In the "Country of one thousand
hills"RWANDA
An amazing country landlocked in the heart of Africa
In the "Country of one thousand
hills"
Photo J-C Scholle The Country of one thousand hills |
Display the menu : |
Rwanda, a fascinating country at the heart of Africa, under the Equator, under the sun, is characterized by hills and mountains. It is 900 to 4,000 m above sea level.
The relief of this 26,338 km² country comes from the numerous moves of the African plaque. 50 million years ago, the ones of the African "Rift Valley" caused the emergence, in the West, of the Zaire-Nile mountainous Ridge, which reaches its highest point of more than 3,000 m at Mount Muhungwe, and stretches to the chain of Birunga volcanoes, the shelter of the last mountain gorillas.
At the center of the country, numerous hills are scattered over a large altitude plateau, to which Rwanda owes its nickname: "Country of one thousand hills".
Rwanda on the
stream
Photo J-C Scholle Living near lakes... |
Rwanda is the country of one thousand hills but also of one thousand rivers and one thousand lakes (Lake Kivumba, Lake Ihema, Lake Mihindi…). The East of Rwanda, on the Tanzanian border, has a hydrographical network which is particularly dense. Certain lakes, like Lake Kivu, considered to be a veritable inland sea, are surrounded by several States.
In this country, which is crossed by very numerous rivers (Nyabarongo, Akanyaru…), the Nile has its source in uncertain places. The first of the sources is likely to be on the territory of the town of Mudasomwa, in the South-East of the country, at the source of the Mwogo river. The other one is likely to be further north, at the source of the Rukarara river in the town of Muko.
Climate: between
"Itumba" and "Umuhindo"
The very numerous water resources (lakes, rivers...) are the result of the very humid climate of this country. The annual average rainfall is about 1,400 mm/year. These precipitations feed six catchment areas, with large annual average hydraulic specific outflows, that is 7 to 14.8 l/s/km², which makes irrigation possible (40 km²).
With two wet seasons (the big "Itumba", which lasts from mid-February to the beginning of June, and the small "Umuhindo", which stretches from mid-September to mid-December) representing in all 100 to 200 days of rainfall per year, the average solar radiation is 5.15 kWh/m²/ day for an average daily temperature above 20°C and a relative humidity always above 50 %.
However, this climate is not common to the whole Rwanda and while the rain affects more particularly the mountainous areas, the East is dryer. Unlike equatorial countries, Rwanda rarely suffers from heat waves, because the altitude make the temperatures nicer.
A vegetation featuring jungle
and swamps
With an extremely varied flora, Rwanda is a paradise for botanists. Its climate is as favorable to the flowering of perennials as to the blooming of delicate flowers, such as orchids. Despite the growing needs for farmlands, national parks (Birunga National Park) and forests (Nyungwe natural forest) have been reserved to preserve the wild flora. The vegetation of the volcanoes in the North (Karisimbi, Muhabura…) is particularly dense and is characterized by tree ferns and heathers that can be more than 10 m high, as well as by veritable bamboo forests. The swamps are full of papyrus.
Gorillas in the mist
Photo "Le Rwanda aujourd'hui", "Rwanda
today", Jean- Claude Klotchkoff- les éditions j.a "Gorillas in the mist" |
The flora of this country is extremely rich and the fauna is also very diversified. So, besides gorillas (who the American naturalist Diane Fossey dedicated her life to and consequently largely contributed to their survival), tourists can see lions, elephants, buffalos, zebras, hippos, rhinos as well as numerous species of gazelles, fish and snakes.
The birth of a proud
and hard-working people
The oldest archaeological data on Rwanda seem to reveal that Bantus (or Bahutu), a people from Lake Tchad, brought the iron technique to this country between the 10th and the 7th century BC. The populations of the Old Iron Age, organized in small communities, mostly settled on the hills of the central plateau, near the ore deposits.
The
kingdoms of Mwamis
The Bahutus, who are communities of farmers and stockbreeders, were organized in patriarchal kingdoms, lead by a Mwami. They were religious and believed in a unique and universal god (Imana); they venerated their dead by libation. The Mwami was considered to be a sacred individual, who would talk in the name of God. He had the power to fertilize the crops, to invoke the rain and to put aside natural disasters. He was the head of justice, police and war. The State machinery worked thanks to the taxes imposed on Hutu families. The youngest kingdoms had to honor the oldest ones… At the time, the organization of Rwandan society as the one of today's society was less similar to an ethnical organization than to a social organization close to those of Western societies (various kingdoms, middle class, farmers, notables…). The conflicts and the internal struggles of this society are clearly struggles for the appropriation of the power, the resources and the farmlands necessary for life.
The 16th century is a turning point in the history of Rwanda. At that time, Tutsi shepherds, a hamite, nomadic and warlike people who came from East Africa and gradually assimilated into the Bahutu population by marriage and conquest, took the power.
At the end of the 17th century, the Batutsis, who set themselves up as lords faced with Bahutus and the small minority of Twas, monopolized the great majority of the Rwandan territory without imposing their culture for all that. They adapted to the Hutu lifestyle, their food and clothes... They even adopted the Bantu language, the Kinyarwanda, and venerated the Imana.
In the 19th century, the Mwami Tustsi Kigeri Rwabugiri, who wished to obtain the supreme authority on Rwanda, triggered off a war and this way put an end to the conflicts which Tutsi monarchies had kept going between one another for centuries.
The arrival of White
people
Photo J-C Scholle Water duty... wouldn't a solar pumping station offer them the time they wish to devote to their families? |
Thanks to this context of permanent war and to its geographical isolation, the slave dealers such as Tippo Tip or Rumaliza the Sultan avoid the country, which therefore escapes black gold trade (slavery). Consequently, at the end of the 19th century, Christian missions could spread out. These came shortly before European colonization, mainly German (1899) and Belgian (1945).
In 1925, on Belgian initiative, Congo (former Zaire), Rwanda and Burundi gathered into a large customs, economic and administrative union.
The interwar period was marked by several events: the abolition, by the Belgians, of the three hierarchies of Tutsi chiefs, the crackdown on the uprising organized by the Nyiraburumbuke prophetic movement, the famine in 1928, King Musinga's deposition in 1931 and the replacement of the mandatory labour by a money payment. Rwanda was now lead by Hutus. In 1946, the Belgian mandate was replaced by a trusteeship.
While in the whole Africa, the autonomist ideology developed, several nationalist parties were founded in Rwanda (Aprosoma, Parmehutu, Rader, UNAR...). At that time, a triple revolution, organized by the Parmehutu party, shattered the country. The monarchy and the Belgian supervision were abolished and replaced by a Republic in 1961. The independence was proclaimed in 1962 and Rwanda separated from Burundi. After the independence, the country politics, which was essentially based on ethnical preference, caused a period of disorders and massacres, which forced a large number of Tutsis to escape. In 1973, another wave of violence against Tutsis led to a coup d’Etat. In 1975, Rwanda was a State led by one party, the MNRD (National Revolutionary Movement for Development).
On April 6, 1994, the plane transporting the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down while flying. This event triggered off the Rwandan genocide, which, within four months, killed about one million moderate Tutsis and Hutus and caused the "moving" of three million of them, that is one third of the population of the country.
Today's difficulties
After this event, which ruined and destroyed the country economically and socially, a national unity government was settled in July 1994, in the Arusha Agreement. The institutions, the social infrastructures, the economy, the culture, everything was to be reconstructed. Rwandan society was torn apart. A five year "period of transition" was set up, a time estimated to be necessary for the national reconciliation and the economic rehabilitation and boosting. Faced with the scale of the task, this period of transition is extended until 2003, in particular in order to elaborate a Constitution that would enable Rwandans to exercise political and civil rights.
| With the richness of their past and history, Rwandans have become a proud people, able to take up the challenges of the 21st century. |
More information : |
12 pages: .1. .2. .3. .4. .5. .6. .7. .8. .9. .10. .11. .12.