Names : ABAYISENGA Aime Pacifique

MBABAZI Louange Liza

ISHIMWE Chloe
GANZA Aime Daniella
INEZA NIYONGIRA Bernice
RUDASESWA Thierry
ISHEMA Blessing Giana
ISIMBI Nina Henriette
MWESIGYE TETA Linda

GROUP 5

Citizenship assignment
Section A:

1. False
2. False
3. False
4. False
5. False
Section B:
1. Political parties before Rwanda gained independence
A political party, a group of persons organized to acquire and exercise political power.
Before Rwanda got independence there was formation of different political parties such
as PARMEHUTU, APROSOMA, RADER, UNAR …
The first political parties that were created by Rwanda was granted independence include:
PARMEHUTU: This abbreviation stood for Party for the HUTU Emancipation Movement (Parti
du movement de l’ emancipation Hutu. It was created by Gregoire KAYIBANDA and other young
Hutu in June 1957. The Party was also known as the Republican Democratic Movement –
Parmehutu (Mouvement démocratique républicain – Parmehutu, MDR-Parmehutu), was a
political party in Rwanda. The movement emphasised the right of the majority ethnicity to rule
and asserted the supremacy of Hutus over Tutsis. It was the most important party of the "Hutu
Revolution" of 1959–61 that led to Rwanda becoming an independent republic and Hutus
superseding Tutsis as the ruling group.
Founded June 1957
Dissolved July 1973
Succeeded by National Revolutionary Movement for Development (1975) (MRND)
Headquarters Kigali, Rwanda
Main ideologies of the party were:

 Anti-monarchism
 Anti -communism
 Hutu power
UNAR: Union Nationale Rwandaise (Rwandese National Union), or UNAR, was a conservative
Rwandan political party. Founded on 3 September 1959, by François Rukeba and Prosper
Bwanakweli, and strongly supported by King Kigeri V. At the time, Rwanda was still under
Belgian administration, and UNAR was the leading monarchist party. It called for immediate
independence under a hereditary Tutsi constitutional monarchy. Michel Rwagasana became its
secretary general.

The party boycotted the 1960 local elections, but participated in the 1961 parliamentary
elections, receiving 17% of the vote, winning 7 of the 44 seats in the Legislative Assembly. It
joined a coalition government with the victorious Parmehutu, and was given the cabinet posts
responsible for cattle and public health.
Abbreviation UNAR
Founder François Rukeba
Dissolved December 1963
Headquarters Nyamirambo
Ideology:

 Monarchism
 Conservatism
APROSOMA: The Association for Social Promotion of the Masses (French: Association pour la
promotion sociale de la masse, APROSOMA) was a political party in Rwanda. The party was
established on 15 February 1959 by Joseph Gitera alongside friends and former schoolmates.
Although it initially promoted social improvement for both Hutu and Tutsi, it later became an
anti-Tutsi party.
APROSOMA contested the pre-independence elections in 1961, receiving 3.6% of the vote and
winning two seats. In 1965 the country became a one-party state under MDR-Parmehutu
RADER: Rassemblement Democratique Rwandais, it was founded by Prosper Bwanakweli, On 14
September 1959 he founded the Rassemblement Démocratique du Rwanda (RADER, Democratic Rally of
Rwanda), a moderate political party. Its stated goal was "to work towards the realization of a social,
economic, political, and cultural order based on authentic democracy and harmony among the
constituent groups of Rwanda. The party never gained much of a following aside from some Tutsi
students, as Bwanakweli's ethnicity garnered suspicion among Hutus and his reputation as a progressive
democrat who had challenged Mutara alienated conservative Tutsis. He was killed in a political purge in
December 1963.

2.socio-economic achievements of the first republic

The first republic started in 1962 under Gregoire Kayibanda. The republic managed to secure
some of the achievements in socio-economic areas of the country such as economy, education
and health. Some of the achievements of the first republic include :
ECONOMY:

1 creation of financial institutions such as banks

Some financial institutions like banks were opened and they provided financial support to a few
factories and industrial companies. The National Bank was established in January 1964, The
bank Commerciale du Rwanda in 1965, and the Banque Rwandaise de Development In 1968.

2.The five year development plan(1966-1971)

It should be noted that in the framework of the Five Year Development plan (1966-1971) it was
proposed to tarmac all the roads linking the country to her neighbors’ ( ministrere de travaux
publics, Rapport annuel 1971)> in order of priority the following roads were to be tarmacked:
Kigali-Gatuna, Kigali–Butare, Kigali–Rusumo, and Kigali–Cyanika. Besides, the construction of
Kanombe airport opened the country to the outside world. But by the end of the 1st Republic in
1973, only the Kigali–Gatuna road was only constructed and the bridge on Rusumo was also
created then linking Rwanda and Tanzania, and the bridge on Nyabarogo was created between
(1968-1969).

3. agriculture
with regards to agriculture development, some marshlands were reclaimed in order to improve
agricultural production. ISAR (insititut des Sciences Agronomiques du Rwanda) located at
Rubona improved seeds and plants and distributed them in some parts of the country. New
crops like rice were introduced.

4 Education: The 1st Republic made a lot of effort to provide free primary education. At
independence, Rwanda had few secondary schools including Ecole Officielle d’Astrida in the former
province of Butare, Ecole Technique Officielle Kicukiro in Kigali, Collège Saint André in Kigali, Collège du
Christ Roi at Nyanza and Seminaries at Kabgayi, Nyundo, Rwesero and Kansi. In 1962, there were 23
secondary schools which increased to 63 in 1972. In 1962, the budget allocated to education was
162,204,000 Rwf. This envelope increased to 563,194,000 Rwf in 1972. In 1962, enrolment in primary
schools was 261,306 which increased to 425,000 in 1972. Enrollment for girls increased from 29 per cent
1961 to 45 per cent in 1972 (Bamusananire, E.2009, Rwanda since independence, London). The first
university was started on November 3rd, 1963 by a Canadian Priest called Levesque as the first Rector. It
opened with 50 students distributed in three faculties: medicine, arts and science. The Institut of
Pédagogique National was started later in 1966.

5 Health:
The number of dispensaries increased. To address the problem of malnutrition and poor conditions of
hygiene, some socio-medical centres were opened to provide sanitary or health education, training on
how to avoid and prevent diseases, and skills in maternal health care. A centre for handicapped children
was built at Gatagara (Nyanza District) and a psychiatry centre for the mentally handicapped at Ndera
(Gasabo District). This centre, also known as Caraes-Ndera, was run by the Gand Brothers of Charity. In
preventive medicine, vaccination campaigns were initiated between 1965 and 1970 (Ministere de la
santé publique, Rapport annuel 1970)

3.why did Gregoire Kayibanda fail to unify Rwandans

Grégoire Kayibanda was a Rwandan politician and revolutionary who
was the first elected President of Rwanda from 1962 to 1973.Gregoire
Kayibanda was born on 1st May 1924 and died on 15th December
1976. An ethnic Hutu, he was a pioneer of the Rwandan Revolution
and led Rwanda's struggle for independence from Belgium, replacing
the Tutsi monarchy with a republican form of government. He failed to
unify Rwandans because of the following reasons.

To begin with, president Gregoire Kayibanda failed to unify Rwandans

because of his poor leadership skills. The president Gregoire Kayibanda
belonged to “hutu” ethnic group. He ruled Rwanda under the political
party called PARMEHUTU which was Parti du Mouvement de
l'Emancipation Hutu in full.During his reign ,he promoted people from
his ethnic group only and he lacked enough leadership skills to unify
Rwandans.

In addition there was the impact of Europeans in Rwanda: Before

coming of Europeans in Rwanda, people were grouped int three groups
namely “hutu”,”twa” and “tutsi” according to the wealth of people.
When Europeans came to Rwanda they created hatred among
Rwandans eg: by teaching Hutus that Tutsi had undermined them
which led to disunity and that made it difficult to unify Rwandans who
had been disunified by Europeans.

Further, During his reign, Gregoire Kayibanda was assisted by weak

leaders who were not able to give him appropriate advices about how
to rule the country and unify people which made him to make many
mistakes because he didn’t have wise and strong people to advise him.
At also there was culture of impunity: During his reign, people who
belonged to “hutu” ethnic group made many crimes and they were not
punished and imprisoned which created disunity between them and
those ones who were considered as “Tutsis” because they disappointed
them very much without being punished.

More to that there was the role that was played by mass media to
disunify Rwandans. During leadership, there were forms of mass media
mainly newspapers which encouraged divisionism, hatred and disunity
among Rwandans and this became too hard to president Gregoire
Kayibanda to unify Rwandans because of disunity that had been
encouraged by the newspapers that were found in Rwanda at that
time.

In continuation, there was the problem of ignorance. During the period

of Gregoire Kayibanda’s leadership, many Rwandans were ignorant and
illiterate and they believed in everything that was talked to them
especially the ideologies that encouraged them about disunity which
grew in them at high extent and then it became hard for president
Gregoire Kayibanda to solve that problem.

Further still, in Rwanda during the period of Kayibanda’s leadership

there were economic problems that made many Rwandans to have
many conflicts about issues like land and because of those conflicts
Rwandans would get disunified due to misunderstandings which was
hard to Gregoire Kayibanda to solve those problems and bring unity
back among Rwandans.
As continuation, in Rwanda after colonization people belonged to
different religious churches like protestants, muslims, and roman
catholic church which divided them into groups based on their
religions. Before colonization all Rwandans belonged to traditional
religions which unified them and after they were disunified because
they were taught different beliefs and they started to believe in
different ways which decreased unity among them.

As sum up, those are some of the reasons why Gregoire Kayibanda who
was the president of Rwanda failed to unify Rwandans which can be
categorized into political, economic, religious as well as social reasons
as discussed before.