Une République devenue folle – Rwanda 1894-1994

In 1954, the ethnologist and filmmaker Luc de Heusch shot a film illustrating the traditional relationship between Tutsi herdsmen and Hutu farmers in the ancient central African kingdom of Rwanda. He now tells the country’s story from the time of German colonisation dealing in turn with the Belgian mandate, the drama of independence, the coup of G.Kayibanda and the dictatorship of J.Habyarimana. This reveals the true face of this society, disfigured by the colonial ideology, then by the republican regime. Contrary to what a misinformed public opinion was all too willing to believe, the tragedy of the genocide was not the ultimate episode in a struggle between two hostile ‘ethnic groups’. Hutu and Tutsi make up one nation whose inhabitants speak the same language and come from the same religion.