Inyenzi movement
The Inyenzi movement or Inyenzi guerrilla movement was a collection of Rwandan armed groups in the 1960s. Mainly composed of Tutsi militants, the movement emerged as royalists and radical refugees unsuccessfully sought to defend the Rwandan monarchy during the Rwandan Revolution. Following the establishment of the Hutu-dominated Republic of Rwanda under Grégoire Kayibanda in 1961, the Inyenzi waged an insurgency from exile. Being split into factions based in Burundi, Uganda, Congo-Léopoldville, and Tanganyika, the Inyenzi were never organizationally united and became ideologically diverse, resulting in the rise of republican factions. Lacking substantial international support and a coherent structure, the movement was unsuccessful in its insurgency against Kayibanda's government. After a failed attempt to gain reliable allies by involving itself in the Congolese Simba rebellion, the Inyenzi suffered from growing infighting and ceased attacks in Rwanda in 1968.
Etymology
The Kinyarwanda term Inyenzi can be translated as "cockroaches", though its origin is unclear and disputed. It is unknown whether the rebels themselves or officials of the Kayibanda regime initially coined the term. A veteran and leader of the movement, Aloys Ngurumbe, stated in 2003 that the term was a rebel invention. He argued that Inyenzi had emerged as an acronym for "Ingangurarugo yemeye kuba ingenzi". This can be translated as "a member of Ingangurarugo who has committed himself to bravery", with Ingangurarugo being the name of traditional division of the Rwandan royal army. Another ex-rebel leader, David Munyurangabo, agreed that Ingangurarugo was a term initially used for the rebel movement, but described Inyenzi as a title mainly used by the Rwandan government.The Inyenzi label may also have been connected to the insurgents' strategy of attacking at night as well as terrorizing civilians. This could have led Rwandans to liken the rebels to cockroaches which were regarded as pests which mainly move in the dark. If the insurgents chose the label themselves, they may have likened themselves to cockroaches because their nightly operations were "eating away at the vitals of the Hutu state". Though Inyenzi eventually became a derogatory ethnic slur for Tutsi in general, contemporary sources referred to the exile rebels with the term in a non-pejorative fashion. Similarly, later historians have also continued to use the label for the rebel movement.
Alternatively, the rebels called themselves Inkotanyi or Kamarade. During the Bugesera invasion, the Inyenzi insurgents reportedly dubbed their umbrella force the "Armée Royale Rwandaise".
History
Rwandan Revolution and emergence of the Inyenzi
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Kingdom of Rwanda was subject to the violent Rwandan Revolution. As the country transitioned from Belgian colonial rule to independence, royalists and republicans struggled for control. Both sides began to arm themselves, and radical royalists sought to revive the old royal army by forming a militia consisting of Tutsi, Twa and Hutu under Tutsi officers. In 1959 King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa appointed a sub-chief, Nkuranga, as the new chief commander of the armed royalists and instigated his followers to target republicans as well as anti-royal nobles. As violence escalated ascross the country, royalist militias carried out several attacks and assassinations, but failed to defeat the republicans. Pro-Kigeli militants suffered a major setback during an attempt to storm Save hill to kill opposition leader Joseph Gitera on 10 November 1959. Afterward, Belgian security forces intervened in force and restored some order, siding with the Hutu opposition and suppressing the royalist forces. Many Tutsi and Twa leaders among the pro-royal militias were arrested, while others fled. Scattered royalist militants reorganized as guerrillas, acquired modern guns, and began to carry out nightly raids, targeting Belgian security forces and Hutu leaders. By the end of 1959, a "maquis" had reportedly emerged in the forests of the Congo-Nile Divide. Munyurangabo dated the origins of the Inyenzi movement to this time. According to historians Déogratias Byanafashe and Paul Rutayisire, some young refugees first began to plan the creation of a rebel army in exile in Uganda in 1960.Despite the emerging royalist guerrilla activity, Kigeli V's loyalists had been largely defeated and the Hutu republicans had factually assumed government control in Rwanda by 1960. As a result, formerly royalist Twa and Hutu abandoned the king's cause, and the royal militias rapidly shrank in membership. In May 1960, the Belgians created the Garde Territoriale, a Rwandan military unit which was recruited from Hutu and supposed to protect the new Hutu-led government. Kigeli V went abroad, meeting with some of his loyalists to discuss the creation of an army in exile. In August 1960, the monarch declared in Bukavu that his followers were ready to attack Rwanda. Small-scale rebel raids mounted, though these were largely aimed at stealing cattle and killing a few Hutu officials. Growing in strength and enjoying de facto Belgian backing, the Hutu-dominated republicans ultimately overthrew the monarchy in January 1961. Thousands of people, mainly Tutsi, fled Rwanda in response to the republican takeover and ongoing unrest. These refugees would swell the ranks of the Inyenzi.
UNAR split and rebel growth
The Parti du Mouvement de l'Emancipation Hutu under Grégoire Kayibanda won an overwhelming majority of the seats in the Legislative Assembly in the September 1961 Rwandan parliamentary election, and the monarchy's abolition was formally confirmed by a referendum. These developments were opposed by many Tutsi. To secure a compromise, the United Nations brokered the New York Accord, with PARMEHUTU agreeing to form a coalition government with the Tutsi-dominated Union Nationale Rwandaise.The New York Accord split UNAR into an accommodationist faction committed to working through the coalition, and a militant faction. The latter sought to restore the Rwandan monarchy by using force; it organized itself as "UNAR extérieure" in exile. As the "UNAR extérieure" still focused on diplomatic work, radical refugees organized more substantial armed raids into Rwanda. Small-scale rebel attacks in Rwandan border regions killed about 34 people in course of 1961. Not all of the raids were carried out by Inyenzi, as some could be attributed to bandits and cattle raiders. Byanafashe and Rutayisire emphasized that the earliest Inyenzi were largely independent and were not connected to UNAR, though party members would ultimately assume command of several armed groups.
A more formal structure emerged in the rebel movement in 1962, often described as the founding year of the Inyenzi. By this point, tens of thousands of Rwandans had fled their home country and settled in neighboring states such as Tanganyika, Uganda, Burundi, and Congo-Léopoldville. The "UNAR extérieure" and Kigeli V began to recruit and arm militant refugees, seeking to eventually invade Rwanda. One self-described co-founder of the Inyenzi movement, Aloys Ngurumbe, argued that the insurgents initially aimed at disrupting the efforts of Hutu parties to stabilize and govern Rwanda. The Inyenzi movement was never able to become a coherent force and was generally quite disorganized, though its leaders were able to partially rely on the still-existing mobilization system of the traditional Rwandan royal army; military historian Frank Rusagara argued that the earliest Inyenzi were probably exiled members of Kigeli V's guard. Despite his importance to the rebel cause, Kigeli V himself never assumed a strong role within the developing rebel movement. Among the budding movement, the most significant early leaders were UNAR politician François Rukeba and his son Jean Kayitare "Masudi" who forged links with the MNC party which had led a short-lived government of the newly independent Congo-Léopoldville.
The Iyenzi operated from refugee camps in Burundi, Tanganyika, Uganda, and the Congo. Of these countries, only Burundi initially tolerated the rebels' presence, though it never armed them. Tanganyika was initially hostile to the rebel movement and extradited arrested insurgents to Rwanda; however, the state later began to support the Inyenzi. The Ugandan and Congolese governments actively sought to suppress Inyenzi activity in their territories.
Early insurgency and Chinese aid
In 1962, the Inyenzi increased their raids into Rwanda, though these efforts did not produce tangible results. Instead, their raids often targeted civilians, undermining the rebels' support among the population. Furthermore, Kayibanda's government quickly implemented draconian policies in response to the raids, brutalizing and intimidating any potential Inyenzi supporters after each attack. One early example of the resulting mass violence was the Byumba massacre of March 1962, when 1,000 to 2,000 UNAR members –mainly Tutsi, but also Hutu– were murdered after Inyenzi had killed policemen and civil servants in raids at Nkana, Mugira, and Gatuna. Furthermore, the Ministry of Interior and the Rwandan National Guard started to plan for self-defense militias to secure the countryside against insurgents. Inside Rwanda, the UNAR accommodationist faction sought to distance itself from the Inyenzi, declaring the insurgents "criminals" who committed "terrorist acts". UNAR had completely fractured into opposing factions by mid-1962.In early 1963, the rebels overran a Tanganyikan police station in Ngara and captured weaponry, one of the few successes of the movement. In the night of 3-4 July 1962, about 80 to 100 Inyenzi led by Nzamwita Jovite moved from Goma across the Congo–Rwanda border, advancing into the volcano-dominated area of northwestern Rwanda. Unlike previous raids, this operation aimed at taking territory to use as a rebel base. Yet the Rwandan government had been warned, and the GNR ambushed the Inyenzi contingent on 5 July, killing a large number and capturing four who were publicly executed in Ruhengeri.
Meanwhile, Kigeli V managed to secure Chinese aid to the Inyenzi. The Communist People's Republic of China sought to gain a foothold in central Africa, and regarded the Rwandan insurgents as potential springboard for this purpose. The alliance with the ostensibly royalist Inyenzi was resulted from circumstantial factors: Kayibanda's regime had denounced communism and recognized Chiang Kai-shek's rival Chinese government, causing the People's Republic to regard the anti-Kayibanda insurgents with approval. Furthermore, the existing connections of the Inyenzi with the leftist MNC made them more palatable to the Chinese. Yet the Chinese support remained very limited, as the People's Republic of China reportedly provided US$ 120,000 to Kigeli V and trained 10 Inyenzi in revolutionary tactics for guerrilla warfare and population mobilization.