Rwanda - The Scoop

In 1959, a faction intent on maintaining Tutsi privilege in Rwanda assassinated several Hutu leaders. Hutu rage slaughtered 100,000 Rwandan Watutsi, and the carnage was on-a 22-year genocide that, in 1994 alone, would wipe out half a million Watutsi and moderate Hutus in Rwanda. Today, Rwanda is a state paralyzed with fear. Illiteracy in Rwanda stands at over 50 per cent. Because of the slaughter, half the population is under 15 years old. Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu and Uganda leader Museveni have a firm grip on a Tutsi power bloc. But a new Hutu insurgency has arisen in northwest Rwanda. Some 6,000 Hutu extremists are hiding in the dense jungle, waiting for their comrades-participants in the 1994 genocide-who joined innocent refugees in their flight to Zaire (now Congo, or the DRC) and fought the new Rwanda government from their refugee camp bases in eastern Congo. Now they're returning to Rwanda-sneaking in from Congo over the Virunga chain of extinct volcanoes and, ironically, aboard UN aircraft. Many of these interahamwe guerrillas were recruited and trained in eastern Congo and blended in with the refugees that were forcibly repatriated in late 1996. They know the terrain and the locals. The government apparently doesn't.

You may want to postpone that endangered gorilla sightseeing tour. Hutu rebels are making good on their threats to off foreigners, particularly Americans. Hutu rebels operating out of the northeastern DRC targeted and whacked American monkey tourists in March 1999, prompting the U.S. State Department to warn against all travel to Rwanda. Hutu guerrillas are not an endangered species in Rwanda. About 130,000 Hutus are now imprisoned in Rwandan jails awaiting their day in court on genocide charges. About 1,000 have actually been brought before a judge.