Independent Rwanda
Senior 2 · History
Independent Rwanda
Lesson 3 of 5
20 min
On 1 October 1990 the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF Inkotanyi) launched an armed struggle from the Uganda border. Rwanda remembers it as the Liberation War, a struggle that ended in July 1994 with the defeat of the regime that carried out the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. To explain why it began, historians look at problems that had built up for three decades.
Since 1959, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans, most of them Tutsi, had lived as refugees. Many had no citizenship in their host countries and faced hostility there; in Uganda, for example, Rwandan refugees were attacked and expelled in 1982. Their children grew up speaking Kinyarwanda but had never seen Rwanda. Both Rwandan republics refused their return, and in 1986 the ruling party said the country was too full to take them back.
Inside Rwanda, Tutsi faced quotas in schools and jobs, ethnic labels on identity cards and near-total exclusion from the army and politics. Periodic violence against them had never been punished.
A single party, unopposed elections, restrictions on movement, regional favouritism, nepotism (the Akazu) and corruption left Rwandans with no peaceful way to change their government.
The collapse of tin and coffee prices, famine in the south and structural adjustment made daily life harder and weakened the regime's legitimacy by the late 1980s.
Refugee organisations lobbied for the right of return, and a world congress of Rwandan refugees in Washington in 1988 declared that right. Talks between Rwanda and Uganda on the refugee question in 1990 produced no real result.
Refugees built organisations and skills. The Rwandese Alliance for National Unity (RANU) was founded in 1979 and became the RPF in December 1987 in Kampala. Many young refugees, among them Fred Gisa Rwigema and Paul Kagame, had gained military experience in Uganda's National Resistance Army in the 1980s.
Its programme, often summarised as eight points, included national unity, democracy, a self-reliant economy, an end to corruption and favouritism, the return of refugees, social services for all, security for all citizens and a foreign policy based on cooperation.
Question: Which was the most important cause of the Liberation War?
The refugee problem is the strongest candidate: it was the RPF's founding grievance, it had lasted three decades, and the 1986 refusal closed the door to a peaceful return. But it did not act alone. Discrimination inside Rwanda meant returning refugees would face second-class citizenship, and dictatorship meant there was no peaceful way to change that. Economic crisis made the regime weaker. So the refugee problem was the main cause, made urgent by the others.
Tip
Memory hook: "RED-EFO". Refugees, Exclusion (discrimination), Dictatorship, Economic crisis, Failed talks, Organisation and experience.
When and where was the RPF founded?
Solution. In December 1987 in Kampala, Uganda, growing out of RANU (founded 1979).
Why was the 1986 statement by the ruling party so important?
Solution. By declaring Rwanda too full to take back its refugees, it closed the door to a negotiated mass return, which pushed refugees towards armed struggle.
Explain how dictatorship contributed to the war.
Solution. With one legal party, unopposed elections and no freedom to organise, Rwandans had no peaceful way to change their government or its discriminatory policies.
Name two RPF leaders who had served in Uganda's National Resistance Army.
Solution. Fred Gisa Rwigema and Paul Kagame.
Remember
Sources and credits
