Ruanda-Urundi

Ruanda-Urundi (), later Rwanda-Burundi, was a geopolitical entity, once part of German East Africa, that was occupied by troops from the Belgian Congo during the East African campaign in World War I and was administered by Belgium under military occupation from 1916 to 1922. It was subsequently awarded to Belgium as a Class-B Mandate under the League of Nations in 1922 and became a Trust Territory of the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II and the dissolution of the League. In 1962 Ruanda-Urundi became the two independent states of Rwanda and Burundi.

History

Ruanda and Urundi were two separate kingdoms in the Great Lakes region before the Scramble for Africa. In 1897, the German Empire established a presence in Rwanda with the formation of an alliance with the king, beginning the colonial era. They were administered as two districts of German East Africa. The two monarchies were retained as part of the German policy of indirect rule, with the Ruandan king (''mwami'') Yuhi V Musinga using German support to consolidate his control over subordinate chiefs in exchange for labour and resources.

Belgian military occupation, 1916–1922

When World War I broke out in 1914, German colonies were originally meant to preserve their neutrality as mandated in the Berlin Convention, but fighting soon broke out on the frontier between German East Africa and the Belgian Congo around Lakes Kivu and Tanganyika. As part of the Allied East African campaign, Ruanda and Urundi were invaded by a Belgian force in 1916. German forces in the region were small and hugely outnumbered. Ruanda was occupied over April–May and Urundi in June 1916. By September, a large portion of German East Africa was under Belgian occupation reaching as far south as Kigoma and Karema and as far eastwards as Tabora all in modern-day Tanzania.

In Ruanda and Urundi, the Belgians were welcomed by some civilians, who were opposed to the autocratic behaviour of the kings. In Urundi, much of the population fled or went into hiding, fearful of war. Much of the Swahili trader community which resided along the shores of Lake Tanganyika fled towards Kigoma, as they had long been commercial rivals with Belgian traders and feared retribution. The territory captured was administered by a Belgian military occupation authority ("Belgian Occupied East African Territories") pending an ultimate decision about its political future. An administration, headed by a Royal Commissioner, was established in February 1917 at the same time as Belgian forces were ordered to withdraw from the Tabora region by the British.

While the Germans had begun the practice of conscripting labour from the Ruandans and Urundians during the war, this was limited since the German administration considered sustaining a local labour force logistically challenging. The Belgian occupation force expanded labor conscription; 20,000 men were drafted to act as porters for the Mahenge offensive, and of these only one-third returned home. Many died due to malnourishment and disease. The new labour practices caused some locals to regret the departure of the Germans.

League of Nations mandate, 1922–1946

The Treaty of Versailles in the aftermath of World War I divided the German colonial empire among the Allied nations. German East Africa was partitioned, with Tanganyika allocated to the British and a small area allocated to Portugal. Belgium was allocated Ruanda-Urundi even though this represented only a fraction of the territories already occupied by the Belgian forces in East Africa. Belgian diplomats had originally hoped that Belgian claims in the region could be traded for territory in Portuguese Angola to expand the Congo's access to the Atlantic Ocean. This proved impossible and the League of Nations officially awarded Ruanda-Urundi to Belgium as a B-Class Mandate on 20 July 1922. The mandatory regime was also controversial in Belgium and it was not approved by Belgium's parliament until 1924. Unlike colonies which belonged to its colonial power, a mandate was theoretically subject to international oversight through the League's Permanent Mandates Commission (PMC) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Administratively, the mandate was divided into two ''pays'', Ruanda and Urundi, each under the nominal leadership of a ''Mwami'' as customary ruler. The city of Usumbura (modern-day Bujumbura) and its adjoining townships were classified separately as ''centres extra‑coutumiers'', while the ''pays'' were subdivided into territories.

After a period of inertia, the Belgian administration became actively involved in Ruanda-Urundi between 1926 and 1931 under the governorship of Charles Voisin. The reforms produced a dense road-network and improved agriculture, with the emergence of cash crop farming in cotton and coffee. However, four major famines did ravage parts of the mandate after crop failures in 1916–1918, 1924–26, 1928–30 and 1943–44. The Belgians were far more involved in the territory than the Germans, especially in Ruanda. Despite the mandate rules that the Belgians had to develop the territories and prepare them for independence, the economic policy practised in the Belgian Congo was exported eastwards: the Belgians demanded that the territories earn profits for their country and that any development must come out of funds gathered in the territory. These funds mostly came from the extensive cultivation of coffee in the region's rich volcanic soils.

To implement their vision, the Belgians extended and consolidated a power structure based on indigenous institutions. In practice, they developed a Tutsi ruling class to formally control a mostly Hutu population, through the system of chiefs and sub-chiefs under the overall rule of the two ''Mwami''. Belgian administrators were influenced by the so-called Hamitic hypothesis which suggested that the Tutsi were partially descended from a Semitic people

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