Rwanda’s Civil War: the anteroom of genocide

Abstract

Twentieth century was, among other features, the century of genocides. However, these acts of mass elimination are neither the result of spontaneous popular outburst nor ethnic ancestral hates. They are result of more complex processes that always contemplate state action. This article points out how during the Rwanda Civil War began with the Rwandan Patriotic Front invasion, was born the conditions that then allow the implementation of the future genocide and will determinate its degree of effectiveness. All this facts, had base in conflicting historical relations between ethnic groups in Rwanda.