where did the tutsi come from?
Rwanda
entailment
 As the revolution progressed , many Tutsi left Rwanda to escape Hutu purges . The exodus , which began during the November 1959 arson attacks , continued steadily throughout the revolution . An official , late @-@ 1964 total of 336 @,@ 000 Tutsi settled primarily in the four neighbouring countries of Burundi , Uganda , Tanganyika ( later Tanzania ) and Congo @-@ Léopoldville . The exiles , unlike the ethnic Rwandans who migrated during the pre @-@ colonial and colonial eras , were seen as refugees by their host countries and began almost immediately to agitate for a return to Rwanda . Their aims differed ; some sought reconciliation with Kayibanda and the new regime , some affiliated with the exiled King Kigeli and others wished to oust the new PARMEHUTU regime from power and establish a socialist republic . 

entailment
 Tension between Tutsi and Hutu had been escalating during the 1950s , and culminated in the 1959 Rwandan Revolution . Hutu activists began killing Tutsi , forcing more than 100 @,@ 000 to seek refuge in neighbouring countries . Kagame 's family abandoned their home , living for two years in the far northeast of Rwanda and eventually crossing the border into Uganda . They moved gradually north , and settled in the Nshungerezi refugee camp in the Toro sub @-@ region in 1962 . It was around this time that , as young boys , Kagame and his future comrade , Fred Rwigyema , first met one another . 

entailment
 Beginning in late 1960 armed groups of Tutsi exiles ( called inyenzi or " cockroaches " by the Hutu government ) launched attacks into Rwanda from neighbouring countries , with mixed success . The inyenzi in Burundi , supported by that country 's newly installed , independent Tutsi republic , caused some disruption in southern Rwanda . Refugees in the Congo , Uganda and Tanzania were less able to organise military operations because of local conditions ; exiles in Tanzania were treated well by local authorities and many settled permanently , giving up aspirations to return to Rwanda . The inyenzi attacks themselves propelled more refugees across the borders , since the government often responded with further attacks on the Tutsi still living in Rwanda . 

contradiction
 By 1600 , irrigated paddy fields were developed in the central highland Betsileo Kingdom , and were extended with terraced paddies throughout the neighboring Kingdom of Imerina a century later . The rising intensity of land cultivation and the ever @-@ increasing demand for zebu pasturage had largely transformed the central highlands from a forest ecosystem to grassland by the 17th century . The oral histories of the Merina people , who may have arrived in the central highlands between 600 and 1000 years ago , describe encountering an established population they called the Vazimba . Probably the descendants of an earlier and less technologically advanced Austronesian settlement wave , the Vazimba were assimilated or expelled from the highlands by the Merina kings Andriamanelo , Ralambo and Andrianjaka in the 16th and early 17th centuries . Today , the spirits of the Vazimba are revered as tompontany ( ancestral masters of the land ) by many traditional Malagasy communities . 

entailment
 Before the start of the colonial period , the region of South Kasai formed part of the Luba Empire , a federation of local kingdoms with a degree of cultural uniformity . During the 17th and 18th centuries , the Baluba spread across large parts of the Kasai @-@ Katanga savannah along the Kasai river basin and eventually developed into a number of ethnic subgroups , notably the Luba @-@ Kasai and the Luba @-@ Katanga . Although never united into a single centralised state , the groups retained a degree of emotional attachment based around shared origin myths and cultural practices . Other groups , like the Songye and the Kanyok , also had long histories in the Kasai region . 
