Rwanda was first colonized by the Germans who arrived (1895-1916). During World War One, the country was occupied by Belgian troops who, in 1923, were granted a mandate by the League of Nations to govern Rwanda - Urundi, which it ruled indirectly. They turned their mandate into a colonial occupation until the Rwandan  independence in 1962. There were some benefits to their presence, Christianity was integrated into society, schooling and medicine developed, as did the infrastructure. However, Rwandans did not share good times together with their new colonial authorities. Initially, Rwanda tried to resist the influence of colonialism, fighting the first Germans in 1875. But the colonial powers were stronger and their influence greater.

The primary identity of all Rwandans was originally associated with eighteen different clans. The categories Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were socio-economic classifications within the clans, which could change with personal circumstances. Under colonial rule, the distinctions were made racial, particularly with the introduction of the identity card in 1932. In creating these distinctions, the colonial power identified anyone with ten cows in 1932 as Tutsi and anyone with less than ten cows as Hutu, and this also applied to his descendants.  Rwandans lived in peace for many centuries, but now the divide between Hutu and Tutsi has been very bad to say the least. Rwanda is a country of hills, mountains, forests, lakes, laughing children, markets of busy people, drummers, dancers, artisans and craftsmen. The Rwandan population is about eight million people spread 26,338 square kilometers. The land is rich and fertile, the climate pleasant. Rwanda has been the homeland of three ethnic groups, the Twa, Hutu, and the Tutsi for centuries. They speak one language, and they have one history.

In recent times, though, genocide has cast a dark shadow over their lives and torn them apart. That is a bitter part of their lives, but one that must be remembered for those massacred, and for the sake of the future. Church has been deeply intertwined with politics and ethnicity conflicts. While the Europeans brought development and many practical benefits, the changes that occurred in Rwandan society over a period of five decades were profoundly unsettling. Far-reaching shifts in political and economic fortunes compounded the confusion about ethnicity and identity and led to increasing resentment and mutual mistrust among Rwandans.

The genocide of tutsi started in early 1960s, following the 1957 Bahutu manifesto. It continued periodically by killing tutsi everywhere in the country, destroying their properties and sending them out of the country. In 1990, Tutsi refugees from previous years attached Rwanda tired of refugee conditions in neighboring countries, and the resistance of the hutu government climaxed in organized systematic tutsi cleansing. The genocide organizers and perpetrators called it "the apocalypse". They successfully conducted a mass killing of more than 1,000,000 tutsi and moderate hutu people in 100 days only. On April 6th 1994, the presidential airplane was short down killing President Habyalimana Juvenal and all those who were with him, as they were coming from peace talks in Tanzania.  Genocide was instant. Roadblocks sprang up right across the city, the militia were armed with one intent - to identify and kill Tutsis.  They began house-to-house searches. The names on the death lists were the first to be visited and slaughtered in their own homes.  The perpetrators had promised an apocalypse, and the operation which emerged was a devastating frenzy of violence, bloodshed and merciless killing. The murderers used machetes, clubs, guns, and any blunt tool they could find to inflict as much pain on their victims as possible. It was genocide from the first day. No Tutsi was exempt. Women were beaten, raped, humiliated, abused and ultimately murdered, often in the sight of their own families.  Children watched as their parents were tortured, beaten and killed in front of their eyes, before their own small bodies were sliced, smashed, abused, pulverized and discarded. The elderly, the pride of Rwandan society, were despised, and mercilessly murdered in cold blood. Neighbors turned on neighbors, friends on friends, even family on their own family members.
 
Rwanda had turned into a nation of brutal, sadistic, merciless killers, and of innocent victims overnight. When all this killing was going on, the UN peace keeping mission was ordered to pull out of Rwanda leaving the fate of helpless tutsi ordinary peasants, children, women, elderly in the hands of their murderers. Tutsi people were gathered by local administrators on stadiums, churches, schools, and other large public places where soldiers and militiamen will come and murder them en mass, using grenades, machine guns, machetes, axes, and many other traditional farming tools turned into weapons of mass destruction. They left thousands of dead bodies where the massacre took place, and were devoured by ferocious animals, and many others were thrown in pits and in rivers and lakes. In some cases they will leave little children half dead in piles of dead bodies, and they will stay there until they die of hunger or until the rebel RPF soldiers will arrive and rescue them.  There are few tutsi who survived due to the compassion of their hutu neighbors. These hutu people risked their lives by hiding the tutsis who were hunted down by the interahamwe, and there many hutus were killed because of being sympathetic with tutsis. They deserve a special recognition, they are the unsung heroes.

Many women were raped brutally and repeatedly, often by men who were known to be HIV positive. This genocidal weapon has had devastating effects on many women who developed the disease. There are at least 500,000 women who were victims of rape during the genocide and in the refugee camps, where Rwandans were trained by the genocidaires who had fled. Female survivors have either died from the effects of AIDS or continue to live under its debilitating influence. Some of these female survivors who were infected with HIV were also pregnant and gave birth to children who were also infected with HIV. The anti-retro viral medication has not been made available in a timely or sufficient way to save lives, many of the children and their mother have died and are still dying of AIDS. HIV positive planners of the genocide and perpetrators of rape, however, have had access to medication in Arusha. Burying the dead in dignity, the cost of exhumation, identification and reburial has also been beyond the reach of many poor survivors living well below subsistence levels. A decade after the genocide, mass graves are still being discovered daily, and public exhumations and burials carried out. Many survivors are young and will carry the trauma of their childhood through the rest of their lives and probably the lives of their descendants.