[2] As it became clear that the war had reached a stalemate, the sides began peace negotiations in May 1992, which resulted in the signing in August 1993 of the Arusha Accords to create a power-sharing government.

Hutu Power portrayed the RPF as an alien force intent on reinstating the Tutsi monarchy and enslaving the Hutus, a prospect which must be resisted at all costs.

This political force led to the collapse of the first Habyarimana government in July 1993, when Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye criticized the president in writing for delaying a peace agreement.

The main opposition parties refused to support Madame Agathe's appointment, each splitting into two factions: one calling for the unwavering defense of Hutu Power and the other, labeled "moderate", that sought a negotiated settlement to the war.

[6] In February 1994, Roméo Dallaire, the head of the military force attached to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), which had been sent to observe the implementation of the Arusha Accords, informed his superiors, "Time does seem to be running out for political discussions, as any spark on the security side could have catastrophic consequences.

Despite a classified February Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysis predicting half a million deaths if the Arusha process failed,[8] the U.S. was attempting to reduce its international commitments in the wake of the Somalia debacle and lobbied to end the mission.

[10] According to interim Prime Minister Jean Kambanda's testimony to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), President Mobutu of neighboring Zaire (now DRC) had warned Habyarimana not to go to Dar es Salaam on 6 April.

[12] Shortly before 8:20 pm local time (18:20 UTC), the presidential jet circled once around Kigali International Airport before coming in for final approach in clear skies.

[13] A weekly flight by a Belgian C-130 Hercules carrying UNAMIR troops returning from leave had been scheduled to land before the presidential jet, but was waved off to give the president priority.

[18]A Rwandan officer cadet at the airport who was listening to the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines heard the announcer state that the presidential jet was coming in to land.

Soldiers of the paracommando brigade Commandos de recherche et d'action en profondeur assembled on the parade ground at around 9:00 pm while members of other units gathered elsewhere in the camp.

[23] Numerous people began calling UNAMIR seeking information, including Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and Lando Ndasingwa.

Dallaire asked the prime minister if she could confirm that it was the president's plane that had crashed, and called UNAMIR political head Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh to inform him of developments.

She also asked for UNAMIR help in regaining control of the political situation, as she was legally next in the line of succession, but some moderate ministers allied to her had already begun fleeing their homes, fearing for their safety.

[25] The patrol of UNAMIR Belgian soldiers sent to investigate the crash site was stopped at a Presidential Guards roadblock at 9:35 pm, disarmed and sent to the airport.

About half an hour later, roughly 9:30, the situation was still confused at army command, though it appeared clear that the presidential aircraft had exploded and that it had probably been hit by a missile.

[29] Observers feared that President Ntaryamira's death would lead to widespread violence in Burundi, as had happened when his predecessor, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated during a coup attempt in October 1993.

The Burundian government declared that the plane crash was caused by an accident[31] and President of the National Assembly Sylvestre Ntibantunganya made a broadcast on television, flanked by the minister of defence and the army chief of staff, appealing for calm.

[33] On 16 April a requiem mass was held for Ntaryamira at the Regina Mundi Cathedral in Bujumbura, attended by thousands of people,[31] and he and his two ministers were subsequently buried in a state funeral.

A group of about 70 Rwandans and Burundians at the New Mwanza Hotel celebrated the assassination, leading Prime Minister John Malecela to order their arrest.

On 12 May 1997, as Laurent-Désiré Kabila's ADFL rebels were advancing on Gbadolite, Mobutu had the remains flown by cargo plane to Kinshasa where they waited on the tarmac of N'djili Airport for three days.

French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière had led an inquiry in 2004 which accused the RPF of shooting down the plane from Masaka Hill, but it was found to be based on the testimonies of witnesses who were not regarded as credible.

Mark Doyle, a BBC News correspondent who reported from Kigali through the 1994 genocide, noted in 2006 that the identities of the assassins "could turn out to be one of the great mysteries of the late 20th century.

[54] A January 2000 article in the Canadian National Post reported that Louise Arbour, the chief prosecutor for the ICTR, had terminated an investigation into the shootdown after three Tutsi informants came forward in 1997 with detailed accusations against Paul Kagame and the RPF, claiming that they had been members of an "elite strike team" responsible for the downing.

According to Arbour, the OTP in Kigali was in a very difficult situation at the time: We did not want to invest substantial resources only to have a judge refuse to confirm an indictment for lack of jurisdiction.

[....] From a legal angle, it is not so much the shooting down of the plane that is of interest, but allegations of actions by the RPF that would have constituted crimes against humanity during the period of time (1994) over which the tribunal had jurisdiction.

[69] The scholar René Lemarchand wrote about the book that "The careful marshalling of the evidence, the remarkably precise information concerning who did what, where, and when, the author's familiarity with the operational code of the RPF, leave few doubts in the reader's mind about Kagame's responsibility in triggering the event that led to the bloodshed.

[71] Linda Melvern wrote that Bruguière's evidence "was very sparse, and that some of it, concerning the alleged anti-aircraft missiles used to down the presidential jet, had already been rejected by a French Parliamentary enquiry.

"[48] A 2007 article by Colette Braeckman in Le Monde Diplomatique strongly questions the reliability of Judge Bruguière's report and suggests the direct involvement of French military personnel acting for or with the Presidential Guard of the Rwanda governmental forces in the missile attack on the aircraft.

"[73] Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan of mixed Hutu and Tutsi origin whose life-saving efforts was the basis of the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda, has supported the allegation that Kagame and the RPF were behind the plane downing, and wrote in November 2006 that it "defies logic" that the UN Security Council had not ordered an investigation, as it had done following the far less consequential assassination of Rafic Hariri in 2005.