TUTSI AND HUTU

 The Tutsi are a Bantu-speaking ethnic minority from the Africa Great Lakes (Horn of Africa/Rift Valley). At the time of the Rwandan genocide, they were the minority ruling class.

When Belgian colonists (colonialists) conducted censuses in the 1920s, they defined Tutsi as anyone who owned more than 10 cows(a sign of wealth) or the physical features of a longer thin nose, high cheekbones, and over six feet tall.

The Hutu are a Bantu-speaking ethnic minority

Rwanda was ruled by Germany from 1897 to 1916, and by Belgium from 1922 to 1961.

The Hutu majority in Rwanda revolted against the Tutsi in 1962, taking power and killing up to 200, 000 Hutu. Rwanda and Burundi declared independence that same year. While many Tutsi fled, exile communities gave rise to rebel movements (Rwanda Patriotic Front was primarily in Uganda).

In 1990, with Ugandan support, and experience from the Ugandan Bush War, the RPF attacked Rwanda with the intention of taking back power, sparking a three year civil war that ended with the Arusha Accords on August 3, 1993. Intended as a negotiation to share powers between the rebels and the government, it favoured the RPF.

In 1993, Burundi’s first democratically elected president Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi officers, sparking a genocide in which Tutsi and Hutu losses were each as many as 25,000.

In 1994, the Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, a Hutu, was shot down in an airplane flying to Kigali, while the UN Security Council presence was initially 2,548 soldiers. This was a catalyst for the Rwandan civil war/ genocide, which spanned 100 days and led to over 1 million deaths, at least half of which were Tutsi. The genocide was markedly violent, with neighbours often murdered and murdering each other, and sexual violence with up to 500,000 million women raped. The war ended in the RPF defeating the government, and many Hutus involved in the massacre of Tutsi fled to Zaire (now DRC or Democratic Republic of Congo), contributing to regional instability and triggering the First Congo War in 1996.

Since the 2000 Arusha Peace Process, Burundi has a more equitable share of power betweeen the Tutsi minority and Hutu majority.

DACHA

 A dacha is a Russian country second home that’s often used in the summer. They can range in size from a small shed to a grand villa. The word means gift, originally referring to land allotted by the tsar to his nobles. In the Soviet Union, land for gardening or growing vegetables were similarly given to good workers as a reward.