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Country Information:
https://www.cia.gov/
Background:
In 1959, three years before
independence from Belgium, the majority ethnic
group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi
king. Over the next several years, thousands of
Tutsis were killed, and some 150,000 driven into
exile in neighboring countries. The children of
these exiles later formed a rebel group, the
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and began a civil
war in 1990. The war, along with several
political and economic upheavals, exacerbated
ethnic tensions, culminating in April 1994 in
the genocide of roughly 800,000 Tutsis and
moderate Hutus. The Tutsi rebels defeated the
Hutu regime and ended the killing in July 1994,
but approximately 2 million Hutu refugees - many
fearing Tutsi retribution - fled to neighboring
Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and the former Zaire.
Since then, most of the refugees have returned
to Rwanda, but several thousand remain in
neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo and
formed an extremist insurgency bent on retaking
Rwanda, much as the RPF tried in 1990. Despite
substantial international assistance and
political reforms - including Rwanda's first
local elections in March 1999 and its first
post-genocide presidential and legislative
elections in August and September 2003 - the
country continues to struggle to boost
investment and agricultural output, and ethnic
reconciliation is complicated by the real and
perceived Tutsi political dominance. Kigali's
increasing centralization and intolerance of
dissent, the nagging Hutu extremist insurgency
across the border, and Rwandan involvement in
two wars in recent years in the neighboring
Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to
hinder Rwanda's efforts to escape its bloody
legacy.
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