Rwandophone definition
Rwandophone means Kinyarwanda-speaking people. In the Congolese con- text, the term is used to refer to Congolese of Rwandan ancestry (both Hutus and Tutsis). Although many of them descend from families who arrived during the colonization period or shortly after independence (1960), their Congolese citizenship has been hotly contested for the past fifty years. These ethnic ten- sions have led to local ethnic massacres (Masisi 1993), and they were one of the reasons for the 1998 war. Within the Rwandophone population, I further dif- ferentiate between Banyarwanda (Rwandophones from the North Kivu province) and Banyamulenge (Rwandophones from the South Kivu province). “Indigenous” is the term used by ethnic groups that are native to the east-
Rwandophone means a Kinyarwanda-speaking person. In the Congolese context, the term is used to refer to Congolese of Rwandan ancestry (both Hutus and Tutsis).