The Rwandan Revolution, also known as the wind of destruction,[1] (Kinyarwanda: muyaga)[2] was a period of ethnic violence which occurred in Rwanda in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and was the culmination of years of tension between the Hutu and Tutsi groups. The violence began in November 1959, following the beating up of a Hutu politician, Dominique Mbonyumutwa by Tutsi forces. Believing Mbonyumutwa to have been killed, groups of Hutus began systematic assaults on the Tutsi.
An estimated 20,000 to 100,000 Tutsis were killed and many thousands more, including the Mwami, fled to neighboring Uganda before Belgian commandos arrived to quell the violence. Several Belgians were subsequently accused by Tutsi leaders of abetting the Hutus in the violence. The report of a United Nations special commission reported racism reminiscent of "Nazism against the Tutsi minorities" that had been engineered by the government and Belgian authorities.
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