The civil war in Rwanda began on 1 October 1990 with an invasion from southern Uganda of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel movement. The next three years saw sporadic fighting between the RPF and the Rwandan army, interrupted by a series of partially observed cease-fires. In April 1994, the launching of a genocide by Rwandan extremists brought about the collapse of a long-running cease-fire and brought the two sides back to war. Three months of fighting saw the RPF rout the former Rwandan army, but not before hundreds of thousands of Rwandans perished in a genocide conducted by Rwandan government forces.

In many respects, both the war and genocide were conducted in ethnic terms. The membership of the RPF was predominantly Tutsi, whereas the government of Rwanda (we will sometimes use the acronym "GoR" in reference to the Rwandan government) was dominated by Hutu. (A third ethnic group, the Twa, represented only 1 percent of the prewar population and was never a significant factor in the war.) The genocide was targeted principally against the Tutsi, although a large number of Hutus were also killed, especially at the onset. Was this ethnic war? An outburst of ancient enmities? Journalistic accounts of the genocide painted it as an all-out war: Hutu against Tutsi.

Reality, of course, was more complex. To gain an initial understanding of the war, we need to answer two questions: Who were the combatants? Why were they fighting in 1990? A brief account of key developments in Rwanda's state and social history lays the groundwork for an analysis of the evolution of the combatants and the nature of their competition. It also provides evidence of a recurrent theme, namely, elite manipulation of social cleavages - including but not limited to ethnicity - for the purpose of political competition. The methods of political mobilization used by both Hutu and Tutsi elites, from the colonial era onward, included the use of targeted violence spanning the range from assassination through limited massacres to war and ultimately genocide. Both the civil war and the genocide are well accounted for by this elite-manipulation dynamic. Insufficient understanding of this aspect of the Rwandan conflict was part of the reason for the failure of international conflict resolution efforts. . .