Abdul Wahid al Nur: Leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) faction that rejected the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA).
Abu Qurun: Leader of a state-sponsored ethnic Fartit militia that attacked Dinka communities in Sudan’s Bahr el Ghazal region in the late 1980s. Among Sudanese state forces, he was known as “Our Hitler.”
Aburi Conference: Negotiations held in Aburi, Ghana, in January 1967 between the Nigerian federal military government and the military government of Nigeria’s Eastern Region. The failure of both sides to implement an agreement reached at these talks led to the secession of Biafra from Nigeria and the Civil War of 1967 to 1970.
Addis Ababa Agreement (1972): An agreement signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1972 between the government of Sudan and the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) that ended the country’s first civil war.
African Union (AU): An international governmental organization of African states formerly known as the Organization of African Unity (OAU).
African Union Mission in Burundi (AMIB): The first peacekeeping mission launched by the African Union, which monitored the peace process in Burundi and protected political leaders during 2003 and 2004. It was absorbed into the United Nations Operation in Burundi (ONUB).
African Union Mission to Sudan (AMIS): An African Union peacekeeping operation mounted in Darfur from July 2004 until December 2007, when it was absorbed by the new African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID).
African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID): An international peacekeeping mission in Darfur that began to deploy in October 2007 and absorbed the existing African Union Mission to Sudan (AMIS).
Aguiyi-Ironsi, Johnson: A Nigerian army general of Igbo ethnicity who became Nigerian head of state following the Five Majors coup of January 1966.
Ahmad Ibrahim Diraig: An exiled former governor of Darfur who formed the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA) in 1994 to advocate for a more-inclusive political system. In 2006, he became leader of the new National Redemption Front (NRF) that was formed in Eritrea among the rebel groups that had rejected the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA).
Al-Bashir, Omar: A Sudanese military officer who took power in a 1989 military coup and created an Islamist regime. As the current president of Sudan, he is the first serving head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.
Anti-balaka militia: Referring to a traditional protection charm, these armed groups took revenge on the Central African Republic’s Muslim minority after the Seleka rebel alliance seized power in the capital in 2013. These killings prompted UN and French officials to warn of potential genocide in the country.
Anuak: An ethnic group in Ethiopia’s Gambella province that has been victimized by a succession of states in what some call genocide.
Anyanya: A rebel movement formed in southern Sudan in the late 1950s that fought Sudan’s first civil war. “Anyanya” means snake venom.
Anyanya National Armed Force (ANAF): A coalition of Anyanya groups formed in the late 1960s during Sudan’s first civil war. It was renamed Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM).
Arab Gathering: An Arab supremacist movement formed in Darfur in the 1980s that was supported by Gaddafi’s Libya and made public statements threatening to exterminate the region’s African population.
Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR): An exiled group of Rwandan Hutu extremists based in eastern Zaire (DRC) during the late 1990s that conducted raids into Rwanda.
Arusha Accords: A 1993 power-sharing agreement between the Rwandan government of Juvenal Habyarimana and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) that was negotiated in Arusha, Tanzania.
Association for the Promotion of the Hutu Masses (APROSOMA): Formed in late 1957 in southern Rwanda by the anti-Tutsi leader Joseph Gitera, this organization advocated for improved conditions for the Hutu majority.
Bagaza, Jean-Baptiste: A Burundian military officer of Tutsi-Hima identity from Bururi Province. He came to power in a coup in 1976 and ruled the country until he was deposed by Pierre Buyoya, another Tutsi-Hima officer, in 1987.
Bagosora, Theoneste: A Rwandan Hutu former military officer and ministry of defense official in the early 1990s who was involved with a conspiracy to assassinate President Juvenal Habyarimana and exterminate the country’s Tutsi minority to avoid sharing power with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). After the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, he fled to Zaire and then Cameroon, where he was arrested in 1997. In 2008, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) convicted him of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes and eventually sentenced him to 35 years imprisonment.
Bahutu Manifesto: Published in 1957 by Gregoire Kayibanda and Archbishop Andre Perraudin, this document explained the problems of Rwanda in terms of the racial division between Hutu and Tutsi and called for the emancipation of the Hutu and the implementation of racial quotas in education and employment that would favor the majority.
Bamileke: An ethnic group in western Cameroon who were victimized by French counterinsurgency during the 1950s and early 1960s. Some claim that this victimization amounted to genocide.
Banyamulenge: Rwandan Tutsi who moved into the eastern part of the DRC during the 19th century. The term literally means “the people of Mulenge.”
Baqqara (Baggara): A term used to refer to nomadic cattle pastoralists in parts of Sudan, Chad, and other neighboring countries who speak a version of Arabic as a first language. There are different groups of Baqqara, including the Rizayqat of western Sudan.
Bemba, Jean-Pierre: Leader of the rebel Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) during the Second Congo War of 1998–2002. He served as vice president in the DRC’s transitional government from 2003 to 2006 when he was defeated in the presidential election by Joseph Kabila. In 2008, he was arrested in Belgium and transferred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), where, in 2016, he was convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes for the atrocities committed by MLC in the Central African Republic. His was the first ICC conviction to include crimes related to sexual violence.
Biafra: The southeastern region of Nigeria in which a separatist government declared independence in 1967. After a federal military campaign that some called genocidal, it was reincorporated into Nigeria in 1970.
Bizimungu, Pasteur: During the 1980s, he was a Hutu official in the Rwandan government of Juvenal Habyarimana. In the early 1990s, he joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and served as president of Rwanda from immediately after the 1994 genocide until his resignation in 2000. He was widely seen as a puppet of Deputy President Paul Kagame. Subsequently, Bizimungu formed an opposition party that was quickly banned, and, from 2002 to 2007, he was imprisoned for corruption and inciting violence.
Bruguiere, Jean-Louis: A French judge who, in 2006, issued arrest warrants for a number of Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) leaders on suspicion of involvement in the downing of Rwanda’s presidential aircraft in April 1994.
Bururi Province: A southern province of Burundi that was home to many of the Tutsi-Hima military officers who dominated the country from 1965 to 2005.
Buyoya, Pierre: A Burundian military officer of Tutsi-Hima identity who originated from Bururi Province. He came to power in a military coup in 1987 and initiated reforms that led to the rise of an elected civilian government in 1993. In the 1993 election, Buyoya ran for president but was defeated by Melchior Ndadaye, who became Burundi’s first Hutu president. Buyoya again came to power in a military coup in 1996, led the state during the Burundian Civil War, and relinquished the presidency in 2003 as part of a negotiated peace process.
Chadian National Armed Forces (FANT): A new name for Hissene Habre’s Armed Forces of the North (FAN) after it took power in Chad in 1982. In the middle 1980s, it drove the Libyan Islamic Legion out of Chad and into neighboring Darfur.
Christian Democratic Party (PDC): A political party founded in Burundi in the late 1950s that was dominated by a faction of the traditional royal family, who feared losing power to the Hutu majority. It was supported by the Belgian colonial administration that wanted to install a friendly government in postcolonial Burundi.
Classe, Leon-Paul: A long-serving and influential French missionary to Rwanda during the first half of the twentieth century who was an ardent supporter of the idea of Tutsi racial superiority.
Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (CDR): A Hutu extremist political party formed in Rwanda in 1992.
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA): An agreement signed between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in Kenya in January 2005 that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War. The SPLM/A abandoned the ideal of a secular Sudan by accepting Islamic Law in the north, and the government agreed to the establishment of an autonomous Government of South Sudan and an eventual referendum on full independence in the south.
Congo Free State: The colonial state established over the Congo Basin by Leopold II and the International African Association during the late 19th century. Given international condemnation of its brutality, the Congo Free State was sold to Belgium in 1908 and became the Belgian Congo.
Congo Reform Association: An international humanitarian group formed in 1904 to campaign against atrocities committed by the Congo Free State.
Dallaire, Romeo: The Canadian general who commanded the United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) during 1994. He warned his UN superiors in New York, including Kofi Anan, head of peacekeeping, of an impending genocide in Rwanda but was ignored.
Darfur: Land of the Fur people. The name can refer to the precolonial Sultanate of Darfur or the marginalized western region of modern Sudan.
Darfur Liberation Front (DLF): A rebel group formed by Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa people in Darfur during the early 2000s to oppose the Sudanese government’s program of Arabization. It changed its name to Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A). It included plans for the disarmament of the Janjaweed militia and rebel groups, the delivery of humanitarian relief, and a proposed referendum on the political future of Darfur.
Darfur Peace Agreement (2006): A 2006 agreement signed in Abuja, Nigeria, between the government of Sudan and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) of Minni Arko Minnawi but did not include several other SLM factions or the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
Darfur Peace Agreement (2011): A 2011 agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, between the Sudanese government and a coalition of 10 small Darfur rebel groups called the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM). It was rejected by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and several factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement.
Deby, Idriss: A Chadian National Armed Forces (FANT) commander who failed to overthrow Hissene Habre in 1989 and fled to Darfur, where he formed the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS). In November 1990, Deby’s MPS crossed into Chad and overthrew Habre. Deby became president of Chad and remains in that position today.
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR): An exiled group of Rwandan Hutu extremists based in South and North Kivu provinces in eastern DRC. It was formed in 2000 from remnants of the ALIR and other former members of the FAR and Interahamwe, as well as other Rwandan refugees.
Dinka: The largest ethnic group in South Sudan; speakers of a Nilotic language.
Fadlallah Burma Nasr: Sudan’s minister of defense who, during the late 1980s, armed Arab militia in Bahr el Ghazal and directed them to attack Dinka people.
Federal Army of Darfur: An armed group formed in Darfur during the late 1980s to protect Fur people from massacre by Libyan and Sudanese government-sponsored Arab militias.
First People of the Kalahari (FPK): Formed in the 1990s, this advocacy group protested the Botswana government’s eviction of a San (or Basarwa) community from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) and tried to mobilize international support by describing the action as genocide.
Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD): The armed wing of Burundi’s National Council for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD).
Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU): A moderate and mainly Hutu political party founded in Burundi in 1993.
Front for National Salvation (FRONASA): A group of Ugandan exiles based in Tanzania during the 1970s and opposed to the brutal dictatorship of Idi Amin.
Fur: A people who inhabit an area of western Sudan known as Darfur. They speak a Nilo-Saharan language called Fur and historically lived in settled communities that engaged in cultivation and herding. In precolonial times, they formed the core population of the Sultanate of Darfur, but, as part of modern Sudan, their area became impoverished and marginalized.
Gacaca: A system of local community courts used in Rwanda to expedite the trials of people accused of crimes connected to the 1994 genocide.
Gaddafi, Muammar: The dictator of Libya who took power in a 1969 military coup and held it until he was killed in an uprising in 2011. Sponsored by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, he pursued a dream of establishing an “Islamic State of the Sahel” that would have involved merging Libya with parts of neighboring Chad and Sudan.
Gahutu, Remy: An outspoken Burundian Hutu exile leader who was involved in the formation of Tabara in 1978 and the Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People (PALIPEHUTU) in 1980. He died in Tanzania in 1990, having possibly been murdered by agents of the Burundian Tutsi military regime.
Ganwa: Members of the extended royal family of Burundi. Although popularly associated with the Tutsi identity, Ganwa often claim that they represent a distinct group.
Garang, John: Leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) from its creation in 1983 to his death in a helicopter crash in 2005.
Genocide Intervention Network: Formed by university students in the United States in 2004, it encouraged international intervention in Darfur and raised funds to support the African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur.
Gizenga, Antoine: Deputy prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960 who, after the overthrow of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, led a rebellion in the eastern part of the country during the early 1960s. Later, he served as prime minister during 2007 and 2008.
Gowon, Yakubu: A colonel in the Nigerian army who became the Nigerian head of state following the military coup of July 1966. He led the Nigeria federal government during the Civil War of 1967 to 1970.
Gukurahundi: A Shona saying that means “the rain that washes away the rubbish.” It was the slogan of 5 Brigade, a unit of the Zimbabwean Defense Force, which victimized the people of rural Matabeleland from 1982 to 1987 in the name of pursuing alleged dissidents. Today, Zimbabweans often refer to this episode as “Gukurahundi,” and some claim that it represented a genocide against the Ndebele people.
Habre, Hissene: Leader of the Chadian rebel group Armed Forces of the North (FAN) that was formed in 1976 and used Darfur as a staging area during the early 1980s. Habre seized power in Chad in 1982 and was supported by France and the United States in a war against Libyan forces and allied Chadian rebels. Overthrown in 1990, he fled to Senegal, where in 2015 he was brought before an African Union–appointed court to face charges of crimes against humanity and torture related to his time in power in Chad. He was convicted in 2016 and sentenced to imprisonment for life.
Habyarimana, Agathe: The wife of Rwanda’s President Juvenal Habyarimana. She was a central figure in the planning of the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 and was evacuated to France by the French military.
Habyarimana, Juvenal: In the early 1960s, he became the first Rwandan commander of the Rwandan military. In 1973 he overthrew President Gregoire Kayibanda in a military coup and ruled the country until his death in April 1994. Under his regime, Hutu from the north of the country gained control of the government.
Hamitic Theory: A colonial racial theory that postulated that a mysterious group of people known as “Hamites” had moved into Africa in the distant past and influenced the creation of African states. European colonizers saw the Tutsi as the Hamites of Rwanda and Burundi.
Hammarskjold, Dag: Secretary-general of the United Nations during the beginning of the Congo Crisis of the early 1960s. He died when his aircraft crashed, under what are now seen as mysterious circumstances, in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) in 1961.
Harroy, Jean-Paul: The last Belgian governor-general of Rwanda and Burundi who served from 1955 to independence in 1962. In Rwanda, he advocated a switch from Tutsi to Hutu dominance, which influenced the social revolution. In Burundi, he supported the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), led by a pro-Belgian section of the royal family that was pitted against Crown Prince Louis Rwagasore’s Union for National Progress (UPRONA).
Hassan al-Turabi: A prominent Islamist leader in postcolonial Sudan. He was secretary-general of Sudan’s National Islamic Front (NIF) from the 1960s to 1999 and its successor, the National Congress Party, from 1999 until his death in 2016. During the late 1980s and 1990s, his movement was centrally involved in atrocities in Darfur and southern Sudan.
Hema: A historically pastoral community in Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Hutu: An identity that is associated with the majority of people in Rwanda and Burundi and is associated with a historic way of life centered on cultivation. European colonizers saw them as an essentially inferior race that had been subjugated by the pastoral Tutsi during precolonial times. Under colonial rule, they became the main producers of such cash crops as tea and coffee and had limited opportunities for advancement.
Hutu Power: Developed in the 1950s by Hutu elites, this political concept puts forth the notion that the Hutu represent the indigenous inhabitants of Rwanda and Burundi who were unjustly dispossessed by foreign Tutsi invaders. As such, it advocates the idea that the Hutu majority should dominate the government of these countries.
Ibuka: A Kinyarwanda word meaning “remember.” Founded in Belgium in 1994 but now based in Kigali, it is an umbrella organization for various associations made up of survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Igbo: The largest ethnic group of southeastern Nigeria.
Igbo Pogroms: Massacres of Igbo people in northern Nigeria that took place in May, September, and October 1966.
Impuzamugambi: A Kinyarwanda term meaning “those with a common purpose.” It was a militia organized by Rwanda’s Hutu extremist Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (CDR) party in the early 1990s.
Inkotanya: A Kinyarwanda term meaning “those who struggle together” and used to refer to Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels during the early 1990s.
Intagoheka: A Kirundi term for “those who do not sleep.” It was a Hutu militia in Burundi during the 1990s.
Interahamwe: A Kinyarwanda term meaning “those who work together.” It was a militia organized by Rwanda’s ruling National Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND) party during the early 1990s.
Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF): A United Nations–approved European Union military intervention in Ituri Province of the DRC conducted primarily by French troops from June to September 2003. It represented the European Union’s first autonomous military operation outside Europe and was relieved by a newly formed MONUC Ituri Brigade.
International African Association: A supposedly humanitarian group formed by Belgian King Leopold II in the late-19th century to arrange the colonial conquest of the Congo River Basin.
International Criminal Court (ICC): Created by an 1998 international treaty known as the Rome Statute and based in The Hague in the Netherlands, the ICC began functioning in 2002 with the aim of conducting trials related to accusations of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. It is meant to judge cases that national courts are unable or unwilling to deal with and is empowered to act with reference to offenses committed within the more than 120 states that signed and ratified the treaty, or when empowered by the United Nations Security Council. The ICC has been criticized for focusing exclusively on African issues and ignoring accusations against such major powers as the United States, which has not ratified the Rome Statute.
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR): A United Nations–backed international court established in Arusha, Tanzania, in 1995 to conduct trials of people accused of leading roles in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Islamic Legion: An international military force created by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. It was involved in violence in Darfur and Chad during the 1970s and 1980s.
Ituri Province: A northeastern province of the DRC created by Ugandan occupation forces in 1999. It was formerly part of Orientale Province.
Janjaweed: A Sudanese government-sponsored Arab militia first formed in the late 1990s to attack Masalit communities in western Darfur, but then was expanded over the whole Darfur region in the early 2000s as a cheap way to mount a counterinsurgency campaign.
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM): A rebel group formed in Darfur in the early 2000s that opposed the Sudanese government’s Arabization of the region but that supported the continuation of Islamic law. Its main goal was and is the equality of all people and regions in Sudan.
Kabila, Joseph: The son of Laurent Kabila who seized the leadership of the DRC when his father was assassinated in 2000.
Kabila, Laurent: A Congolese revolutionary during the 1960s, he led the Rwandan- and Ugandan-backed Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL) that overthrew Mobutu Sese Seko during the First Congo War of 1996–1997.
Kagame, Paul: A Rwandan Tutsi exile who became an early member of the Ugandan National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM/NRA) in the 1980s. In 1990, after the death of Fred Rwigyema, he took command of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which had just invaded Rwanda. Following the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and the RPF military occupation of the country, he became Rwanda’s deputy president and minister of defense. He became president of Rwanda in 2000.
Kalonji, Albert: Separatist leader of South Kasai during the Congo Crisis of the early 1960s.
Kanguka: Kinyarwanda for “wake up.” Launched in 1987, this Rwandan newspaper criticized the Habyarimana government and sympathized with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
Kangura: Kinyarwanda for “wake others up.” Launched in 1990, this Rwandan newspaper was funded by the Habyarimana government and spread anti-Tutsi hate propaganda.
Kanyarengwe, Alexis: A Rwandan Hutu military officer who fled the country after a failed coup attempt in 1980. In the early 1990s, he served as chairman of the RPF that had invaded Rwanda.
Kasavubu, Joseph: First president of the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1960 to 1965. He was the leader of the Bakongo Alliance (ABAKO), which was a political party based in the western part of the country.
Katanga: The most southerly province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. From 1971 to 1997, it was called Shaba Province.
Katanga, Germain: Leader of a militia group called Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI) that was active in the northeastern DRC during the 2000s. He was handed over to the ICC in 2007 and convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes in 2014.
Kayibanda, Gregoire: Founding leader of the Party for the Emancipation of the Hutu (PARMEHUTU). He served as the first elected president of independent Rwanda from 1962 until his overthrow by the military in 1973.
Kenyatta, Uhuru: Elected president of Kenya in 2013, he became the first serving head of state to appear before the ICC to answer charges related to crimes against humanity allegedly committed in the wake of Kenya’s troubled 2007 election. The ICC later dropped the charges due to lack of evidence.
Kibeho massacre: In 1995 Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) soldiers fired on refugees in a camp in southern Rwanda, killing perhaps 5,000 people.
Kiga (plural = Bakiga): A generic name for the people who inhabit the mountainous north of Rwanda that was conquered by the royal court of Musinga and the Germans in the early 1900s.
Kinyamateka: A Kinyarwanda term meaning “about history.” It was a newspaper in 1950s Rwanda managed by Gregoire Kayibanda.
Kordofan: A region located in central/western Sudan.
Lendu: A historically agricultural group in Ituri Province of the DRC.
Leopold II: The constitutional monarch of Belgium who formed the International African Association that orchestrated the private colonial conquest of the Congo River Basin.
Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM): A coalition of 10 small Darfur rebel groups formed in 2010 that engaged in negotiations with the government of Sudan in Doha, Qatar, and signed a second Darfur Peace Agreement in 2011.
Logiest, Guy: A Belgian military officer who commanded Congolese troops during an intervention in Rwanda in 1959 that facilitated a Hutu seizure of power.
Lubanga, Thomas: Founding leader of the rebel Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in Ituri Province of the DRC in 2001. In 2005, he became the first person ever arrested on an ICC warrant and transferred to The Hague where, in 2012, he was convicted of conscripting child soldiers, for which he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He was also the first person ever convicted by the ICC.
Lumumba, Patrice: The first prime minister of the DRC elected on independence in 1960. He was overthrown in October 1960, flown to the separatist region of Katanga, and murdered in January 1961.
Machar, Riek: Led an ethnic Nuer faction that split from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in 1991 and fought the predominantly Dinka SPLA of John Garang throughout the 1990s. He later rejoined the SPLM/A and became vice president of independent South Sudan in 2011. Dismissed from office in 2013 for allegedly plotting a coup, he led a Nuer faction called the SPLA-In Opposition (SPLA-IO) in South Sudan’s civil war.
Mai Mai militia: Local self-defense groups formed in the eastern DRC provinces of South Kivu and North Kivu during the late 1990s.
Makenga, Sultani: Leader of the M23 rebel group in eastern DRC who, along with many of his fellow rebels, fled to Uganda in 2013.
March 23 Movement (M23): A Congolese Tutsi rebel group formerly known as the National Congress for Defense of the People (CNDP). In 2012, it renewed its rebellion against the DRC government in North Kivu and in 2013 was suppressed by a UN special intervention brigade.
Markpress: A Swiss-based public relations firm hired by the secessionist state of Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970).
Masalit: A people who inhabit part of western Sudan and eastern Chad. Historically, they spoke a Nilo-Saharan language and practiced cultivation and herding.
Mayardit, Salva Kiir: A veteran of the Anyanya movement during the First Sudanese Civil War, he eventually became head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (the military wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement: SPLM) during the Second Sudanese Civil War. After the death of SPLM leader John Garang in 2005, he became president of the autonomous government of South Sudan and president of independent South Sudan in 2011.
Mbarushimana, Callixte: An FDLR political leader based in France who was arrested in 2011 and sent to the ICC but later released, given insufficient evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mengistu, Haile Mariam: Between 1977 and 1991, Mengistu led Ethiopia’s military regime that tortured and murdered political opponents and conducted brutal counterinsurgency campaigns against several regional separatist groups. In 2006, an Ethiopian court convicted an exiled Mengistu of genocide and crimes against humanity.
Micombero, Michel: A Burundian army officer of Tutsi-Hima identity from the south of the country who seized power in a military coup in 1965. His regime orchestrated the 1972 genocide of educated Hutu and Hutu students. In 1976, he was overthrown by a military coup led by his cousin, Jean-Baptiste Bagaza.
Minni Arko Minnawi: A leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) in Darfur. His faction accepted the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), which was rejected by other factions. He withdrew from the DPA in 2010, and his part of the SLM joined other rebel groups to form the Sudan Revolutionary Front.
Mobutu Sese Seko: The American- and French-backed dictator of Zaire (now DRC) from the 1960s until 1997, when he was overthrown by a rebellion backed by forces from Rwanda and Uganda.
Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB): Formed in 1999, this organization aspires to use peaceful protest to reestablish the secessionist state of Biafra in southeast Nigeria.
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND): Formed in the mid-2000s, this armed rebel group raids oil-production facilities and kidnaps oil workers in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC): A rebel group formed in the DRC in 1998 and led by Jean-Pierre Bemba. It derived most of its support from the north of the country, was active in the Central African Republic (CAR), and was backed by Uganda.
Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP): Formed in 1990, this movement of the Ogoni people of Nigeria’s Niger Delta advocates for greater political representation, a share of oil revenues generated in their region, and protection for their environment.
Movement of Progressive Students of Burundi (MEPROBA): A group of Burundian Hutu student exiles formed in Belgium during the 1970s.
Mudacumura, Sylvestre: Deputy commander of the Rwandan presidential guard during the 1994 genocide, he eventually became military leader of the FDLR in eastern DRC. In 2012, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against him on charges of war crimes committed in DRC.
Mugabe, Robert: The first prime minister of independent Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then president of Zimbabwe from 1987 onward. He led an increasingly authoritarian regime that imposed a reign of terror on the people of rural Matabeleland in the 1980s.
Mugesera, Leon: A Rwandan government official who, in 1992, told supporters that the country’s Tutsi minority should be exterminated. While he was not in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, he was deported from Canada to Rwanda in 2012 to face criminal charges related to inciting genocide.
Mugunga camp: A massive concentration of Rwandan refugees in eastern Zaire (DRC) that was forcefully dismantled by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) in late 1996.
Muhutu Social Movement (MSM): An organization formed by Gregoire Kayibanda in 1957 that advocated for the general improvement of conditions for the Hutu majority in Rwanda.
Munyaneza, Desire: A Rwandan shopkeeper in Butare in 1994 who participated in the genocide against the Tutsi and subsequently fled to Canada where, in 2009, he was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Murahiliin: A Sudanese government-sponsored Baqqara militia that massacred Dinka people in Bahr el Ghazal during the late 1980s and were then deployed to other parts of the country.
Murwanashyaka, Ignace: An FDLR political leader based in Germany who was arrested by German authorities in 2009 and eventually convicted by a German court of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Musa Hilal: A traditional leader among Sudan’s Rizayqat Baqqara Arabs and leader of the Janjaweed militia in Darfur from 2003. In 2008, he became chief advisor to Sudan’s Ministry of Federal Affairs.
Museveni, Yoweri: Leader of Ugandan exile movements based in Tanzania, including Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) in the 1970s and National Resistance Movement/National Resistance Army (NRM/NRA) in the 1980s. He led a successful insurgency in southern Uganda during the first half of the 1980s that led to the NRM/NRA’s seizure of power there in 1986. He has remained the president of Uganda since that time.
Musinga: King of Rwanda from 1896 to 1931. In the early 1900s, he used an alliance with the Germans to extend his dominance over the north of Rwanda, but then eventually chaffed under more intrusive Belgian administration after the First World War. Belgian authorities banished him to the Congo and replaced him with his son, Mutara Rudahigwa.
Musoni, Straton: An FDLR political leader based in Germany who was arrested by German authorities in 2009 and eventually convicted by a German court of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mutara Rudahigwa: He became king of Rwanda after the Belgian deposition of his father, Musinga, in 1931 and reigned up until his death in 1959 during the Hutu seizure of power. He was the first Christian king of Rwanda and was popularly called “the King of the Whites.”
Mwambutsa: As a child, he became the king of Burundi during the First World War when the Belgians occupied the territory. With the independence of Burundi in 1962, he became a constitutional monarch until fleeing the country during a military coup in 1965.
Mwezi Gisabo: Ruler of the Kingdom of Burundi during the late 19th and very early 20th century. He initially resisted German colonial intrusion but then cooperated with it to extend his territorial authority.
National Army of the Congo (ANC): The independent Congo’s new army formed after the 1960 mutiny of the Force Publique.
National Commission for the Fight against Genocide: A branch of the Rwandan government created in 2008 to coordinate genocide commemoration activities, develop strategies for fighting genocide and “genocide ideology,” counter genocide denial and trivialization, and assist genocide survivors.
National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP): Formed in 2006 in North Kivu Province of the DRC, this was a Congolese Tutsi militia group led by Laurent Nkunda, who was then replaced by Bosco Ntaganda. It claimed to protect Congolese Tutsi from the exiled Rwandan Hutu extremists of the FDLR. In 2009, Ntaganda agreed to reintegrate into the Congolese military and to turn the CNDP into a political party. It rebelled again in 2012, taking the name March 23 or M23.
National Council for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD): A group that split from the moderate Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU) in 1994 to fight for democracy in Burundi.
National Forces of Liberation (FNL): Formed in 1985 in Tanzania, this was the armed wing of the Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People (PALIPEHUTU).
National Islamic Front (NIF): An extremist Islamist political party in Sudan that was formed in 1976 and led by Hassan al-Turabi. Coming to power with the 1989 military coup, the NIF regime of the 1990s was committed to maintaining Islamic law throughout the country and was involved in atrocities in Darfur and southern Sudan. Renamed the National Congress Party in the late 1990s, it began to distance itself from radical Islamists after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
National Liberation Council (CNL): A coalition of leftist rebel groups lead by Pierre Mulele and Gaston Soumialot in the DRC during the 1960s. They briefly established the People’s Republic of Congo, which was recognized by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Communist China.
National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT): The first rebel group formed in northern Chad in the 1960s and based in neighboring Darfur.
National Redemption Front (NRF): A coalition of Darfur rebel groups, including the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) that had not signed the Darfur Peace Agreement of 2006, and the exiled Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA) of Ahmad Ibrahim Diraig.
National Resistance Movement/National Resistance Army (NRM/NRA): Led by Yoweri Museveni, this movement fought an insurgent campaign in southern Uganda against the northern-dominated regime of Milton Obote. Seizing power in 1986, it remains the government of Uganda. During the 1980s, the NRM/NRA contained many Rwandan exiles, including Fred Rwigyema and Paul Kagame.
National Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND): Led by Juvenal Habyarimana, this was the ruling and only legal political party in Rwanda from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI): An ethnic Lendu militia group based in the DRC’s Ituri Province during the mid- to late 2000s.
Ndadaye, Melchior: A leader of the Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), who became Burundi’s first Hutu president in June 1993 but was assassinated by the Tutsi-controlled army in October of that year. His death outraged Hutu civilians, who massacred Tutsi, which, in turn, prompted the Tutsi military to slaughter Hutus.
Ndayizeye, Domitien: A leader of the Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU) who served as president of the country from 2003 to 2005.
Neutral Military Observer Group (NMOG): Mandated by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), this group of military observers from Senegal, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Mali monitored a cease-fire in Rwanda in 1992 and 1993.
Ngendandumwe, Pierre: The first Hutu prime minister of Burundi who was assassinated by a Rwandan Tutsi refugee in January 1965.
Ngudjolo Chui, Mathieu: A leader within the Lendu militia called the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) that was active in Ituri Province of the DRC during the 2000s. He was handed over to the ICC in 2008 to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity but was released in 2012 given insufficient evidence.
Niyitegeka, Felicitas: A Rwandan Hutu nun who hid Tutsi students from killers during the 1994 genocide and was killed when they were discovered.
Nkore: A precolonial African kingdom in what is now Uganda. Historically, Nkore’s pastoralist Hima minority dominated the agriculturalist Iru majority.
Nkunda, Laurent: Leader of the Congolese Tutsi militia known as the National Congress for Defense of the People (CNDP) formed in the eastern DRC in 2006. Although his group was initially supported by Rwanda, international pressure prompted the Rwandan government to detain him in 2009.
Nkurunziza, Pierre: A Hutu leader of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD) and Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) during Burundi’s Civil War in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He was elected president of Burundi in 2005 and remains in power.
North Kivu: A province in eastern DRC that borders Rwanda and Uganda.
Ntaganda, Bosco: A Congolese Tutsi militia leader involved in violence in the DRC’s Ituri Province in the early 2000s, who then took over the leadership of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) in North Kivu in 2009. In 2012, he led a rebellion by the M23 group in North Kivu, but, given infighting, he surrendered himself to the U.S. embassy in Kigali the next year and was transferred to the ICC to face charges of war crimes related to his time in Ituri.
Ntare V (Charles Ndizeye): He became king of Burundi in 1966 and was deposed by the military later the same year. He returned from exile in 1972 and was killed by the military on the same day that Hutu rebels invaded the country.
Ntaryamira, Cyprien: The second Hutu president of Burundi who died in the same aircraft as Rwanda’s President Juvenal Habyarimana in April 1994.
Ntibantunganya, Sylvestre: The civilian president of Burundi and a member of the Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), who was overthrown by a military coup in 1996 and replaced by Pierre Buyoya.
Nuba Mountains: A mountainous area located in the southeast of Sudan’s Kordofan region.
Nuba People: A collection of diverse communities that inhabit the Nuba Mountains of Sudan who were targeted for extermination by the Sudanese government during the 1990s.
Nuer: A major ethnic group in South Sudan who speak a Nilotic language.
Numayri, Jaafar Muhammad: A Sudanese military officer who took power in 1969 and was overthrown by another military coup in 1985. His government ended the First Sudanese Civil War through the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 and started the Second Sudanese Civil War by imposing Islamic law in 1983.
Nzeugwu, Kaduna: Leader of the Five Majors coup in Nigeria in January 1966.
Ojukwu, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu: A Nigerian military officer and ethnic Igbo who became military governor of the eastern region in 1966. From May 1967 to January 1970, he led the breakaway Republic of Biafra against the federal military government of Nigeria during the Nigerian Civil War. He returned from exile in 1982 and died in 2011.
Operation Amaryllis: The French military intervention in Rwanda in April 1994 that evacuated European civilians and Agathe Habyarimana, widow of the assassinated president.
Operation Artemis: A 2003 European Union military intervention in Ituri Province of the DRC.
Operation Noroit (North Wind): A French military intervention in Rwanda in the early 1990s that prevented the RPF from defeating the Armed Forces of Rwanda (FAR) and seizing control of the country.
Operation Silverback: The Belgian and Italian military intervention in Rwanda in 1994 that evacuated European civilians.
Operation Turquoise: A French military operation that created a supposedly safe zone for refugees in southwestern Rwanda in 1994. In some instances, French soldiers facilitated the genocide against the Tutsi in that area, and the zone of occupation provided an avenue whereby defeated Rwandan state forces and perpetrators of genocide escaped into neighboring Zaire.
Organization of African Unity (OAU): An international governmental organization of African states founded in 1963. Its name was changed to African Union (AU) in 2002.
Oueddei, Goukouni: A northern Chadian rebel leader who headed the People’s Armed Forces (FAP) that held power from 1979 to 1982 and was supported by Gaddafi’s Libya. While he fought against Hissene Habre’s French-backed regime during the early and middle 1980s, Oueddei eventually joined with the government to expel the Libyans from northern Chad in the 1987 Toyota War.
Party for the Emancipation of the Hutu (PARMEHUTU): In Rwanda, in late 1959, Hutu leader Gregoire Kayibanda transformed his Muhutu Social Movement (MSM) into a political party that called for the end of Tutsi colonialism and feudalism and remained close to Belgium.
Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People (PALIPEHUTU): Formed in 1980, in a Tanzanian refugee camp for Burundian exiles, this group planned to overthrow the Tutsi military regime in Burundi and establish a majority rule government.
Party of the People (PP): Inspired by the recent Hutu revolution in Rwanda, it was a Burundian political party formed in the late 1950s that was blatantly pro-Hutu and supported by some Belgian officials and settlers.
Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI): An ethnic Ngiti militia group based in Ituri Province of the DRC from 2002 to 2006. It was allied to the Lendu FNI militia.
Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS): A Chadian rebel movement formed in Darfur by Idriss Deby in 1989. Backed by Gaddafi’s Libya, it invaded Chad in late 1990 and seized power.
People’s Armed Forces (FAP): A Libyan-backed rebel group based in northern Chad that took power in Chad from 1979 to 1982. Led by Goukouni Oueddei, it fought against Hissene Habre’s regime in the mid-1980s but then allied with it in 1987 to expel Libyans from northern Chad.
Perraudin, Andre: A Swiss Catholic missionary in Rwanda for most of the late 20th century who became an archbishop in 1959. He sympathized with the aspirations of the Hutu majority and coauthored the “Bahutu Manifesto” with Gregoire Kayibanda.
Popular Defense Force (PDF): A paramilitary organization formed by the Sudanese government at the start of the 1990s. Many state-sponsored militias were eventually incorporated into the PDF.
Radio Muhabura: Meaning “lead the way” in Kinyarwanda, this was a RPF radio station based in Uganda that broadcast antigovernment propaganda into Rwanda during the early 1990s.
Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD): A rebel group formed in eastern DRC in 1998 and backed by Rwanda.
Rally for Congolese Democracy–Goma (RCD-G): A rebel group that split from the original RCD in 1999 but was based mostly around the city of Goma and backed by Rwanda.
Rally for Congolese Democracy–Kisangani (RCD-K): A rebel group resulting from the division of the original RCD in 1999, based around the city of Kisangani, and supported by Uganda.
Rally for Congolese Democracy–Liberation Movement (RCD-ML): A splinter group from RCD-K formed after 2000 when the group moved to Ituri Province.
Red Terror: A campaign of torture and murder conducted by Ethiopia’s military regime against its political opponents during the late 1970s.
Republican Democratic Movement (MDR): An opposition political party in Rwanda during the 1990s that was initially involved in a coalition government with the RPF after the 1994 genocide.
Republican Order Number One: A 1983 decree by the government of Sudan that abrogated the Addis Ababa Agreement and prompted the start of the Second Sudanese Civil War.
Rucunshu coup: In 1896, Kanjogera, a widow of the late King Rwabugiri, staged a violent seizure of power in Rwanda that brought her son, Musinga, to power.
Rwabugiri: King of the precolonial state of Rwanda from 1865 to 1895. He initiated numerous wars against neighboring groups and further centralized the state, which polarized the existing Tutsi and Hutu identities.
Rwagasore, Louis: The son of King Mwambutsa and crown prince of Burundi who led the Union for National Progress (UPRONA) in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. In 1961, he was assassinated shortly after his election as Burundi’s first prime minister.
Rwagasore Youth Revolutionaries (JJR): The youth wing of the ruling UPRONA that conducted massacres of Hutu intellectuals and students in 1972.
Rwanda Armed Forces (FAR): The Rwandan state military under the Habyarimana administration of 1972 to 1994.
Rwanda Defense Force (RDF): The name of the Rwandan state military, formerly the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), from 2002 to today.
Rwandan Democratic Rally (RADER): This short-lived political party was formed in Rwanda in 1959 by moderate Tutsi who wanted to cooperate with the Belgian colonial administration and Hutu political leaders.
Rwandan National Guard (GNR): The Belgian-led military of Rwanda after independence in 1962.
Rwandan National Union (UNAR): A primarily Tutsi Rwandan political party formed in 1959 that demanded the immediate granting of independence to the country as a constitutional monarchy.
Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA): The name of the armed wing of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1990 to 2002, when it was renamed the Rwanda Defense Force (RDF).
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF): A new name for the Rwandan Alliance for National Unity (RANU) adopted in 1987. The RPF invaded Rwanda in 1990 and seized power during the 1994 genocide. Led by Paul Kagame, the RPF remains the government of Rwanda.
Rwandese Alliance for National Unity (RANU): Originally called the Rwandese Refugee Welfare Association (RRWA), this new name was adopted in 1980 to reflect a more militant political stance among Rwandan exiles, including the desire to eventually return to Rwanda. It was based in Kenya from 1981 to 1986.
Rwandese Refugee Welfare Association (RRWA): A self-help group formed by Rwandan refugees in Uganda in 1979.
Rwasa, Agathon: A Hutu extremist leader of the National Forces of Liberation (FNL) during Burundi’s civil war in the late 1990s and 2000s. Although he agreed to a cease-fire in 2006, his forces were still fighting in 2008 but then embarked on a demobilization process. He became a political opposition leader in Burundi and went into hiding during the controversial election of 2010.
Rwigyema, Fred: A Rwandan Tutsi exile who became an important leader within the Ugandan National Resistance Movement/Army (NRM/NRA) and eventually led the RPF’s invasion of Rwanda in 1990. He was killed by several RPF colleagues after a dispute over military strategy.
Sadiq al-Mahdi: The great grandson of Sudan’s late-19th-century Mahdi and leader of the moderate Islamist Umma Party, he served as prime minister of Sudan from 1966 to 1967 and from 1986 to 1989. During his second term in power, he was supported by Gaddafi’s Libya and initiated Sudanese state sponsorship of Arab militias that were pitted against African communities in Darfur and southern Sudan.
San: Also called Basarwa and Bushmen, these historic hunter-gatherer communities of Southern Africa were targeted for extermination by European settlers during the 1700s and 1800s. They became a marginalized minority, inhabiting such interior deserts as the Kalahari. In modern Botswana, state attempts to resettle a San group was called genocide by local and international activists.
Saro-Wiwa, Ken: A Nigerian writer and activist who led MOSOP. He accused multinational oil companies, including Shell, and the Nigerian federal government of committing genocide against the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta. In 1994, he was arrested by the Nigerian military and executed the next year.
Save Darfur Coalition: An organization formed in New York City in July 2004 by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish World Service. It established a head office in Washington, D.C. and engaged in raising public awareness of atrocities being committed in Darfur and advocated for international intervention. In 2011, it merged with the Genocide Intervention Network to form a new organization called United to End Genocide.
Seleka: Meaning “union” in the Sanga language of the Central African Republic, this alliance of northern-based rebel groups seized power in March 2013, which prompted revenge killings of Muslims by the Christian anti-balaka militia.
Sendashonga, Seth: A Hutu member of the RPF and minister in Rwanda’s post-genocide government of the mid-1990s who began to ask questions about his organization’s involvement in massacres and assassinations. He fled to Kenya, where he tried to form a Rwandan opposition group, but was assassinated in 1998.
Seromba, Athanese: A Catholic priest in western Rwanda during the 1994 genocide who encouraged his Tutsi parishioners to hide in his church but then called Hutu militia who burned the structure. After the genocide, he worked as a priest in Italy but surrendered himself to the ICTR where, in 2006, he was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and eventually sentenced to life imprisonment.
Simba: Kiswahili word for “lion” and a term used to describe rebels active in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during the 1960s.
Simbananiye, Arthemon: A senior Burundian civil servant and former minister of foreign affairs who directed the genocide of educated Hutu and Hutu students in 1972.
Simbikangwa, Pascal: An intelligence head in Rwanda’s Habyarimana government who, after the 1994 genocide, fled to France where he was eventually convicted of genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment in 2014.
Social Darwinism: A pseudoscientific theory that emerged during the late 19th century and claimed that humanity can be divided into a hierarchy of races.
Social revolution: The violent overthrow of Tutsi officials by Hutu leaders in Rwanda during 1959.
South Kivu: A province in eastern DRC that borders Rwanda and Burundi.
Southern Policy: The British colonial policy used to administer southern Sudan during the first half of the 20th century that encouraged Christianization and the English language.
Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM): A combination of rebel groups in southern Sudan formed in 1969 that fought the country’s first civil war.
Sudan African Nationalist Union (SANU): Formed in 1963 during the First Sudanese Civil War, this exiled movement advocated the separation of southern Sudan from Sudan.
Sudan Defense Force (SDF): The British colonial military established in Sudan in 1924. It was divided into regional elements including the Equatorial Corps, Eastern Arab Corps, Western Arab Corps, and Camel Corps.
Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA): A group formed by exiled Sudanese in 1994 to advocate for a more-inclusive political system in Sudan.
Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A): Formed in Darfur during the early 2000s, this secular rebel group consisted of Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa fighters who opposed the Sudan government’s program of Arabization in the region. It was initially called the Darfur Liberation Front (DLF). With the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement in 2006, the movement split into different factions, some of which supported and others which opposed the deal.
Sudan Peace Act: A law passed in the United States in October 2002 that accused the Sudanese government of committing genocide during the civil war in the south.
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A): Formed in 1983 and led by John Garang, this southern Sudanese rebel movement advocated a federal and secular Sudan. It fought the Second Sudanese Civil War, and, with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, it formed the autonomous government of South Sudan and the government of independent South Sudan in 2011.
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (SPLM-N): When South Sudan became independent in 2011, members of the SPLM/A active in Kordofan and Blue Nile, which remained part of Sudan, renamed themselves SPLM-North and continued their struggle against the Khartoum government.
Survival International: A British-based global indigenous rights organization that helped the First People of the Kalahari (FPK), a minority rights group in Botswana, to pressure the government of Botswana by portraying it as committing genocide against the San (or Basarwa).
Tabara: The first overtly political group founded by Burundian Hutu exiles in 1978.
Territorial Guard of Ruanda-Urundi (GTRU): Established by the Belgians in 1960, this was the first colonial military recruited in Rwanda and Burundi.
Thousand Hills Radio-Television (RTML): Established in 1993, this radio station in Rwanda broadcast anti-Tutsi hate propaganda and actively encouraged and directed killing during the 1994 genocide.
Toyota War: A 1987 conflict in which French- and United States-backed Chadian forces drove Gaddafi’s Libyans out of northern Chad.
Tshombe, Moise: Leader of separatist Katanga during the Congo Crisis of the early 1960s and prime minister of the DRC in 1964–1965.
Tuareg: The historically nomadic people of the Sahara and Sahel of West Africa who were split between Niger, Mali, and Algeria upon the independence of those states from France in the early 1960s. Counterinsurgency campaigns in Mali and Niger against Tuareg separatist rebellions have been alleged as genocide.
Tutsi: An identity that is associated with the historic pastoral minority in Rwanda and Burundi. It is probable that the ancestors of the Tutsi, during precolonial times, moved into the Great Lakes Area from further north in what is now South Sudan and Ethiopia. European colonizers, given their racial theories, saw the Tutsi as members of a biologically superior race that had conquered the supposedly inferior Hutu. Under colonial rule, the Tutsi became a favored group, gained preferential access to Western education, and occupied administrative positions within the colonial state.
Twa: A small and historically marginalized community in Central Africa, including Rwanda and Burundi. Called pygmies in colonial times, they were historic forest hunter-gatherers and specialized in making pots to trade.
Twagiramungu, Faustin: A Hutu member of the Republican Democratic Movement (MDR), he became the first postgenocide prime minister of Rwanda in 1994. Tensions stemming from violence carried out by the RPF including the Kibeho massacre, prompted him to resign from the unity government. In 2003, Twagiramungu, his party banned, ran for president but lost to RPF incumbent Paul Kagame, who won with a remarkable 95 percent of the vote.
Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF): The current state military of Uganda. It originates from the National Resistance Army (NRA) that took power in 1986 and was then renamed in 1995.
Union for National Progress (UPRONA): Led by Crown Prince Louis Rwagasore, this Burundian political party of the late 1950s and early 1960s demanded immediate independence from Belgium.
Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC): A pro-Hema rebel group formed in Ituri Province of the DRC in 2001 and supported initially by Uganda and then by Rwanda. Its fighters were demobilized in the mid-2000s, and it became a political party.
United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR): A United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda meant to supervise the implementation of the Arusha Accords in 1993 and 1994. Commanded by Canadian general Romeo Dallaire, it was ill-prepared to deal with the genocide that began in April 1994.
United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC): Initially created to supervise the stalled peace process for the DRC in 1999, this international peacekeeping force reached substantial numbers with the creation of a transitional government and the withdrawal of foreign forces in 2002 and 2003. In 2010, it represented the UN’s largest peacekeeping force, with over 20,000 personnel, and its name was changed to UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) to reflect that it was now supporting an elected government.
United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA): Created to augment an existing international peacekeeping mission in the CAR in 2014, this force was mandated to protect civilians, given concerns about the possibility of genocide in the country.
United Nations Observer Mission to Uganda-Rwanda (UNOMUR): A United Nations military mission formed in 1993 that tried to ensure that the Ugandan government was not supplying RPF rebels in Rwanda.
United Nations Operation in Burundi (ONUB): An international military force that supervised the peace process in Burundi from 2004 to 2007. It took over from the African Union Mission in Burundi (AMIB).
United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO): The new name of MONUC from 2010.
Uwilingiyimana, Agathe: The interim prime minister of Rwanda who, along with the 10 Belgian soldiers who were guarding her, was murdered in early April 1994 at the start of the genocide against the Tutsi.
Volcan Army: An Arab rebel group formed in northern Chad in the 1970s and sponsored by Gaddafi’s Libya.
War of the Tribes: A 1988 conflict between Libyan and Sudanese government-sponsored Arab militias and the Federal Army of Darfur, which sought to defend Fur people from massacres that a Bahraini newspaper called genocide.
Yousif Kuwa Mekki: A Nuba former teacher who led SPLA forces in the Nuba Mountains in the 1990s and opposed the Sudan state genocide against the Nuba people.
Yusuf Ibrahim: A member of the royal family of the Sultanate of Darfur who led a rebellion against Mahdist rule in the late 1880s.
Zaghawa: Speaking a Nilo-Saharan language, the Zaghawa people inhabit western Sudan and eastern Chad.
Zero Network: A secret network of Hutu extremists formed within the Rwandan state and military during 1992.
Zubeir Mohamed Saleh: The vice president of Sudan who was put in charge of a program to eliminate the Nuba population of the Nuba Mountains at the start of the 1990s.