I. Identity Documents and Genocide: Case Studies 40 two social identities were “relatively flexible” before the early 20th century.76 The Banyarwanda people, as the two groups were collectively known, shared a same language, held similar religious beliefs, maintained integrated political structures, engaged in widespread intermarriage, and membership in one group could shift to the other over time.77 Nevertheless, substantial evidence indicates that the categories of “Hutu” and “Tutsi” became increasingly fixed in “racial” terms following colonization, first by Germany between 1894 and 1918 but then especially by Belgium between 1924 and 1962.78 Both sets of colonial administrators ruled indirectly, relying upon Tutsi monarchs and the leaders of their respective clans, which included both Hutu and Tutsi households, to implement policies.79 However, Belgian racial stereotypes— identifying Tutsi as being taller, lighter-skinned, and thinner than Hutu and, therefore, superior— acquired a veneer of official legitimacy as its personnel “instituted a system of rigid classification, involving such ‘modern science’ methods as the measurement of noses and skull size, and the attribution of obligatory papers stating one’s ethnicity.”80 The national identification card, first introduced in Rwanda by Belgian colonial administrators in 1933 following a colony-wide census, institutionalized the now monolithic “Hutu” and “Tutsi” distinction, laying the groundwork for more systematic forms of discrimination and, later, genocide.81 The document, compulsory for everyone over the age of ten, was known as the carte d’identité in French or Indanggamuntu in Kinyarwanda, the language spoken by both groups.82 The card included a line listing the person’s ethnicity, or ubwoko in Kinyarwanda, directly underneath the photo located on the top of page two.83 Identifying as “mixed,” the result of intermarriage, was not an option; the official designation was instead based on the ethnicity of the card holder’s father.84 The ethnic categorization also informed differential treatment. Under Belgian rule, for example, Tutsi had access to education and administrative positions as civil servants, whereas Hutu generally had neither.85 Over time, these practices produced a Tutsi-dominated elite that further polarized Rwandan society during the years leading up to independence in 1961.86 In 1957, a group of Hutu intellectuals issued a manifesto calling for an end to both Tutsi exploitation and Belgian rule.87 The subtitle of the document, “Note on the Social Aspect of the Native Racial Problem in Rwanda,” set the tone for an increasingly ethno-nationalist movement decrying the 76 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Historical Perspective: Some Explanatory Factors, 1996, https://www.oecd.org/countries/rwanda/50189653.pdf, p. 22. Human Rights Watch, “Leave None to Tell the Story”: Genocide in Rwanda, March 1999, https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-3-09.htm. 77 Longman, “Identity Cards, Ethnic Self-Perception, and Genocide in Rwanda,” p. 351; J.J. Carney, “Beyond Tribalism: The Hutu-Tutsi Question and Catholic Rhetoric in Colonial Rwanda,” Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 42, 2012, p. 174. 78 Tom Dannenbaum, “War and Peace in Rwanda,” Kristen Eichenseer and W. Michael Reisman (eds.), Wars and Making Peace: Studies in International Intervention (Boston: Martinus Nijihoff Publishers, 2009), p. 79. 79 Magnarella, “Explaining Rwanda’s 1994 Genocide,” Human Rights & Human Welfare, p. 25; David Newbury, “The Clans of Rwanda: An Historical Hypothesis,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 50, No. 4, 1980, p. 389. 80 Peter Uvin, ���Prejudice, Crisis, and Genocide in Rwanda,” African Politics Review, Vol. 31, No. 3, 1999, p. 95. In the eyes of the Belgian authorities, the “Hamitic hypothesis” explained this state of affairs and warranted its continuation under its close supervision. The hypothesis, then popular across Europe, maintained that the ruling groups in Africa, such as the Tutsi, were the migratory descendants of Noah’s son, Ham, and were thus racially superior to the indigenous “negro” populations, such as the Hutu. Nigel Eltringham, “‘Invaders Who Have Stolen the Country’: The Hamitic Hypothesis, Race, and the Rwandan Genocide,” Social Identities, Vol. 12, No. 4, 2006, pp. 425-446. 81 Official Bulletin of the Congo-Belgium, “Décret sur les Circonscription Indgènes,” October 27, 1933. 82 Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu, ICTR, Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, Judgement (Trial), September 2, 1998, para. 83, 702. 83 Prevent Genocide International, “Group Classification on National ID Cards as a Factor in Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing,” November 15, 2001, http://www.preventgenocide.org/prevent/removing-facilitating-factors/IDcards/. 84 Magnarella, “Explaining Rwanda’s 1994 Genocide,” Human Rights & Human Welfare, p. 26. 85 OECD, “Historical Perspective: Some Explanatory Factors,” p. 27. 86 Id. at pp. 27-28. 87 Id. at 28. Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 43-44.