The Hutu Ten Commandments

Hutu Power, a political movement that held the racist ideal of Rwanda as a Hutu nation, proclaimed its founding principles in the “Hutu Ten Commandments.” This document was published in the December 1990 edition of Kangura, an anti-Tutsi, Hutu Power newspaper in Kigali Rwanda.

1. Every Hutu should know that a Tutsi woman, whoever she is, works for the interest of her Tutsi ethnic group. As a result, we shall consider a traitor any Hutu who

  • marries a Tutsi woman

  • employs a Tutsi woman as concubine

  • employs a Tutsi woman as a secretary or takes her under protection.

2. Every Hutu should know that our Hutu daughters are more suitable and conscientious in their role as woman, wife and mother of the family. Are they not beautiful, good secretaries and more honest?
3. Hutu women, be vigilant and try to bring your husbands, brothers and sons back to reason.
4. Every Hutu should know that every Tutsi is dishonest in business. His only aim is the supremacy of his ethnic group. As a result, any Hutu who does the following is a traitor:

  • makes a partnership with Tutsi in business

  • invests his money or the government's money in a Tutsi enterprise

  • lends or borrows money from a Tutsi

  • gives favours to Tutsi in business (obtaining import licenses, bank loans, construction sites, public markets, etc.).

5. All strategic positions, political, administrative, economic, military and security should be entrusted only to Hutu.
6. The education sector (school pupils, students, teachers) must be majority Hutu.
7. The Rwandan Armed Forces should be exclusively Hutu. The experience of the October 1990 war has taught us a lesson. No member of the military shall marry a Tutsi.
8. The Hutu should stop having mercy on the Tutsi.
9. The Hutu, wherever they are, must have unity and solidarity and be concerned with the fate of their Hutu brothers.

  • The Hutu inside and outside Rwanda must constantly look for friends and allies for the Hutu cause, starting with their Hutu brothers.

  • They must constantly counteract Tutsi propaganda.

  • The Hutu must be firm and vigilant against their common Tutsi enemy.

10. The Social Revolution of 1959, the Referendum of 1961, and the Hutu Ideology, must be taught to every Hutu at every level. Every Hutu must spread this ideology widely. Any Hutu who persecutes his brother Hutu for having read, spread, and taught this ideology is a traitor.

Source: Appendix 3, Seminega, Tharcisse (2019) No Greater Love. Davenport, IA: GM&A Publishing.