Peace Brother.
From my limited knowledge on the subject (talks with people from the area/neighbouring counry and books), it is rather clear that the genocide was 'tribal'. It was at least made to look that way.
As history would have it, the Bantu people (see: Ba-Hutu) were the majority for a good while in the area we today call Burundi and Rwanda. There were other groups there who also belong to Bantu group, but they were minorities in that area. At some point, another Bantu group people (see: Ba-Tutsi, who some claim were at one point Nilotic prior to integraton, modern science refutes this) entered the fray and brought with them the pastoral/cattle rearing lifestyle.
This lifestyle gave them an unprecedented access to power, (they would sell cattle, negotiate loans etc), financially and what-not. Thus began the fight for power, largely non-violent I assume. The ba-Hutu majority were mostly agricultural, so apparently they had less leverage.
Around this point, when the ba-Tutsi had the upper hand in terms of finance (as far as I can remember, there were minimal conflicts and it was just co-existence, but I am not ruling out that some Hutus and Tutsi were p_issed o_ff at each other for whatever reasons), the white man comes along. From there, it's a short tale.
White man and his primitive/corrupted/manipulative mind instantly saw the ba-Tutsi, who some claim are lighter in complexion and have features that are akin to the european (not by a long shot, seriously) and decided they were more 'elegant, graceful and intelligent' (likely based on their financial upper hand, you know how crackuhz do) and therefore superior in every way to the primitive ba-Hutu.
Soon, the ba-Hutu were seen as docile and subservient, very dumb and not capable of civilization (typical Afrikan, says the white man). Although this is not documented, we can guess that the whites favored the ba-Tutsi (quicker to assimilate white values? see: Igbo) and played on whatever schism was there from before. Tutsis became arrogant, Hutus became angry.
Shortly thereafter, whites would leave the land, and also leave the Tutsis in power. Important to note here is how the colonizers/whites had forced their own laws and policies on the countries they colonized, so that despite ancestral and historical land ownership, Tutsis, who were now majority in the government (despite being the overall minority), therefore could use the laws and politics of the whites to justify suddenly getting the best land (top soil etc) and also having the power to -lend- land to Hutus who needed work.
Hutus were also, as the story goes, mostly seen as slaves/inferior or something like that (class issue) and were kept as maids, servants etc. While ba-Tutsi were in positions of power, again, due to the white man appointing them.
Naturally, this bred hostility and soon the killings began. Today, both sides blame each other (because Hutus killed more Tutsis in one country, and Tutsis killed more Hutus in the other).
That is a brief, inaccurate and general account of the genocide in Burundi and Rwanda (same ethnic groups, only difference is that in one country the Hutu is the majority, and in the other the Tutsi is).
Might a Brother ask what led you to ask this question?
Also, I can recommend some books on the subject if you are interested. White written though.
One,
- Ikoro