Bugesera invasion

Bugesera invasion
Date 21–27 December 1963 Location Rwanda Result Rwandan government victory Anti-Tutsi massacres in Rwanda
Belligerents
Inyenzi Supported by:  China	Rwanda Supported by:  Belgium
Commanders and leaders
François Rukeba Kigeli V (disputed)	Grégoire Kayibanda Juvénal Habyarimana (disputed)
Units involved
Armée Royale Rwandaise	Garde Nationale Rwandaise
Strength
Hundreds of exiles Hundreds or thousands of supporters	c. 1,000 soldiers c. 50 Belgian military advisers
Casualties and losses
Hundreds killed	4–9 soldiers killed
10,000–20,000 Tutsi civilians killed in subsequent reprisals

The Bugesera invasion (French: Invasion de Bugesera), also known as the Bloody Christmas (French: Noël Rouge),^[1] was a military attack which was conducted against Rwanda by Inyenzi rebels who aimed to overthrow the government in December 1963. The Inyenzi were a collection of ethnically Tutsi exiles who were affiliated with the Rwandan political party Union Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR), which had supported Rwanda's deposed Tutsi monarchy. The Inyenzi opposed Rwanda's transformation upon independence from Belgium into a state run by the ethnic Hutu majority through the Parti du Mouvement de l'Emancipation Hutu (PARMEHUTU), an anti-Tutsi political party led by President Grégoire Kayibanda. In late 1963, Inyenzi leaders decided to launch an invasion of Rwanda from their bases in neighbouring countries to overthrow Kayibanda. While an attempted assault in November was stopped by the government of Burundi, early in the morning on 21 December 1963, several hundred Inyenzi crossed the Burundian border and captured the Rwandan military in camp in Gako, Bugesera. Bolstered with seized arms and recruited locals, the Iyenzi—numbering between 1,000 and 7,000—marched on the Rwandan capital, Kigali. They were stopped 12 miles (19 kilometres) south of the city at Kanzenze Bridge along the Nyabarongo River by multiple units of the Garde Nationale Rwandaise (GNR). The GNR routed the rebels with their superior firepower, and in subsequent days repelled further Inyenzi attacks launched from the Republic of the Congo and Uganda.

Shortly after the invasion, the Rwandan regime moved to purge moderate Hutu and leading Tutsi politicians. About 20 opposition leaders from UNAR and the Rassemblement Démocratique du Rwanda were accused of collaborating with the rebels, arrested, and executed in Ruhengeri. Kayibanda assigned ministers in his government to each of the country's ten prefectures—dubbed "emergency regions"—and granted them emergency powers to defend them, including the responsibility of organising Hutu "self-defence" militias. The militias conducted systematic reprisals against Tutsis, with the most intense violence occurring in the prefecture of Gikongoro. Killings lasted into January 1964, with estimates of the death toll reaching as high as 20,000 Tutsi killed. Thousands more fled the country. The massacres provoked international outcry and accusations of genocide, which were denied by the Rwandan government. The invasion and subsequent reprisals left UNAR's domestic bases of support destroyed and resulted in Rwanda becoming a de facto one-party PARMEHUTU state, while the status of the GNR was also improved. Inyenzi attacks persisted for several years but were easily repulsed. There remains disagreement over whether the reprisal killings of Tutsis constituted genocide.