The Rwandan Path to Genocide: The Genesis of the Capacity of the Rwandan Post-colonial State to Organise and Unleash a project of Extermination

This article focuses on the link between the capacity to unleash a programme of extermination between 1 January and 31 December 1994 and the particular development and structure of the post-colonial state in Rwanda. It traces this ability to plan, organise and implement such a programme to the character of the institutional framework of the Rwandan state. This premeditated and organised campaign of extermination is the result of the cumulative radicalisation and intransigence of the existing MRND (Mouvement Révolutionaire National pour le Développement) one-party state apparatus to the process of transition towards democracy, between 1990 and 1994, coupled with its retention of an autonomous source of political power. This intransigence, and the facility with which this state apparatus retained an unhindered capacity to institute this programme, are themselves seen to be the product of longer-term continuities between the development of the Rwandan post-colonial state and Belgian colonialism.