Power-sharing agreements negotiated under UN auspices at Arusha, Tanzania. In order to achieve a ceasefire in the civil war between the army and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, President Habyarimana was pressured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front to give up his political monopoly and form a multiparty coalition. The talks included representatives from opposition parties previously excluded frm political participation, in addition to the RPF and Habyarimana's own MRND. An interim government was established until constitutional elections could be implemented; among other concessions, it was forbidden to continue the anti-Tutsi propaganda broadcast by the previous administration. The threatened loss of political power was a dominant factor in the decision to escalate from systematic discrimnation to extermination of the Tutsi; Hutu moderates who had supported the regime change such as Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana were among the earliest victims.

Coalition pour la Defence de la Republique: a political party instrumental in the organization fo the Rwandan genocide. Does not participate in the Arusha coalition government due to the objections of the RPF, who argue that it’s an extremist offshoot of the ruling MRNDD party founded explicitly to advance a racist agenda. Members include Ferdinand Nahimana, former head of the Rwanda information bureau who goes on to head the RTLM radio station established to continue broadcasting racist propaganda after the government was forbidden to use its official station for such programming. Linda Melvern asserts that "the CDR, which liked to portray itself as a fringe party, was in fact a mafia of the powerful, created by senior government officials and businessmen."

From the Greek ‘genos’ (race or tribe) and the Latin suffix ‘-cide’ (to kill). Coined by Raphael Lemkin, Polish-born advisor to the UN War Ministry, to signify"the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" with the implication of a coordinated plan against individuals chosen as victims purely, simply and exclusively because of their members of the target group. This intent distinguishes genocide from mass murder, identifying for the first time not only a crime against the rules of war, but a crime against humanity. The existence of such a word reveals a fundamental belief in the value of diversity for its own sake—those who condemn genocide uphold that all groups have the right to exist simply because they do exist; if the destruction of an ethnic group lessens us as humans, it can only be because we are enriched by their existence. Ironically, the very horror which distinguishes genocide from previously categorized acts such as mass murder and thus demanded a distinct name to contain it has led to the dilution of its logistical potency. As Alain Destexhe notes, genocide "became the ultimate verbal stigma, a term used both to describe and thoroughly horrendous, thoroughly fascist act perpetrated by an enemy and as a rallying call for minority groups looking to assert their identity and legitimize their existence. Thus the word genocide fell victim to a sort of verbal inflation".