Territory of Ruanda-Urundi Territoire du Ruanda-Urundi (French) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1916–1962 | |||||||||||
 Ruanda-Urundi (dark green) depicted within the Belgian colonial empire (light green),c. 1935 | |||||||||||
| Status | Mandate of Belgium | ||||||||||
| Capital | Usumbura | ||||||||||
| Common languages | French (official) also:Dutch. Majority:Kinyarwanda,Kirundi andSwahili | ||||||||||
| Religion | Catholicism (de facto) also:Protestantism,Islam and others | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
| 6 May 1916 | |||||||||||
• Mandate created | 20 July 1922 | ||||||||||
• Administrative merger withBelgian Congo | 1 March 1926 | ||||||||||
• Mandate becomesTrust Territory | 13 December 1946 | ||||||||||
• Rwanda gains autonomy | 18 October 1960 | ||||||||||
• Burundi gains autonomy | 21 December 1961 | ||||||||||
• Independence | 1 July 1962 | ||||||||||
| Currency | Belgian Congo franc(1916–60) Ruanda-Urundi franc(1960–62) | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | Burundi Rwanda | ||||||||||
Ruanda-Urundi (French pronunciation:[ʁwɑ̃dauʁundi]),[a] laterRwanda-Burundi, was amandate and latertrust territory ruled byBelgium between 1916 and 1962.
Once part ofGerman East Africa, the region was occupied by troops from theBelgian Congo during theEast African campaign inWorld War I. It was administered by Belgium undermilitary occupation from 1916 to 1922. It was subsequently awarded to Belgium as aClass-B Mandate under theLeague of Nations in 1922 and became aTrust Territory of theUnited Nations in the aftermath ofWorld War II and the dissolution of the League. In 1962, Ruanda-Urundi became the two independent states ofRwanda andBurundi.
Ruanda andUrundi were two separate kingdoms in theGreat Lakes region before theScramble for Africa. In 1897, theGerman Empire established a presence in Rwanda with the formation of an alliance with the king, beginning the colonial era.[1] They were administered as two districts ofGerman East Africa. The two monarchies were retained as part of the German policy ofindirect rule, with theRuandan king (mwami)Yuhi V Musinga using German support to consolidate his control over subordinate chiefs in exchange for labour and resources.[2]
WhenWorld War I broke out in 1914, German colonies were originally meant to preserve their neutrality as mandated in theBerlin Convention, but fighting soon broke out on the frontier between German East Africa and theBelgian Congo aroundLakes Kivu andTanganyika.[2] As part of the AlliedEast African campaign, Ruanda and Urundi were invaded by a Belgian force in 1916.[2] German forces in the region were small and hugely outnumbered. Ruanda was occupied over April–May and Urundi in June 1916. By September, a large portion of German East Africa was under Belgian occupation reaching as far south asKigoma andKarema and as far eastwards asTabora all in modern-day Tanzania.[2]
In Ruanda and Urundi, the Belgians were welcomed by some civilians, who were opposed to the autocratic behaviour of the kings.[2] In Urundi, much of the population fled or went into hiding, fearful of war.[3] Much of theSwahili trader community which resided along the shores of Lake Tanganyika fled towards Kigoma, as they had long been commercial rivals with Belgian traders and feared retribution.[4] The territory captured was administered by a Belgianmilitary occupation authority ("Belgian Occupied East African Territories") pending an ultimate decision about its political future. An administration, headed by a Royal Commissioner, was established in February 1917 at the same time as Belgian forces were ordered to withdraw from the Tabora region by the British.[citation needed]
While the Germans had begun the practice of conscripting labour from the Ruandans and Urundians during the war, this was limited since the German administration considered sustaining a local labour force logistically challenging. The Belgian occupation force expanded labor conscription;[5] 20,000 men were drafted to act as porters for theMahenge offensive, and of these only one-third returned home.[6] Many died due to malnourishment and disease.[7] The new labour practices caused some locals to regret the departure of the Germans.[8]
TheTreaty of Versailles in the aftermath of World War I divided theGerman colonial empire among the Allied nations. German East Africa was partitioned, withTanganyika allocated to the British anda small area allocated toPortugal. Belgium was allocated Ruanda-Urundi even though this represented only a fraction of the territories already occupied by the Belgian forces in East Africa. Belgian diplomats had originally hoped that Belgian claims in the region could be traded for territory inPortuguese Angola to expand the Congo's access to theAtlantic Ocean. This proved impossible and theLeague of Nations officially awarded Ruanda-Urundi to Belgium as aB-Class Mandate on 20 July 1922. The mandatory regime was also controversial in Belgium and it was not approved by Belgium's parliament until 1924.[9] Unlikecolonies which belonged to its colonial power, a mandate was theoretically subject to international oversight through the League'sPermanent Mandates Commission (PMC) inGeneva,Switzerland.[citation needed]
Administratively, the mandate was divided into twopays, Ruanda and Urundi, each under the nominal leadership of aMwami ascustomary ruler. The city ofUsumbura (modern-day Bujumbura) and its adjoining townships were classified separately ascentres extra‑coutumiers, while thepays were subdivided into territories.[10]
After a period of inertia, the Belgian administration became actively involved in Ruanda-Urundi between 1926 and 1931 under the governorship ofCharles Voisin. The reforms produced a dense road-network and improved agriculture, with the emergence ofcash crop farming incotton andcoffee.[11] However, four major famines did ravage parts of the mandate after crop failures in1916–1918,1924–26,1928–30 and1943–44.[citation needed] The Belgians were far more involved in the territory than the Germans, especially in Ruanda. Despite the mandate rules that the Belgians had to develop the territories and prepare them for independence, the economic policy practised in the Belgian Congo was exported eastwards: the Belgians demanded that the territories earn profits for their country and that any development must come out of funds gathered in the territory. These funds mostly came from the extensive cultivation of coffee in the region's rich volcanic soils.
To implement their vision, the Belgians extended and consolidated a power structure based on indigenous institutions. In practice, they developed aTutsi ruling class to formally control a mostlyHutu population, through the system of chiefs and sub-chiefs under the overall rule of the twoMwami. Belgian administrators were influenced by the so-calledHamitic hypothesis which suggested that the Tutsi were partially descended from aSemitic people and were therefore inherently superior to the Hutu who were seen as purely African.[12] In this context, the Belgian administration preferred to rule through purely Tutsi authorities therefore further stratifying the society on ethnic lines. Hutu anger at the Tutsi domination was largely focused on the Tutsi elite rather than the distant colonial power.[13] Musinga was deposed by the administration asmwami of Ruanda in November 1931 after being accused of disloyalty.[14] He was replaced by his sonMutara III Rudahigwa.
Although promising the League it would promote education, Belgium left the task to subsidised Catholic missions and mostly unsubsidised Protestant missions. Catholicism expanded rapidly through the Rwandan population in consequence. An elite secondary school, theGroupe Scolaire d'Astrida, was established in 1929. As late as 1961, fewer than 100 people from Ruanda-Urundi had been educated beyond the secondary level.[15]
The League of Nations wasformally dissolved in April 1946, following its failure to prevent World War II. It was succeeded, for practical purposes, by the newUnited Nations (UN). In December 1946, the new body voted to end the mandate over Ruanda-Urundi and replace it with the new status of "Trust Territory". To provide oversight, the PMC was superseded by theUnited Nations Trusteeship Council. The transition was accompanied by a promise that the Belgians would prepare the territory for independence, but the Belgians felt the area would take many decades to be ready for self-rule and wanted the process to take enough time before happening.
In 1961, the Belgian administration officially renamed Ruanda-Urundi as Rwanda-Burundi.[16]
Independence came largely as a result of actions elsewhere.African anti-colonial nationalism emerged in the Belgian Congo in the late 1950s and the Belgian Government became convinced they could no longer control the territory. Unrest also broke out in Ruanda where the monarchy was deposed in theRwandan Revolution (1959–1961).Grégoire Kayibanda led the dominant and ethnically definedParty of the Hutu Emancipation Movement (Parti du Mouvement de l'Emancipation Hutu, PARMEHUTU) in Rwanda, while the equivalentUnion for National Progress (Union pour le Progrès national, UPRONA) in Burundi attempted to balance competing Hutu and Tutsi ethnic claims. The independence of the Belgian Congo in June 1960 and the accompanyingperiod of political instability further drove nationalism in Ruanda-Urundi. The assassination of the UPRONA leaderLouis Rwagasore (also Burundi's crown prince) in October 1961 did not halt this movement. After hurried preparations which included the dissolution of the monarchy in theKingdom of Rwanda in September 1961, Ruanda-Urundi became independent on 1 July 1962, broken up along traditional lines as the independentRepublic of Rwanda andKingdom of Burundi. It took two more years before the government of the two became wholly separate and a further two years until the proclamation of theRepublic of Burundi.
Ruanda-Urundi was initially administered by a Royal Commissioner (commissaire royal) until the administrative union with the Belgian Congo in 1926. After this, the mandate was administered by a Governor (gouverneur) located atUsumbura (modern-day Bujumbura) who also held the title of Vice-Governor-General (vice-gouverneur général) of the Belgian Congo. Ruanda and Urundi were each administered by a separateresident (résident) subordinate to the Governor.
For a list ofresidents, see:List of colonial residents of Rwanda andList of colonial residents of Burundi.
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