Human occupation of Rwanda is thought to have begun shortly after the last ice age. By the 11th century,the inhabitants had organized into a number of kingdoms. In the 19th century,Mwami (king) Rwabugiri of the Kingdom of Rwanda conducted a decades-long process of military conquest and administrative consolidation that resulted in the kingdom coming to control most of what is now Rwanda. The colonial powers,Germany and Belgium,allied with the Rwandan court.
Juvénal Habyarimana was a Rwandan politician and military officer who served as the second president of Rwanda,from 1973 until his assassination in 1994. He was nicknamed Kinani,a Kinyarwanda word meaning "invincible".
Paul Kagame is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who has been the fourth President of Rwanda since 2000. He was previously a commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF),a rebel armed force which invaded Rwanda in 1990. The RPF was one of the parties of the conflict during the Rwandan Civil War and the armed force which triggered the Rwandan genocide. Kagame's armed forces also carried genocidal massacres against civilians. He was considered Rwanda's de facto leader when he was Vice President and Minister of Defence under President Pasteur Bizimungu from 1994 to 2000 after which the vice-presidential post was abolished.
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 872 on 5 October 1993. It was intended to assist in the implementation of the Arusha Accords,signed on 4 August 1993,which was meant to end the Rwandan Civil War. The mission lasted from October 1993 to March 1996. Its activities were meant to aid the peace process between the Hutu-dominated Rwandese government and the Tutsi-dominated rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The UNAMIR has received much attention for its role in failing,due to the limitations of its rules of engagement,to prevent the Rwandan genocide and outbreak of fighting. Its mandate extended past the RPF overthrow of the government and into the Great Lakes refugee crisis. The mission is thus regarded as a major failure.
The Rwandan Patriotic Front,is the ruling political party in Rwanda.
The Interahamwe is a Hutu paramilitary organization active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The Interahamwe was formed around 1990 as the youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development,the then-ruling party of Rwanda,and enjoyed the backing of the Hutu Power government. The Interahamwe,led by Robert Kajuga,were the main perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide,during which an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi,Twa,and moderate Hutus were killed from April to July 1994,and the term "Interahamwe" was widened to mean any civilian militias or bands killing Tutsi.
The Rwandan genocide,also known as the genocide against the Tutsi,occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days,members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group,as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa,were killed by armed Hutu militias. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide,the actual number of fatalities is unclear,and some estimates suggest that the real number killed was likely lower. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths.
Augustin Bizimungu is a Rwandan convicted war criminal and former general of the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR). On 16 April 1994,at the start of the Genocide against the Tutsi,he was appointed chief of staff of the army and promoted to the rank of major general. In 2011,he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in the Rwandan genocide.
Joseph Kavaruganda was a Rwandan jurist who served as president of Rwanda's Constitutional Court. He was killed at the beginning of the Rwandan genocide.
The Rwandan Civil War was a large-scale civil war in Rwanda which was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces,representing the country's government,and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1 October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose from the long-running dispute between the Hutu and Tutsi groups within the Rwandan population. A 1959–1962 revolution had replaced the Tutsi monarchy with a Hutu-led republic,forcing more than 336,000 Tutsi to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. A group of these refugees in Uganda founded the RPF which,under the leadership of Fred Rwigyema and Paul Kagame,became a battle-ready army by the late 1980s.
The Great Lakes refugee crisis is the common name for the situation beginning with the exodus in April 1994 of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Many of the refugees were Hutu fleeing the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF),which had gained control of the country at the end of the genocide. However,the humanitarian relief effort was vastly compromised by the presence among the refugees of many of the Interahamwe and government officials who carried out the genocide,who used the refugee camps as bases to launch attacks against the new government led by Paul Kagame. The camps in Zaire became particularly politicized and militarized. The knowledge that humanitarian aid was being diverted to further the aims of the genocidaires led many humanitarian organizations to withdraw their assistance. The conflict escalated until the start of the First Congo War in 1996,when RPF-supported rebels invaded Zaire and sought to repatriate the refugees.
Tharcisse Renzaho is a Rwandan soldier,former politician and war criminal. He is best known for his role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
On the evening of 6 April 1994,the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira,both Hutu,was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as their jet prepared to land in Kigali,Rwanda;both were killed. The assassination set in motion the Rwandan genocide,one of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.
The following is a partial chronology of significant events surrounding the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Human rights in Rwanda have been violated on a grand scale. The greatest violation is the Rwandan genocide of Tutsi in 1994. The post-genocide government is also responsible for grave violations of human rights.
Seth Sendashonga was the Minister of the Interior in the government of national unity in Rwanda,following the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) after the 1994 genocide. One of the politically moderate Hutus in the National Unity Cabinet,he became increasingly disenchanted with the RPF and was eventually forced from office in 1995 after criticizing government policies. After surviving a 1996 assassination attempt while in exile in Kenya,he launched a new opposition movement,the Forces de Résistance pour la Démocratie (FRD). Sendashonga was killed by unidentified gunmen in May 1998. The Rwandan government is widely believed to be responsible for the assassination.
Charles Ntakirutinka is a former Transportation Minister in the post-genocide Rwandan government,who was later imprisoned on charges of creating civil disorder as well as planning assassinations. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and a 2011 "priority case".
The role of France in the 1994 cenocide against the Tutsi has been a source of controversy and debate both within and beyond France and Rwanda. France actively supported the Hutu-led government of Juvénal Habyarimana against the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front,which since 1990 had been engaged in a conflict intended to restore the rights of Rwandan Tutsis both within Rwanda and exiled in neighboring countries following over four decades of anti-Tutsi violence. France provided arms and military training to Habyarimana's militias,the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi,which were among the government's primary means of operationalizing the genocide following the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6,1994.
The following lists events that happened during 1994 in the Republic of Rwanda.
In Praise of Blood:The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a 2018 non-fiction book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever and published by Random House of Canada;it has also been translated into Dutch and French. The book describes alleged war crimes by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF),Rwanda's ruling political party,during its ascent to power in the 1990s.
