The country has been beset by ethnic tension associated with the traditionally unequal relationship between the dominant Tutsi minority and the majority Hutus.

Although after 1959 the ethnic relationship was reversed, when civil war prompted around 200,000 Tutsis to flee to Burundi, lingering resentment led to periodic massacres of Tutsis.

OVERVIEW

The most notorious of these began in April 1994. The shooting down of the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana, and his Burundian counterpart, near Kigali triggered what appeared to be a coordinated attempt by Hutus to eliminate the Tutsi population.

In response, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched a military campaign to control the country. It achieved this by July, by which time at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been brutally massacred.

Some two million Hutus fled to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). They included some of those responsible for the massacres, and some joined Zairean forces to attack local Tutsis. Rwanda responded by invading refugee camps dominated by Hutu militiamen.

Meanwhile, Laurent Kabila, who seized control of Zaire and renamed it the DR Congo, failed to banish the Hutu extremists, prompting Rwanda to support the rebels trying to overthrow him.

Rwanda withdrew its forces from DR Congo in late 2002 after signing a peace deal with Kinshasa. But tensions simmer, with Rwanda accusing the Congolese army of aiding Hutu rebels in eastern DR Congo.

Rwanda has used traditional "gacaca" community courts to try those suspected of taking part in the 1994 genocide. But key individuals - particularly those accused of orchestrating the slaughter - appear before an International Criminal Tribunal in northern Tanzania.

The country is striving to rebuild its economy, with coffee and tea production being among its main sources of foreign exchange. Nearly two thirds of the population live below the poverty line.

FACTS

• Population: 8.6 million (UN, 2005)
• Capital: Kigali
• Area: 26,338 sq km (10,169 sq miles)
• Major languages: Kinyarwanda (official), French (official), English (official), Swahili
• Major religions: Christianity, indigenous beliefs
• Life expectancy: 42 years (men), 45 years (women) (UN)
• Monetary unit: 1 Rwandan franc = 100 centimes
• Main exports: Coffee, tea, hides, tin ore
• GNI per capita: US $220 (World Bank, 2005)
• Internet domain: .rw
• International dialling code: +250

LEADERS

President: Paul Kagame

In August 2003 Paul Kagame - who had been selected by MPs as president in 2000 - claimed a landslide victory in the first presidential elections since the 1994 genocide.

President Paul Kagame

Born in western Rwanda in 1957, Mr Kagame grew up in Uganda, where his parents fled to escape Hutu violence.

He joined Yoweri Museveni - Uganda's future president - in the fight to topple Milton Obote, rising to become Mr Museveni's intelligence chief.

Mr Kagame was instrumental in establishing the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), becoming its military commander. His rebel force ended the 1994 genocide.

Mr Kagame has rejected the conclusions of a French report which said he ordered the 1994 rocket attack on a plane carrying the then-president, which sparked the genocide.

Rwanda has experienced relative stability under Mr Kagame and the RPF, but the International Crisis Group - a conflict-prevention agency - reported in 2002 that the RPF tolerated no criticism or challenge to its authority.

Known to his colleagues as an incorruptible teetotaller, Mr Kagame downplays any ethnic agenda in Rwanda, presenting himself as a Rwandan and not a Tutsi.