On April 6th, a meeting was held in the Rafto House in commemoration of the genocide in Rwanda. Astrid Arne, anthropologist and former aid worker in Burundi, and Laurent Sinamenye, a Rwandan student living in Norway, gave lectures.
Astrid Arne talked about the background of the conflict:
The peoples of Rwanda and Burundi are divided into three groups: Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. It is doubtful whether these groups are real ethnic groups or rather social classes. The Hutu-people and the Tutsi-people share the same language, culture and religion, and within the different clans you may find representatives of all three groups. It was the Belgian colonial power that started the classification of the Rwandans, dividing them into different groups. First, the Belgians attempted to categorize people on the basis of physical appearance, but eventually they divided the people into groups on the basis of the inhabitants sociological level. The wealthy was classified as Tutsis and given preferential status, and hence, the Hutus was given an inferior status. This is an important aspect of the background of the conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis.
Laurent Sinamenye compared the conflict in Rwanda with other African conflicts, notably in Sudan and Congo. The conflict in Congo is connected to the conflict in Rwanda, as the many Rwandan refugees in Congo assembled weapon and ammunition in order to regain power in their home country. In Uganda the refugees agreed to help the present president to gain power, and in exchange, he would help them to return to their country.
