In 1991, he ruled against Habyarimana in a case involving the denial of certain political privileges to opposition parties which the president had allowed to his own party, the Mouvement Révolutionaire National pour le Développement (MRND), such as the ability to broadcast positions on the state radio station, Radio Rwanda.
[3] As the Rwandan Civil War dragged on, Habyarimana would negotiate with the political opposition and agree to reforms only to soon thereafter renege on them.
Tired with what he perceived as obstructionism, in 1993 Kavaruganda wrote a letter to the president, listing the occasions in the previous years in which he had violated laws and broken his promises.
One edition of Kangura displayed a cartoon of him hanging from a tree with copies of the accords below him, captioned with a threat to kill him if a bi-ethnic power-sharing government was installed.
On the morning of 4 August Habyarimana was sworn in as interim President at the Parliament building, but then suddenly departed before calling up the new prime minister and cabinet to be inaugurated.
Habyarimana returned that afternoon with a list of new cabinet members to be sworn in from Hutu extremist parties which had not been agreed upon in the Arusha Accords.
[1][5] On 17 February UNAMIR commander Roméo Dallaire learned that an extremist group known as the Death Escadron was planning to assassinate Tutsi politician Lando Ndasingwa and Kavaruganda.
[8] On 6 April 1994, when President Habyarimana's plane was shot down near Kigali Airport, killing him and triggering the start of the Rwandan genocide.
[9] Minister of Agriculture Frédéric Nzamurambaho, a moderate Hutu and a neighbor of Kavaruganda, telephoned him shortly after midnight on 7 April to inform him that all MRND members were being evacuated from the neighborhood.
[12] While Kavaruganda waited for help, Jean-Marcel telephoned to say that he heard on Belgian radio that opposition party members in Kigali were being killed and urged his father to leave.
While Kavaruganda explained that he was trapped, Kabera's men broke down the front door and began searching the house.
[16] One of the Hutu-loyalist ministers evacuated during the night, Casimir Bizimungu, returned to the neighborhood soon thereafter to gather some things from his home.