Any adequate account of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda must acknowledge
manipulation by external forces, domestic pressures and psychological factors.
Even so, the nature of the Rwandan state must be seen as absolutely
central. The genocide took place under the aegis of the state, and Rwandans
were the main actors involved. Both precolonial legacies and colonial policies
contributed to the formation of this state, whose increasingly autocratic and
unpopular government was, by the early 1990s, facing serious threats to its
hold on state power, for which genocide represented a last-ditch attempt at
survival. Many of the mechanisms through which genocide was prepared,
implemented and justified in Rwanda bore striking resemblances to those
used during the twentieth century's other major genocide, the Nazi Holocaust
against the Jews.