/ AFP PHOTO / CARL DE SOUZA
On Sunday July 4, 2021, Rwanda again solemnly marked the 27th anniversary of the end of the genocide of Tutsis in that country. What is known today as the Rwandan genocide was the culmination of years of tension between the incumbent Hutu government and the Tutsi ethnic group. As a result of an artificial ethnic distinction by Belgium, Rwanda’s colonial master, relations between the Hutus and Tutsis had degenerated into one defined by unending violence and hatred following the so-called 1959 “Hutu revolution” during which the Tutsi ruling elite was upended and thousands of Tutsis killed with many more forced into exile in neighbouring countries.