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An agreement between the government and FPR was signed in August 1993 at
Arusha, Tanzania, that called for the creation of a broad-based transition government that would include the
FPR.
Extremist Hutu were strongly opposed to this plan. In April 1994 a plane carrying Habyarimana and Cyprien
Ntaryama, president of Burundi, crashed, killing both men; it was thought that the plane had been shot down by extremist Hutu. A wave of anarchy and mass killings followed over the next several months, in which as many as a half million civilians, mostly Tutsi, were slaughtered. The FPR responded by resuming their fight, declaring victory in July, and establishing a transitional government. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandans--both Hutu and Tutsi--fled, most of them into eastern Zaire (now called Congo [Kinshasa]). The great majority returned to Rwanda in late 1996 and early 1997.
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