The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by Hutus under the Hutu Power ideology. Over the course of approximately 100 days, from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April through mid-July, at least 500,000 people were killed. Most estimates indicate a death toll between 800,000 and 1,000,000, which could be as high as 20% of the total population. In 1990 the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded. The Rwandan Civil War, fought between the Hutu regime, with support from Francophone nations of Africa and France itself, and the RPF, with support from Uganda, vastly increased the ethnic tensions in the country and led to the rise of Hutu Power, an ideology that stressed that the Tutsi intended to enslave Hutus and thus must be resisted at all costs. Despite ongoing ethnic tension, including the displacement of large numbers of Hutu in the north by the rebels and periodic localized ethnic cleansing of Tutsi to the south, pressure on the government of Juvénal Habyarimana led to a cease-fire in 1993 and the preliminary implementation of the Arusha Accords. A genocidal plan had existed since 1957, when the Hutu Emancipation Movement called the Parmehutu published the "Bahutu" Manifesto, in which it alleged a monopoly of power held by the Tutsi minority. In the 1960s, these denunciations led to the overthrowing of the monarchy and the establishment of the Republic headed by Gregoire Kayibanda. This was a regime which persecuted the Tutsi, who in many cases were forced to flee. The persecution also went on under the regime of Juvénal Habyarimana who had seized power in 1973 and promised progress and reconciliation. (via Wikipedia)