Today in History: RPF Launches Invasion of Rwanda From Uganda

What the report says

On October 1, 1990, fighters from the Rwandan Patriotic Army, the armed wing of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, crossed from Uganda into northeastern Rwanda and launched an offensive against the government of President Juvénal Habyarimana. According to Nile Post, the force included roughly 2,500 to 4,000 fighters, with the Kagitumba area among the crossing points. The rebels advanced at first, but they soon encountered a strong counteroffensive backed by France and Zaire.

The article places the invasion in the wider history of Rwandan exile communities. It says the campaign was linked to earlier displacement of Tutsi after the 1959 Revolution and to the experience of exiles who had joined Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army in Uganda’s civil war. Nile Post identifies Fred Rwigyema and Paul Kagame among the key figures associated with the RPF, noting that Kagame later took command after Rwigyema was killed shortly after the invasion began.

The fighting is described as the start of the Rwandan Civil War, which lasted nearly four years and helped shape the political and ethnic crisis that followed. The report says the conflict contributed to the 1993 Arusha Accords and later developments that culminated in the 1994 genocide and the RPA’s capture of Kigali. In Rwanda, October 1 is marked as Patriots’ Day, commemorating the start of the armed struggle.