“Go to hell!” This declaration, made by President Paul Kagame in April on the eve of the 1994 Rwanda genocide commemorations, deeply resonated. Rwanda accuses Belgium of having incited European Union member states to impose sanctions against it (which were unanimously adopted on March 17). These accusations led to the rupture of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
To the point that when the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Prévot, visited Central Africa during the May 1st weekend (Uganda, Burundi, DR Congo), he carefully avoided a country where he had not been invited. Above all, the past resurfaced: the Belgian colonizer is accused of having wanted to reduce Rwanda to being merely a “small country,” in its own image, also striving to divide a once-united population. Is this claim based on historical facts ?
It’s important to remember that the citizens of Belgium, a small, industrious country that only declared its independence in 1830, had to bow to the ambition of Leopold II, their second king. Misunderstood by his compatriots, Leopold shared the dream of the ruling circles of the time and repeatedly chanted, “Belgium must also have a colony.” This ambition led him, after dreaming of the Philippines and Indonesia, to support the project of the explorer Stanley, who had failed to convince the British Crown to finance his expedition to Central Africa.
Leopold II, “his” colony, and the scramble for the Great Lakes
At the beginning of his journey, which started in East Africa, Henry Morton Stanley nevertheless avoided entering two kingdoms that the coastal Arabs, who were caravanners and slave traders, had described to him as particularly inhospitable: Rwanda and Burundi. The explorer, benefiting from the weakening of the populations in central Africa caused by the slave trade, seized territories such as the Lunda Empire and the former Kongo Kingdom.
It was following the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) that the King of the Belgians commissioned a map detailing the borders of “his” colony, a private property that would later become the Congo Free State (CFS). The document was immediately disputed: the British felt they had been disadvantaged in the drawing of the Katanga border, where a part of present-day Zambian territory, rich in copper deposits, was incorporated into the CFS. Furthermore, in the northeast of the future colony, part of the territory was claimed by two other colonial powers: Great Britain, which aimed to connect Cairo to Cape Town, and Germany, which had sent Count Von Götzen to explore the Great Lakes region and contact the Mwami (King) of Rwanda.
Subsequently, German East Africa expanded into the territories of Burundi, parts of Tanzania, and Rwanda, regions previously known for being hostile to Europeans. It wasn’t until 1910 that conventions were signed between rival states. Belgium agreed to cede a portion of what was then Uganda to the British in exchange for the Katanga territory, whose riches it was already aware of, while an agreement was concluded with Germany regarding Rwanda.
An easily defensible natural border.
Mwami Yuhi IV Musinga (who reigned between 1896 and 1931), the King of Rwanda, claimed to originate from Sake, North Kivu, in what had become the Congo Free State. There, the toponymy of several places was established in Kinyarwanda, the local language. It was in Nyanza, the capital of the Rwandan kingdom, that the Mwami finally agreed to receive the German emissaries, who were accompanied by a heavily armed escort.
Subsequently, border demarcation proved problematic: the Burundi-Tanzania border runs through the middle of Lake Tanganyika, while in the case of Rwanda, the border starts from the Ruzizi River (through which Lake Kivu flows into Lake Tanganyika) and extends northward to a point equidistant from the cities of Gisenyi (now Rubavu, Rwanda) and Goma (now the capital of North Kivu, DR Congo).
Congolese historian Tshibangu Kalala, author of La République du Congo et ses 11 frontières internationales (Bruylant editions, 2023), recounts that King Leopold had wished for the border to traverse the Kingdom of Rwanda, which would have split the current country in two. However, the monarch faced opposition from the Belgian government of the time. The latter sided with the German stance, which was based on respecting the kingdom’s political unity and territorial integrity, and supported the idea of a natural, easily defensible border.
Hutus and Tutsis, an integral part of the Congolese people.
However, in the Mwami’s eyes, this border—drawn by foreigners who imposed themselves with the help of the Congolese Force Publique (the army of that era, made up of Congolese soldiers led by Belgian officers)—was artificial and contrived. Tshibangu recalls that because the Mwami didn’t want his subjects arbitrarily separated, it was decided that within six months, they would leave the territories allotted to the Congo Free State and return to the Kingdom of Rwanda with their possessions and livestock.
Taking control of what would become North Kivu, Belgian military personnel, including commander Emile Derche, confirmed that the region, bordered to the north by the Rutshuru River and to the south by the line of volcanoes, had until then been occupied by Tutsi chiefs and sub-chiefs who recognized the authority of King Musinga. However, Derche also highlighted two important points: “The territorial (Belgian) authorities seized every opportunity to diminish the authority of the Watutsi chiefs in order to increase that of the Bahutu chiefs.” Derche further specified that the “Watutsi,” a pastoral people, sought good pastures as far as the shores of Lake Victoria but did not venture beyond that.
Furthermore, the captain notes that the “natives of the Bahutu race coming under [their] administration stated they were very happy to come under Belgian administration in the hope of finally being delivered from the tyranny of Watutsi chiefs and sub-chiefs, who, under the pretext of taxation, committed all kinds of abuses against the Bahutu populations conquered by the Watutsi.” In the eyes of historian Tshibanda, these remarks (cited on page 609) also signify that Hutus living in the border region of North Kivu have been an integral part of the Congolese people since 1911.
The testimony of Jean Derscheid, a forgotten biologist
Some evidence emerges from these observations gleaned from writings dating back to the beginning of the last century: it appears that populations of Rwandan origin, both Tutsis and Hutus, were already living in the Congo during the colonial era, where they practiced their respective activities of herding and agriculture. It is also known that in eastern Congo, as in Rwanda and Burundi, the Belgian authorities of the time had exacerbated the division between Tutsis and Hutus. Initially, the colonial power relied on a Tutsi elite who had converted to Catholicism following the Mwami, before abandoning them on the eve of independence (in 1962) in favor of the Hutus, who were presented as more docile and, above all, numerically superior.
Another account, long kept under wraps and reconstructed by André Possot, a Belgian academic, also sheds light on the politics of that era. The document, in the form of detailed notes and observations, comes from Jean Derscheid, a biologist born in 1901. Derscheid was a descendant of a prominent Brussels family (his father was a pulmonologist who founded a clinic that still bears his name).
An adventurous scientist named Jean Derscheid embarked for the Congo in the 1920s with a mission to implement another royal project. Albert I, Leopold II’s successor, lauded for his resistance against the Germans during World War I, aimed to establish a nature protection office in the Congo and designate a vast area in northern Kivu. The “Albert Park,” now known as Virunga National Park, became the first of its kind in Africa. This expansive 780,000-hectare territory is coveted by neighboring populations who lack arable land. After hosting Hutus in the aftermath of the 1994 Tutsi genocide, the park now shelters M23 rebels and, further north, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), Islamists from Uganda.
The cultural unity of the Rwandan people
For years, André Possot painstakingly reconstructed Derscheid’s biography. He painted a picture of a scientist passionate about the history of the Great Lakes, interested in its fauna and flora, but also keen to learn more about the local populations. At the time, Derscheid, a free spirit and unclassifiable intellectual, didn’t hesitate to distance himself from the Church’s views, which drew animosity from his superiors or colleagues, most often Flemish and Catholic.
Filling dozens of notebooks, Derscheid wasn’t just a natural resources specialist: he was also interested in Rwandophone citizens. He closely followed the disputes between the Belgian colonizers and Mwami Musinga, and in his notes, the scientist reveals that the King of Rwanda was eventually sidelined because he was suspected of collusion with the Germans, simply because the latter showed more respect for his authority. In the biography dedicated to Derscheid, André Possot explains that the Belgian biologist, a shrewd and clear-sighted observer, was often at odds with the apostolic vicar Mgr Classe. The latter, considered a reference by the colonial authority, emphasized the division between Hutus and Tutsis and long imposed this antagonistic vision.
André Possot notes that the dissident scientist, rejected by the colonial elite, was passionate about lineages. He traced their evolution, highlighting points of convergence between Hutus and Tutsis. He was practically the only one at the time to demonstrate the probability of the thesis now defended by Kigali, namely the cultural unity of the Rwandan people. A free and dissident spirit, with a difficult character too, Derscheid was eventually replaced by officials more aligned with official views, and he was forced to return to the mainland.
Another version of Rwanda’s reality
On the eve of the Second World War, this unconventional researcher made sure to repatriate dozens of trunks to Belgium. These trunks contained his scientific notes on the fauna and flora of Kivu, as well as his observations regarding the actual relationships between Tutsis and Hutus, a subject of so much controversy. These documents were digitized at the University of Gainesville, Florida, and only the French professor René Lemarchand, author of several academic works on Rwanda and Burundi, took the trouble to consult them.
In Belgium, it wasn’t until the 2000s that the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren began inventorying the trunks of the forgotten researcher, and an independent author like Possot took on the task of revisiting notes brought back from the field. This revealed another version of the reality of colonial Rwanda, as well as the portrait of a man who, at the end of World War II, met a tragic end, decapitated by the Germans for his involvement in the Resistance.
When President Paul Kagame rails against the Belgians, accusing them of contributing to the division of Rwandans and underestimating the long-standing presence of Kinyarwanda speakers in Kivu, his detractors, beyond diplomatic sparring, should also revisit some unconventional authors.
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