Rwanda, whose official name is the Republic of Rwanda, is a country in Central Africa. It borders Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania. It is a small country located in the region of the great lakes of Africa ; known as the “fogs of Africa”, also for its wild fauna, mainly for its mountain gorillas, for its typical cities and for the national parks and natural landscapes that its mountainous landscape offers. Kigali is the capital city of Rwanda according to babyinger.
History
In the 11th century, they welcomed the Hutus, who settled in a sedentary way and lived with them in peace. In the 14th century Tutsi farmers arrived in the area and became part of a society made up of Twas and Hutus. In the 16th century the Tutsis begin a military campaign against the Hutus and become lords of the Hutu majority in something like a society of feudal lords with one king, mwami. At the end of the 19th century, the Germans conquered the country. After the First World War the League of Nations handed over the territory to the Belgians and after the Second World War the UN with Belgian help would come to dominate the territory. The Belgians sharpened class differences by marking a Tutsi with fewer than ten cows as a Hutu and consequently imposing forced labor on him. Until 1950 education was available only to Tutsi.
King Mutara III Rudahigwa, who had ruled for nearly three decades, died in 1959 and the Tutsi gained power. This contributed to a series of rebellions by the Hutu, demanding equal rights, in which tens of thousands of Tutsi perished. In 1961, with the support of Belgian settlers, the Hutu majority took control of the government, abolishing the Tutsi monarchy and declaring Rwanda a republic.
Rwanda’s independence was not recognized internationally until July 1, 1962, when Rwanda and its neighbor Burundi formally achieved their independence.
More than half of Rwanda’s Tutsi fled the country between 1959 and 1964. General Juvenal Habyarimana, an ethnic Hutu, seized power in a coup in 1973 amid another period of ethnic conflict. Habyarimana managed to triumph in the civil war and remained as president; by 1978 he promulgated a new constitution.
Juvénal Habyarimana during a visit to the United States, 1980 Habyarimana had absolute control over the country, in addition to being president of the country, he led the hegemonic political party and was the supreme head of the armed forces. Thanks to this control, he was reelected in 1983 and 1988.
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was created by the United Nations Security Council on November 8, 1994, in order to prosecute, arrest, try, convict and execute the perpetrators or promoters of the Rwandan genocide.
Government and politics
After the military victory of July 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front organized a coalition similar to that established by Juvénal Habyarimana in 1992, based on the Arusha accords. However, Habyarimana’s party was banned.
Political organizations were banned until 2003.
Legislative elections were held in September of that year. According to a report by the UN in 2005 comparing sex distribution of parliaments of sovereign nations, Rwanda is the most balanced, with 48.8% of women parliament (the average is 15.9%).
Transport
Rwanda is also linked by road with other countries in Africa, via which most of the country’s imports and exports are made. The country has an international airport in Kigali, serving a national and several international lines, and has also limited water transport between ports on Lake Kivu. A large amount of investment in transportation infrastructure has been made by the government since the 1994 genocide, with the help of the European Union, China, Japan, and others.
The main form of public transportation in the country is the colectivos, with express routes that link the main cities and local services that serve most of the towns along the country’s main highways. Bus services are available to various destinations in neighboring countries. In 2006, the Chinese proposed to fund a study for the construction of a railway linking from Bujumbura in Burundi to Kigali in Rwanda to Isaka in Tanzania.
Climate
In the mountains, there are frosts and snowfalls. The average temperature in the Lake Kivu area, at an elevation of 1,463 meters, is 23 degrees Celsius. Rwanda is considered the world capital of thunderstorms due to the intensity with which they occur during its two rainy seasons of February-March and September-December. Annual rainfall averages 830 millimeters, but generally more pronounced in the west and northwest mountains than in the eastern savanna.
Economy
Rwanda is based on a subsistence economy that employs 90% of the population. The country lacks important natural and mineral resources, in addition to constantly suffering from droughts and poor technological development. All this makes it have a significant economic dependence on Belgium. The main exports are Arabica coffee and tea. Mining is the second activity in the country, highlighting the cassiterite from which tin is extracted, in addition to small amounts of beryllium. The country’s monetary unit is the Rwandan franc.
Demography
Rwanda’s population density, even after the genocide, is among the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, at 230 residents / km².
The indigenous population consists of three ethnic groups. The Hutus, who are the majority (85%), are farmers of Bantu origin. The Tutsis (14%) are shepherds who came to the region in the 15th century. Until 1959 they were the dominant caste of a feudal system. The Twa (Pygmies) (1%) are believed to be the remnants of the region’s first residents.
More than half of the population is literate, although no more than 5% have received a secondary education. During 1994 – 1995, most elementary schools and more than half of the secondary schools reopened. The National University of Butare, attended by more than 7,000 students, reopened in April 1995. Rebuilding the education system remains a priority for the Rwandan government.
The distribution of religious beliefs in [[Rwanda] in 2001 was 56.5% Catholic, 26% Protestant, 11.1% Adventist, 4.6% Muslim, 0.1% Muslim. indigenous beliefs and 1.7% without religion.
