Banyamulenge - Origins and Early Political Status

Origins and Early Political Status

Compared to the history of the Banyamasisi, the mostly Hutu Banyarwanda in North Kivu, the history of Banyamulenge is relatively straightforward. The first arrival of Banyarwanda from Rwanda may have occurred in the seventeenth century. However, the first significant recorded influx of Banyarwanda into South Kivu is dated to the 1880s. Two reasons are given. The first is that the migrants were composed of Tutsi trying to avoid the increasingly high taxes imposed by Mwami Rwabugiri of the Kingdom of Rwanda. The second is that the group was fleeing the violent war of succession that erupted after the death of Rwabugiri in 1895. This group was mostly Tutsi and their Hutu abagaragu (clients) had been icyihuture (turned Tutsi), which negated interethnic tension. They settled above the Ruzizi Plain on the Itombwe Plateau. The plateau, which reached an altitude of 3000 meters, could not support large-scale agriculture, but allowed cattle grazing.

Banyarwanda migrants continued to arrive, particularly as labor migrants during the colonial period. The first of these was a recruitment by the Union Minière du Haut Katanga from 1925 to 1929 of more than 7000 workers. From the 1930s, Banyarwanda immigrants continued coming in search of work, with a major influx of Tutsi refugees in 1959–1960 following the "Social Revolution" led by Hutu Grégoire Kayibanda. While the early migrants were primarily pastoralists in the high plains, colonial labor migrants moved to urban areas, while refugees found themselves in refugee camps. In 1924, the pastoralists received permission from colonial authorities to occupy a high plateau father south. The groups received further influxes during the anti-Tutsi persecutions in 1959, 1964 and 1973. Many Banyamulenge initially joined the Simba Rebellion of 1964-5, but switched sides when rebels, fleeing Jean Schramme's mercenaries and government troops, came onto the plateau and began killing the Banyarwanda's cattle for food. The Tutsi then rose up, accepting weapons from the pro-Mobutu Sese Seko forces and assisting in the defeat of the remaining rebels. Because many of the rebels so killed were from the neighboring Bembe people, this incident created a lasting source of intragroup tension. The government rewarded the Banyamulenge's efforts on its behalf by rewarding individuals with high positions in the capital Bukavu, while their children were increasingly sent to missionary schools. Starting at this time, Lemarchand asserts, "From a rural, isolated, backward community, the Banyamulenge would soon become increasingly aware of themselves as a political force."

After the war, the group took advantage of a favorable political environment to expand. Some went south towards Moba port and Kalemi, while others moved onto the Ruzizi plain, where a few became chiefs among the Barundi through gifts of cattle. Still others went to work in the Bukavu, the provincial capital, or Uvira, a town experiencing a gold rush economic boom. These urban dwellers were able to make a fair living selling meat and milk from their herds to the gold diggers, though the group lacked the political connections to Kinshasa and the large educated class that the North Kivu Banyarwanda possessed.

Unlike the Barundi, the Banyarwanda of South Kivu did not have their own Native Authority and they were thus reliant upon the local chiefs of the area that they had settled. The pastoralists were located within three territoires: Mwenga, inhabited by the Lega people; Fizi of the Bembe people; and Uvira, inhabited by the Vira people, Bafuliro and Barundi. The term "Banyamulenge" translates literally as "people of Mulenge", a groupement on the Itombwe plateau. The name "Banyamulenge" was chosen in the early 1970s to avoid being called "Banyarwanda" and seen as foreigners. Ethnic tensions against Tutsi rose following the end of the colonial period, as well as the 1972 mass killing of Hutu in Burundi. In response the Tutsi appear to have attempted to distance themselves from their ethnicity as Rwandans and lay claim to a territorial identity as residents of Mulenge. As they moved, they continued this practice, so that some Tutsi Banyarwanda in South Kivu call themselves the Banya-tulambo and Banya-minembwe, after the places they were located.