[kj] OT... World Destruction

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

The Belgians played both sides, initially promoting a Tutsi king (Kigeli 
V) who imposed austere measures on the Hutus, but then backed a Hutu 
coup against him before setting the country loose in 1962. The Hutus 
exacted equally austere measures back upon the Tutsis, out of revenge 
(limiting Tutsi income and employment, etc.), and in 1990 both Belgian 
and French military forces were on the ground protecting the despotic 
Hutu regime that had outlawed Tutsi political parties, during a Tutsi 
revolt. This was not moral support from afar; this was on-the-grund 
Belgian and French armed military forces protecting the pretty unsavory 
Hutu despot.

So, the French and Belgians helped suppress the Tutsi uprising of 
1990-91. A ceasefire was brokered in Belgium in 1991. That went down the 
shitter in '94 when the Hutu president was assassinated in '94. The 
Hutus said the Tutsis did it, but that was never proven. Tutsis said 
radical Hutus wanting to provoke a civil war did it (not an 
impossibility, either). That's when the genocide began.

I am not sure why the Belgians initially instituted a harsh Tutsi 
monarchy to rule over the Hutus and then switched sides a decade later 
and backed a coup against the same Tutsi leadership, putting a Hutu govt 
in power, and then decolonizing. But countries have been known to do odd 
things. In the 1980s the US supported Saddam and gave him billions in 
loan guarantees while he was suppressing Kurds. Then the next decade the 
US encouraged a Shi'a uprising against him, and the Kurds are touted as 
the US's best friends.

It happens.

-Oliver



Daniel Corvo wrote:

> The French were in Rwanda in the 90's but the Hutus v Tutsis problems 

> date back to the Belgian collonial era when Belgians promoted the 

> Tutsi minority over the Hutus. Tutsis imposed forced labor and taxes 

> on the Hutus etc..