This isn't my area of expertise but I'll have a go anyway.

It is quite an interesting article and I think the actual 'facts' of the piece (ie. the numbers involved etc) are probably right, or at least correct from the sources they've had access to. Instead I think the problem lies in their interpretation and presentation. From the language of the article there is quite of lot of conclusions being 'suggested' by their data. So the significant number of Hutus being killed is based on an approximation of the Tutsi population vs. reported Tutsi deaths - it doesn't say anywhere that the authors confirmed the rest were actually Hutus. Also I thought it was reasonably well established in the literature of the Rwandan Genocide that moderate Hutus were victims of the violence too? No mention of this in the article.

The end of the article seems to acknowledge that the authors haven't done a lot of research into what would seem a pretty pivotal part of the story - the degree of pre-planning for the genocide. To me that is a bit like not bothering to consider alternate narrative, and the authors almost seem to imply that the key participants being in jail and hence not easily reached for interview is some kind of dirty trick?

So for example the authors state the RPF invaded Rwanda to protect the Tutsis in Rwanda. This is not a good representation of the RPF and seems to serve a polemic purpose rather than to advance the readeres knowledge of events. The RPF's stated political program was more sophistocated than that (unity, democracy etc.), and in more practical terms their politics were more clearly tied to being a refugee population from Rwanda, that wanted to return even if they had to do so by force of arms. It also seems odd to me that the RPF's prior history in Ugandan politicsn isn't mentioned at all - Kagame probably wasn't exactly fighting for Tutsis in Rwanda while fighting for Museveni.

Or consider the conflict between the authors acknowledging that the FAR/Hutu groups were responsible for the majority of deaths, while at the same time pointing the finger at the RPF because the escalations in killings apparently correlate with their advances. This seems an odd way to apportion blame, and the much clearer conclusion we can draw - that the Hutu attackers ramped up the killings when they though the end was near (a bit like the death marches carried out during WWII when they risked losing their concentration camps, or the Soviet practice of kiling prisoners rather than let then fall to the Germans) - isn't actually stated. I guess part of my concern is that some of the authors argument looks like blame shifting - as written it looks like its the RPF's fault that the Hutus killed Tutsis, which doesn't really make sense.

The authors readily state that they aren't denying the genocide, only acknowledging other forms of violence during the same period. But they don't seem to consider that all that other killing was facilitated by the genocide. It is a lot easier to 'settle scores' if the government gives you a green light and has been encouraging you to kill your enemies for a while in advance. To what extent was RPF violence a product of their rapid advance etc.?

I'm somewhat surprised I couldn't find any criticism (or even thoughtful discussion) of Stam and Davenport's piece through Google. This piece mentions it and clearly doesn't favour it, but unfortunately is directed against other authors who took the Stam and Davenport piece in different directions.

Here is a Wikipedia article of an attack on an IDP camp by RPF forces in 1995 which might give some insight? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibeho_Massacre

I completely agree that yes, fact-wise, the article is probably right. What you have to beware of, however, are the interpretations and suggestions made by the authors, as well as the fact that they essentially start their article with the genocide and ignore all pre-1990s history. Here's a little background:

Until 1959, the German and Belgian colonizers of Rwanda elevated the Tutsi group to a higher status than the Hutu group, despite the fact that the Tutsis made up only 14% of the Rwandan population. Tutsis were offered opportunities for education and clerical training and received "identity cards" (somewhat similar to American Social Security Cards in that they were a marker of prestige). Because the Europeans weren't too concerned about actual ethnicity, they distinguished between Tutsi and Hutu based on arbitrary factors such as skin color, nose shape, and number of cattle (equated to wealth). So if you were a Rwandan who looked more "European," you were a Tutsi and were accorded special privileges. As you can imagine, this upset the Hutu, which is why in 1959 the Hutu took advantage of their newfound support from the Belgians and began sectarian violence against the Tutsi, leading 100,000 Tutsi to flee to Uganda after the Tutsi king died under suspicious circumstances. See how this is getting complicated?

In 1973, a Hutu man named Habyarimana became president in a bloodless coup and again targeted Tutsis, banning intermarriage between Hutus and Tutsis and banning all Tutsis from the military while simultaneously enforcing military rule. Meanwhile, next door, Zaire became more unstable, causing border trouble between Zaire and Rwanda and increasingly fragile relations between the countries as refugees streamed back and forth across the border. Habyarimana, under Western pressure, declared a multi-party state, which freaked out the Hutu while encouraging the 100,000 Tutsi still in Uganda. All this tension builds and builds, until April 6, 1994, when Habyarimana's plane is shot down in Kigali. The Hutus believe it was the Tutsis, who see an opportunity to return to Rwanda and take that opportunity, an act which the Hutus interpret as an armed invasion. This is where the article essentially starts, without any mention of all this previous history. It tries to explain "what really happened in Rwanda" without looking at anything that came before 1994.

A few quotes that I take issue with and that imply that the authors are out of their depth: "Our work further revealed that, some nine years later, a great deal of hostility remained. There was little communication between the two ethnic groups." Well, duh. Hundreds of years of tensions (not to mention the colonial decades of severe strife) don't dissolve in an instant. Another: "Our work has led us to conclude that the invading force had a primary goal of conquest and little regard for the lives of resident Tutsis." Not exactly. It makes a lot more sense to assume the RPF simply wanted to go home, not conquer. And they imply that the RPF made no effort to contact Tutsis in Rwanda to tell them to stay out of the way, when really, it's just difficult to communicate with your home country when you're a refugee hiding out in Uganda.

This brings me to the misappropriation of blame by the authors, which is seriously problematic. They try to imply that the RPF is an armed aggressor while not acknowledging that they were refugees who wanted to go home. They spend a lot more time talking about aggression by the RPF and very little about the atrocities committed by the FAR. They also seem to imply that the RPF being in the country is the sole reason why Tutsis were killed, when there was really a lot more to it (see above). Finally, it seems that they're missing a big reality--that when an army (the RPF) is advancing on another army (the FAR), the FAR would have tried to force the RPF to turn back, stop, or negotiate by killing hostages. It seems like basic military strategy to me, but the authors seem to think that it's a bizarre coincidence that advancing army=death. Conflict breeds conflict. When the government is preoccupied with an invasion, it’s easy for others to step outside the law.

So, to summarize. Yes, most of their facts are right. Many people died and most of them were probably Hutu. That's what really happened in Rwanda. But their background knowledge of Rwandan history and politics seems nonexistent apart from a few throwaway lines about past tensions and colonialism, and they totally disregard the fact that the majority of deaths were probably Hutu because there were more Hutu. That's like taking a random sample of people who speak English in Washington, D.C. and being surprised by how many people speak English.

Finally, and this is more of an opinion, I find their methodology to be very suspicious. Their article includes no citations, no studies, no charts, no references, and really, no data. Their explanation ("everything is classified and the government doesn't want you to know this") seems really, really sketchy. The authors also seem to be taking a victim stance themselves. It sounds to me like they want to promote the idea that they were just trying to find out the truth and promote justice and all these nasty people tried to mess it up for them. So basically, they're not wrong, but it feels like this research was done, not so the authors could actually shed light on a horrific and tragic event, but so they could go "Look everyone!!! We care about Africa but there are all these mysterious organizations like in an action movie which are trying to stop us or else we would have solved this BIG MYSTERY that nobody else could figure out!”

I hope this was somewhat informative and helped you understand the conflict a bit better than the article. It’s not a bad article, but it’s an excellent example of how author bias can skew facts and misrepresent history.