RWANDAN NIGHTMARE chillingly asks whether the recent slaughter of nearly a million Rwandans may have been premeditated. Featuring Catherine Bond, a veteran Rwandan correspondent, this program argues that festering ethnic hatred between Hutu and Tutsi did not drive the carnage: a political power struggle did.

The Rwandan government reneged on its promise to share power with the rebel Rwandan Popular Front (RPF) in 1992, and tried instead to catalyze hatred toward the Tutsi while training the Interahmwe militias to kill. The film argues that the massacres, often represented as a spontaneous response to President JuvŽnal Habyarimana's mysterious death in a plane crash, were in fact carefully orchestrated by a government faction to wipe out the Tutsi, whom Habyarimana may have been ready to accept back into Rwandan affairs.

Including interviews with President Habyarimana's widow, RPF leaders Paul Kagami and Theogene Rudasingwa, and former French humanitarian aid minister Bernard Kouchner, RWANDAN NIGHTMARE provides needed insight into an appalling - and misunderstood - tragedy.

"Solid if disturbing background on the complex, ever-changing events in a beleaguered region."—Jeff Dick, Booklist

"**** [4 Stars - Highly Recommended] Horrific... a macabre firsthand view of Rwanda. RWANDAN NIGHTMARE provides a thought-provoking, insightful analysis of a situation not as clear as it may appear at first glance to outsiders. Excellent reportage of the gruesome chain of events in Rwanda makes it a suitable addition to library collections."—James E. Reppert, Video Rating Guide for Libraries

"Choice Pick!... Nice as it has been to dawdle on the glories of 1944 and all that, 1994 is busy witnessing genocide in Africa. Catherine Bond introduces eye-witness accounts of the slaughter in Rwanda, tells the story of the early days of the crisis, and interviews survivors. Was the carnage spontaneous or a calculated act of genocide by the Rwanda government against the country's Tutsi minority?"—The Independent (London)

"Television journalist Catherine Bond has been reporting from Rwanda for four years, and she utilises some of her own footage in this report investigating the extent to which the massacres which have shocked the world were planned and orchestrated."—The Guardian (London)