Re [lbo-talk] Rwandan massacres not racist?

[Joseph Wanzala]

The main historical distinction between Hutu's and Tutsi's were that the 
Tutsis were pastoralists whereas the Hutu were cultivators, there are also 
physiologogal diferences - but they speak the same language - Kinyarwanda. 
Out of several Tutsi chiefdoms , a leading Tutusi clan gradually created a 
small compact state in the 17th century centered around a divine kingship - 
the 'Mwami' and a feudal system of complete domination over the Hutu 
developed reminscent of aristocratic societies of antiquity and of European 
feudalism. The Tutsi aristocracy regarded manual labor other than herding 
cattle as below their dignity and many 'racist' stereoypes about Hutu's and 
Tutsi parallel those about say the English and Irish, or Northern Europeans 
and Slavic people. Tutsi society was one of the most hierarchical and feudal 
social systems that developed in sub-Saharan Africa. In fact,the Tutis 
society could be considered an African Herrenvolk society. Under Belgian 
colonial rule this heirarchy was maintaned (as with the British vis the 
Baganda Kingdom in neighboring Uganda - from where I hail) for the most part 
- but as part of the shift towards independence there was a sort of Hutu 
civil rights movement which found its most brutal expression in the Hutu 
revolts in the 1960s (during which many Tutsis, including current President 
Paul Kagame fled to Uganda). This account of an African conquest society 
illustrates that racism has no color, it is simply a function of patterns of 
domination arising from conquest or different modes of production.

Fast forward to 1994 and Rwanda was reaping the cruel harvest of World Bank 
structural adjustment strictures, and Tutsis, in Uganda, led by the then 
former Commander of the Ugandan Armed Forces Paul Kagame and with logistical 
support from American special forces troops were launching violent 
incursions into Rwanda providing grist to the Hutu dominated government's 
'scapegoating of the Tutsis' mill. (So the notion that the US 'stood by and 
did nothing' is a myth) In other words the tension caused by the acute 
economic crisis in Rwanda was being channelled into old hatreds towards the 
minorty ethnic group - the Tutsis - who had a history of racist subjugation 
of the Hutus. This scapegoating was legitimated by Tutsi revanchism from 
Uganda that was itself a subtext for a geo-political battle between France 
and the United States for control of the region - specialy Zaire - AKA, the 
Democratic Republic of the Congo and its vast mineral wealth. The mass 
killings in Rwanda by Hutu extremists against Hutu moderates and Tutsi was 
also part of this larger geopolitical conflagration. The Rwandan Patriotic 
Front, led by Fort-Leavenworth, Kansas trained Paul Kagame, with the 
assistance of the US against the French backed Hutu militias, after gaining 
control of Rwanda, then pursued their and the American's ultimate goal - the 
removal of erstwhile US ally Mobutu Sese Seko from power in Zaire and the 
installation of the corrupt ne'er-do-well Laurent Kabila under the control 
of Rwandan Tutsis. Kabila failed to go along with the plan and declared war 
against the Tutsi outsiders resulting in an African 'world war' duting which 
upwads of 4 million people perished - and the war continues 
apace................

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