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== Prelude ==
The decision to mount a large attack against Rwanda in late 1963 was made by UNAR leaders in Burundi that November.{{sfn|Lemarchand|1970|p=219}} In August communal elections had been held throughout Rwanda. PARMEHUTU won an overwhelming majority of the offices,<ref name= emmanuel/> but the campaign revealed significant internal disagreements in the party which allowed UNAR to consolidate its domestic support.{{sfn|Lemarchand|1970|p=219}} In October 1963 Kigeli gave $23,000—a portion of the money he had received from the Chinese government—to Papias Gatwa, his personal secretary, with instructions to pass it on to Rukeba, who was in the Congo at that moment.{{sfn|Lemarchand|1970|p=206}} This money enabled UNAR's exiled leaders to buy arms and ammunition.{{sfn|Lemarchand|1970|p=219}} There were rumours that Gatwa and Rukeba had actually embezzled the money given to them by Kigeli, and that Rukeba had ordered the subsequent attacks into Rwanda to "justify" the use of the funds.{{sfn|Lemarchand|1970|p=206}} According to journalist [[Linda Melvern]], the Inyenzi in Burundi also acquired arms with funds garnered by selling food provided by relief organisations to refugees.{{sfn|Melvern|2000|p=17}} The Inyenzi could rely upon a large amount of small arms seized from a police armoury in [[Ngara]], Tanganyika earlier in the year. By November, Rukeba's headquarters in Bujumbura had been able to establish effective communications between Tutsi refugee centres in Burundi and Tanzania. Academic [[René Lemarchand]] concluded, "if anyone can be said to bear responsibility for the raids that were launched from Burundi, it was Rukeba."{{sfn|Lemarchand|1970|p=219}}
In late November the Inyenzi in Burundi were weakened after Rukeba was arrested by local authorities, who discovered a cache of weapons in his home—purportedly stolen from Congolese rebels—and after the government seized three truckloads of arms near Bujumbura. The first attempt by the Inyenzi in Burundi to invade Rwanda came shortly thereafter on 25 November 1963. Approximately 1,500 refugees from across Burundi mostly armed with spears and bows and arrows, began making the three-day journey towards the Rwandan border. Upon learning of this, [[United Nations Commission on Human Rights]] (UNCHR) Representative in Bujumbura Jacques Cuenod and a group of Protestant missionaries alerted the Burundian government and frantically tried to persuade them to stop the attack. Cuenod pointed out that the GNR was probably waiting at the border for the Inyenzi and would certainly defeat them. After some hesitation, the Burundian government dispatched the gendarmerie to disarm the refugees and return them to their camps. One refugee later told UNCHR worker Francois Preziosi that Rukeba had ordered the attack after a meeting in Bujumbura during which Inyenzi leaders from other countries expressed their opposition. The refugee also stated that Kigeli had reportedly asked Rukeba not to launch any attacks in a letter.{{sfn|Lemarchand|1970|p=220}} However, researchers Günther Philipp and Helmut Strizek stated that the rebel force which invaded Rwanda in 1963 was ultimately commanded by Kigeli.{{sfn|Philipp|1978|p=1715}}{{sfn|Strizek|1996|p=156}}
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