Abstract

Blood Money and Geopolitics

The April 6 plane crash that killed the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi is only the latest violent act for these neighboring Central African countries. As many as 100,000 people have died and more than a million have fled ethnic and politically based attacks in recent years. The government forces are made up primarily of Hutu, the guerrillas, of Tutsi. Theft conflict dates back to the seventeenth century, when the Kingdom of Rwanda was established as a highly organized and stratified state. The Tutsi monarchy dominated Rwanda until it was over-thrown by the Hutu in 1961, a year before the country's independence from Belgium, which over the years had allied itself with the Tutsi but had shifted sides in the late 1950s. INSET: Bearing witness..