[15] An alternative theory is that the migration was slow and steady from neighbouring regions, with incoming groups bearing high genetic similarity to the established ones,[16] and integrating into rather than conquering the existing society.

[59] In the 1980s, a group of 500 Rwandan refugees in Uganda, led by Fred Rwigyema, fought with the rebel National Resistance Army (NRA) in the Ugandan Bush War, which saw Yoweri Museveni overthrow Milton Obote.

[56] Many hardline anti-Tutsi figures remained, including the family of the first lady Agathe Habyarimana, who were known as the akazu or clan de Madame,[77] and the president relied on them to maintain his regime.

[98] The new recruits were often poorly disciplined;[98] a divide grew between the elite Presidential Guard and Gendarmerie units, who were well trained and battle ready, and the ordinary rank and file, respectively.

[113][114] André Guichaoua, an expert witness for the ICTR prosecution, noted in 2010: What the Office of the Prosecutor has consistently failed to demonstrate is the alleged existence of a "conspiracy" among the accused—presuming an association or a preexisting plan to commit genocide.

"[119] By the time the violence began, the young Hutu population had absorbed months of racist propaganda that characterized all Tutsis as dangerous enemies that must be killed before they seized control of the country.

[128] In November 2014, Emmanuel Mughisa (also known as Emile Gafarita), a former Rwandan soldier who said he had evidence that Kagame had ordered Habyarimana's plane shot down, was abducted in Nairobi hours after he was called to testify at the French inquiry.

Following Habyarimana's death, on the evening of 6 April, a crisis committee was formed; it consisted of Major General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, and a number of other senior army staff officers.

[139] In addition to assassinating Uwilingiyimana, the extremists spent the night of 6–7 April moving around the houses of Kigali with lists of prominent moderate politicians and journalists, on a mission to kill them.

[140][136] Fatalities that evening included President of the Constitutional Court Joseph Kavaruganda, Minister of Agriculture Frederic Nzamurambaho, Parti Liberal leader Landwald Ndasingwa and his Canadian wife, and chief Arusha negotiator Boniface Ngulinzira.

They also recruited and pressured Hutu civilians to arm themselves with machetes, clubs, blunt objects, and other weapons and encouraged them to rape, maim, and kill their Tutsi neighbors and to destroy or steal their property.

[154] Following the assassination of Habyarimana, Bagosora immediately began issuing orders to kill Tutsi, addressing groups of interahamwe in person in Kigali,[155] and making telephone calls to leaders in the prefectures.

[154] Military leaders in Gisenyi prefecture, the heartland of the akazu, were initially the most organized, convening a gathering of the Interahamwe and civilian Hutus; the commanders announced the president's death, blaming the RPF, and then ordered the crowd to "begin your work" and to "spare no one", including infants.

[99] Tharcisse Renzaho, the prefect of Kigali-ville, played a leading role, touring the roadblocks to ensure their effectiveness and using his position at the top of the Kigali provincial government to disseminate orders and dismiss officials who were not sufficiently active in the killings.

[178][179] When Roméo Dallaire visited the government's headquarters a week after its formation, he found most officials at leisure, describing their activities as "sorting out the seating plan for a meeting that was not about to convene any time soon".

[187] In the remaining prefectures, killings continued throughout May and June, although they became increasingly sporadic;[166] most Tutsi were already dead, and the interim government wished to rein in the growing anarchy and engage the population in fighting the RPF.

The exceptional brutality of the sexual violence, as well as the complicity of Hutu women in the attacks, suggests that the use of propaganda had been effective in the exploitation of gendered needs which had mobilized both females and males to participate.

[258] He also became aware of secret weapons caches through an informant, but his request to raid them was turned down by the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO),[257] which felt that Dallaire was exceeding his mandate and had to be kept "on a leash".

[261] Following the death of Habyarimana, and the start of the genocide, Dallaire liaised repeatedly with both the Crisis Committee and the RPF, attempting to re-establish peace and prevent the resumption of the civil war.

[216] UNAMIR's Chapter VI mandate rendered it powerless to intervene militarily,[166] and most of its Rwandan staff were killed in the early days of the genocide, severely limiting its ability to operate.

On 12 April, the Belgian government, which was one of the largest troop contributors to UNAMIR,[265] and had lost ten soldiers protecting Prime Minister Uwilingiliyimana, announced that it was withdrawing, reducing the force's effectiveness even further.

[283] Intelligence reports indicate that United States president Bill Clinton and his cabinet were aware before the height of the massacre that a deliberate and systematic genocide to eliminate all Tutsis was planned.

[284] Fear of a repeat of the events in Somalia shaped US policy at the time, with many commentators identifying the graphic consequences of the Battle of Mogadishu as the key reason behind the US's failure to intervene in later conflicts such as the Rwandan genocide.

[303] The camps were set up by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but were effectively controlled by the army and government of the former Hutu regime, including many leaders of the genocide,[186] who began rearming in a bid to return to power in Rwanda.

[320] Rwanda fell out with the new Congolese government in 1998, and Kagame supported a fresh rebellion, leading to the Second Congo War, which would last up until 2003 and caused millions of deaths and massive damage.

[326] The long-term effects of war rape in Rwanda for the victims include social isolation, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and babies, with some women resorting to self-induced abortions.

[356] In 2010, Peter Erlinder, an American law professor and attorney, was arrested in Kigali and charged with genocide denial while serving as defense counsel for presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire.

[362][363][364] The critically acclaimed and multiple Academy Award-nominated film Hotel Rwanda (2004) is based on the experiences of Paul Rusesabagina, a Kigali hotelier at the Hôtel des Mille Collines who sheltered over a thousand refugees during the genocide.

[citation needed] In 2005, Alison Des Forges wrote that eleven years after the genocide, films for popular audiences on the subject greatly increased the "widespread realization of the horror that had taken the lives of more than half a million Tutsi".

[369] In March 2019, President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo visited Rwanda to sign the Kigali Genocide Memorial Book, saying, "The collateral effects of these horrors have not spared my country, which has also lost millions of lives.