review 733-776, 733-755 (Summer 2002) (218 Footnotes) A.

Origins of the Genocide To much of the general public in the international community, genocide in Rwanda appeared suddenly, with a rapid and horrific surge in violence against the Tutsi minority in 1994. Genocide, however, is not a sudden event; it is the result of complex factors fueled by history, psychology, and sociology, culminating in a quest for power. In order to understand the sexual violence perpetrated throughout the 1994 genocide and the gender hate propaganda that incited it, I will provide a brief background to the events of 1994. When European colonizers reached Rwanda, they encoun-tered a land inhabited by three groups: the Tutsi, the Hutu, and the Twa. These three groups were not distinguishable tribes with different cultures and customs. Instead, they had "developed a single and highly sophisticated language, Kinyarwanda, crafted a common set of religious and philosophical beliefs, and created a culture which valued song, dance, poetry, and rhetoric." Occupation and physical characteristics, however, differentiated the three groups. The Hutu, comprising the vast majority of the population, were peasants with standard Bantu physical characteristics, resembling the Ugandan or Tanganyikan populations.

The Twa, comprising only approximately one percent of the population, were pygmoids and either hunter-gatherers or servants. The Tutsi, cattle-herders with particular phenotypes distinct from the Hutu and Twa, constituted the remainder of the population. The Tutsi were extremely tall and thin with angular facial features. The Europeans used these phenotypic differences between the three groups to produce a theory of ethnic superiority: the Twa were at the bottom, followed by the Hutu, with the Tutsi at the top of what constituted an ethnic hierarchy. The functional differentiation between the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa was, in large part, a creation of colonialism. After gaining Rwanda from the Germans following World War I, the Belgian authorities systematized indirect rule over Rwanda through Tutsis who had been educated at a missionary-run school.

This method of governance, combined with the Tutsi elite's recognition that supporting the ethnic hierarchy created by the colonialists would benefit them, led to a "substantialization of Tutsi superiority" and its "institutionalization in the colonial state apparatus." Shortly before Rwandan independence, however, the Belgian colonial administra-tion became fearful of the ascendance of the educated Tutsi elite and replaced Tutsi chiefs and sub-chiefs with Hutus. Violent conflicts, largely along ethnic lines, resulted, compelling the United Nations (U.N.) to intervene and oversee elections in 1961. Unfortunately, the ethnic divisions instigated by Rwanda's colonizers had taken root. By 1994, power struggles and violent conflict between the Tutsi and Hutu had characterized much of Rwandan politics since the country gained its independence in 1962. A Hutu, President Juvenal Habyarimana, and his Hutu-led party, the National Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND), had been in power since 1973.

Pressures, however, from growing internal opposition and international donors, both pushing for a more moderate government, as well threats of invasion by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Uganda-based group comprised largely of Tutsi refugees, threatened Habyarimana's monopoly on power. Events came to a head on April 6, 1994, when a plane carrying President Habyarimana was shot down in Kigali, Rwanda. Hutu extremists seized this opportunity to capitalize on the intense ethnic tensions and conflict they had fueled through various means, including an anti-Tutsi propaganda campaign. The following day, Rwandan Armed Forces and the Interahamwe --militia groups--set up roadblocks and began a house-to-house search to find and murder Tutsi. Between 500,000 and one million Rwandan men, women, and children were slaughtered in the genocidal persecution of Tutsi and in massacres of moderate Hutus between April and July 1994. B. Propaganda The Rwandan genocide was not a chance incident. Nor did it arise solely in response to President Habyarimana's death.

The genocide was the culmination of sweeping efforts that had been meticulously planned over a period of years. The participation of the broader population was a critical aspect of the Rwandan genocide; co-workers killed co-workers, neighbors killed neighbors, friends killed friends, husbands killed wives. In fact, a Rwandan theologian has argued that the genocide would have been inconceivable before the 1990s and that it took four years of preparation to make mass violence possible. To this end, the media participated in a "structured attempt to use media to influence awareness, attitudes, or behavior." The intensive propaganda campaign fueled and funded by Hutu extremists was perhaps the most effective element of this plan. Hutu extremists successfully spread hate speech that would prove remarkably essential and effective before, during, and after the genocide. 1. Generally--Print & Radio The print media was an effective tool for disseminating information to the populace in Rwanda. For example, Rwandan newspapers were published in the capital, but urban workers carried the better known ones back to the hills when traveling home for the weekends. Sixty-six percent of the Rwandan population was literate, and those who could read, read to others who could not.

Hutu supporters exerted substantial influence over the print media. Approximately eleven of the forty-two new journals founded in 1991 were linked to the akazu, a "special circle within the larger network of personal connections that worked to support Habyarimana." A newspaper called Kangura was one of the most powerful voices of hate. Kangura described itself as "the voice that seeks to awake and guide the majority people." While the paper had a modest circulation, its distribution included local burgomasters, and it received active support from powerful military and government patrons. In fact, government credit defrayed Kangura's costs, and Rwanda's mayors received free copies to distribute. Furthermore, Kangura played a role in the dissemination of anti-Tutsi sentiments at a time when "government officials still felt publicly constrained by international pressure from speaking openly of ethnicity." Kangura published a flurry of articles and cartoons vehemently disparaging Tutsis and advocating Hutu supremacy. For example, in March 1993, Kangura published an article criticizing the Tutsi entitled, A Cockroach Cannot Give Birth to a Butterfly.

In December of the same year, a photograph of Grï¿½goire Kayibanda, leader of the Hutu Revolution and the first president of Rwanda, appeared on the cover of Kangura with a machete, a cynical comment describing the Hutu as the race of God, and a reference to defeating the Tutsis once and for all. The Ten Commandments of the Hutu, published in 1990, was perhaps the most famous and influential article to appear in Kangura. The Commandments espoused a "doctrine of militant Hutu purity," declaring the Tutsi an enemy of the Hutu people. Radio, however, was the most important and influential medium through which the Rwandan population received information. Approximately 29% of households had radios. In urban areas, the number rose to 58.7%. These figures, however, were likely higher by the start of the genocide since "in some areas, the government distributed radios free to local authorities before the genocide and they may have done so after the killing began as well." People without radios listened to them at bars or obtained information from their neighbors. In 1991, Rwanda had only one radio station, Radio Rwanda.

Radio Rwanda was the voice of the government (the MRND) and of President Habyarimana himself. It announced, for example, various political meetings, removals from public office, and examination results for admission to secondary schools. Radio Rwanda sometimes broadcast false information, particularly on the progress of the civil war that preceded the genocide, but most people did not have access to independent sources of information with which to verify its claims. Radio Rwanda underwent significant changes, however, in 1992. After the establishment of a coalition government in April, the coalition parties called for a new, more moderate direction for Radio Rwanda. Ferdinand Nahimana, a staunch MRND supporter, was removed from his position as supervisor of Radio Rwanda. Several months later, Jean-Marie Vianney Higuro, a member of an opposing party, was named director with a view to steering the station toward taking a more non-partisan stance. In response, Hutu extremists created their own station. Radio Tï¿½lï¿½vision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), incorporated in April 1993, began broadcasting in August of the same year. MRND supporters comprised an overwhelming majority of RTLM's founders.

The purpose of RTLM was "to prepare the people of Rwanda for genocide." Indeed, the RTLM argued that the war against Tutsi domination would not only require the participation of the armed forces, but also that of the entire Rwandan population. Furthermore, RTLM's founders designed it to appeal to particularly vulnerable populations: delinquents, the unemployed, and gangs of thugs within the militia. RTLM broadcast on the same frequencies as Radio Rwanda between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m., when Radio Rwanda was not transmitting. This situation "encouraged listeners to see the two as linked, if not as identical." Through radio transmission, the Hutu extremists taught listeners that the Hutu and Tutsi were two different people and that the Tutsi were foreign conquerors who had refused to accept their loss of power in the 1959 revolution. The RTLM broadcasts warned the Tutsi: "You cockroaches must know you are made of flesh! We won't let you kill!

We will kill you!" The same themes appeared in the propaganda both before and during the genocide, suggesting a "deliberate coordination among propagandists and between them and government officials." Radio transmissions were a critical component of the genocide. In fact, "[d]uring the genocide, when communications and travel became difficult, the radio became for most people the sole source of news as well as the sole authority for interpreting its meaning." After the RTLM identified and criticized an individual, the Interahamwe would immediately seek him out and kill him. Therefore, the RTLM exercised extensive and pervasive influence over the militia. In addition, the RTLM recognized that the participation--both direct and indirect--of the entire Rwandan population was necessary to the success of the genocide. For example, during a broadcast after the genocide had begun, an announcer stated: "Stand up, take action . . . without worrying about interna-tional opinion." Additionally, the RTLM employed various narrative tech-niques to convince the Hutu population that the Tutsi posed a significant threat to Hutu lives and livelihoods.

The messages conveyed the idea that the Hutu must "kill or be killed" and emphasized that the deaths the Hutu would face at the hands of the Tutsi would be particularly gruesome. 2. Gender Propaganda It is critical to understand the importance of gender and hate propaganda in the genocidal campaign. Gender issues comprised significant elements of the "social construction of boundaries between ethnic groups and . . . notions of racial purity." As such, a consideration of gender sheds light on the genocide's complex psychological components, thus clarifying the mass violence and destruction that characterized the tragic events of 1994. A brief description of inter-ethnic relationships in Rwanda places in context the preoccupation with gender evident throughout the genocide. Although not the norm, conjugal unions between the Tutsis and Hutus were not uncommon in the decades preceding the genocide. Marriages between Tutsi women and Hutu men, however, were much more common than marriages between Tutsi men and Hutu women. Since ethnicity was determined along patrilineal lines, the offspring of Tutsi women and Hutu men were legally Hutu.

As such, these marriages "conferred the full benefits of Hutu citizenship to progeny who were perceived by many as racially impure." As the Hutu extremists methodically differentiated between Hutu and Tutsi, they advanced a purer, reified version of Hutu culture. To this end, they discouraged procreation between Hutu men and Tutsi women. Tutsi women became the "pivotal enemies" in the Hutu extremists' struggle because "they were socially positioned at the permeable boundary between the two ethnic groups." Thus, Tutsi women's ethnicity and gender made them particularly vulnerable to attack. Gender hate propaganda was perhaps the most virulent component of the propaganda campaign. Propagandists portrayed Tutsi women as enemies of the state, used by Tutsi men to "infiltrate Hutu ranks." Propagandists claimed Tutsi women were more beautiful and desirable, but "inaccessible to Hutu men whom they allegedly looked down upon and were 'too good for."' This characterization led to what one Tutsi woman explained as an indescribable hate.

As such, "[r]ape served to shatter these images by humiliating, degrading, and ultimately destroying the Tutsi woman." Propagandists presented Tutsi women as sexual objects. Extremist literature contained cartoons that portrayed Tutsi women in sexual positions with various politicians. The literature also depicted Tutsi women as prostitutes who used their sexual charms to seduce the Western forces stationed in Rwanda. For example, a cartoon appeared in print, depicting Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda before and during the genocide, in an embrace with scantily clad Tutsi women. The cartoon read: "General Dallaire and his army have fallen into the trap of fatal women." In fact, the campaign against Tutsi women well preceded the actual genocide. In 1990, four years before the start of the genocide, Tutsi women were frequently the centerpiece of propagandist efforts to heighten ethnic tensions and engender hatred. The Ten Command-ments of the Hutu appeared in a December issue of Kangura.

Four of these "commandments" dealt specifically with women: Every Hutu should know that a Tutsi woman, wherever she is, works for the interest of her Tutsi ethnic group. As a result, we shall consider a traitor any Hutu who: marries a Tutsi woman; befriends a Tutsi woman; employs a Tutsi woman as a secretary or a concubine. Every Hutu should know that our Hutu daughters are more suitable and conscientious in their role as woman, wife, and mother of the family. Are they not beautiful, good secretaries and more honest? Hutu woman, be vigilant and try to bring your husbands, brothers and sons back to reason. The Rwandese Armed Forces should be exclusively Hutu. The experience of the October [1990] war has taught us a lesson. No member of the military shall marry a Tutsi. These commandments clearly demonstrate a fixation with demonizing Tutsi women. Tutsi women were described as enemy infiltrators, Hutu women were exalted above Tutsi women, and inter-marrying between Hutu men and Tutsi women was fiercely discouraged.

In addition, a later issue of Kangura criticized Tutsi women for monopolizing employment in the public and private sectors, thus contributing to the unemployment of the Hutu. These images and characterizations clearly affected the psyche of the participants in the genocide. Rape survivors have recounted statements of their violators such as: We want to see how sweet Tutsi women are. You Tutsi women think that you are too good for us. We want to see if a Tutsi woman is like a Hutu woman. If there were peace you would never accept me. These statements reveal that propagandists' efforts success-fully demonized Tutsi women, thus increasing their vulnerability to sexual violence throughout the genocide. The link between the gender-based hate propaganda and sexual violence is clear. Propagandists used sexualized images of Tutsi women to instigate ethnic hate and conflict. These images incited hatred of these women and of their sexuality. Thus, both ethnic and gender stereotypes, functioning individually and jointly, fueled the sexual violence committed against Tutsi women. C. Sexual Violence "Rape is a crime worse than others.

There's no death worse than that." The figure of five hundred thousand to one million deaths mentioned above does not include the thousands of women whose lives were spared, but who were left to experience a living death. Sexual violence, primarily committed against Tutsi women, was rampant throughout the genocide. In 1996, Renï¿½ Degni-Sï¿½gui, Special Rapporteur of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, reported that women "may even be regarded as the main victims of the massacres, with good reason, since they were raped and massacred and subjected to other brutalities." The total number of women affected remains unclear. The official figure reported for rape cases provided by the Ministry for the Family and the Promotion of Women--15,700--was most likely a gross underestimate. An approximation based on the number of resulting pregnancies, however, yields a number ranging from 250,000 to 500,000 rapes. 1. Types of Sexual Violence While many women were massacred along with the men throughout the genocide, the perpetrators often spared women from death, instead sentencing them to rape and humiliation.

The violation of Tutsi women was not a casualty of war, but "a step in the process of deconstruction of the Tutsi group-- destruction of the spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself." The sexual violence took many forms. The Interahamwe militia and the military raped Tutsi women and girls, forced them into collective and individual sexual slavery, and mutilated them. Even very young children did not escape the terror; the victims ranged from two years old to over fifty years old. Furthermore, pregnant women or women who had recently given birth were not spared; their rapes frequently resulted in death from hemorrhaging and other medical complications. Moreover, the perpetrators forced some women "to kill their own children before or after being raped." The militia worked in groups, taking Tutsi women from their homes or out of hiding and gang-raping them, often multiple times. Many of the women who survived an individual or gang rape were picked up by another group of Interahamwe and raped again. Furthermore, the military and civilian authorities--including regular soldiers, members of the national police force, members of the elite Presidential Guard, burgomasters, and heads of sectors--condoned and encouraged the sexual violence.

The militia commonly employed sexual mutilation and public humiliation to heighten the suffering of their victims. Some women and girls "were stripped and/or slashed and exposed to public mockery" while others "had pieces of trees branches pushed into their vagina." Moreover, the perpetrators tortured their victims by mutilating their genitals and cutting off their breasts and buttocks. The military also collectively detained the women so that they could provide sexual services. These women experienced rape and gang rape. Some women were held for the duration of the genocide. Others were forced to move to neighboring countries with the militia once the genocide ended. In addition, the militia members held individual women for personal sexual service. They locked these women in their homes or in the homes of militia members for varying durations. While some termed the arrangement "forced marriage" and called the women "wives," in reality, the militia held these women captive in sexual slavery. Thus, the gendered anti-Tutsi images and rhetoric that pervaded Rwandan society through gender-based hate propaganda were translated into the systemic violation of Rwandan women during the genocide. The "indescribable hate" instigated through gender hate propaganda played out in a horrific pattern of sexual violence, the effects of which continue to be felt by its survivors. 2.

Effects of Sexual Violence The psychological, social, and physical aspects of such appalling sexual violations have unalterably affected the survivors. In a society that has traditionally regarded women as dependents of their male relatives and first and foremost as wives and mothers, sexual violence has particularly devastating effects. For example, traditional Rwandan society values women for the number of children they can produce. Thus, physical mutilation and violence produces a dual harm: a physical harm based on the injury itself, and an emotional and social harm for the woman who can no longer reproduce and thus fulfill her role as a mother. In fact, U.N. Special Rapporteur Degni-Sï¿½gui found that "psychological problems have been what the victims . . . have most commonly shared." There are varied sources of the shame associated with sexual violence. For example, African tradition prohibits the sexual acts committed and considers them taboo. The stigmatization associated with these acts has compounded their detrimental effects on the victims. Indeed, victims of sexual violence have demonstrated a variety of responses ranging from over- sensitivity and shame to "a form of madness." The sexual violence also has resulted in social exclusion.

As one survivor explained, "after rape, you don't have value in the community." Girls fearing that they are no longer able to find husbands have fled their homes to live in seclusion and anonymity. Thus, although these women's lives were theoretically spared, their traumatic experiences have robbed them of their community and identity. Forced impregnation has had deep psychological effects on Tutsi women. Suffered exclusively by women, forced pregnancy involves a violation of, among other things, reproductive freedom and sexual autonomy, and has lasting effects given that the women may then have to raise the offspring. Tutsi women who became pregnant have suffered intense shame and ostracization in a society that is particularly unwilling to accept unwed mothers. Moreover, mistreatment by society, including by their own families, has led many unmarried mothers to resort to abortion or infanticide. The passage of time is unlikely to cure the psychological harm done to the victims of forced impregnation. Women also suffered the various physical effects associated with sexual violence. Indeed, "[t]he physical injuries and their consequences range[d] from mere abrasions to instant death, and include infection with sexually transmissible diseases," including HIV.

Rwanda has one of the highest rates of HIV-positive persons, and "militiamen carrying the virus used it as a 'weapon,' . . . intending to cause delayed death." Furthermore, the effect on Tutsi women's reproductive capacity may be expressed in both physical and psychological terms. For example, one survivor expressed: "After the war, I found out that I was pregnant. But I had an abortion . . . no, not really an abortion. The baby just came out dead." Thus, this survivor had to endure not only a physical risk, but also the psychological damage resulting from a stillbirth. Ultimately, sexual violence had harsh and lasting conse-quences for Tutsi women. The harm experienced by Tutsi women has been particularly severe in light of the physical, psychological, and social impact that it continues to have on their daily lives. With a population that is estimated to be seventy percent female, the magnitude of the detrimental effects on Rwandan society as a whole cannot be underestimated. Tutsi women were violated on multiple levels: as Tutsis, as women, and as Tutsi women.

An analysis of their experiences and the attendant legal implications requires an under- standing of the ways in which their multiple identities situated them within the conflict.

Question: Kikuyu and Tutsi are two types of what?
Answer: African tribes