Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame has effectively ruled Rwanda since 1994, first as vice-president and defence minister and as president since 2000, and is both credited with the country's transformation and accused of running a repressive state. Born in 1957 to a Tutsi family, he fled to Uganda with his parents as a toddler during anti-Tutsi violence, and grew up in a refugee camp. He joined Yoweri Museveni's rebel movement in Uganda and became head of its military intelligence after it took power in 1986. He was training at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, formed by Tutsi exiles, invaded Rwanda in 1990; he returned to take command after its leader was killed. The genocide began in April 1994 after the president's plane was shot down, and about 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were murdered in a hundred days while the United Nations withdrew. Kagame's forces fought their way across the country and ended it in July, an achievement no external power attempted. His government has delivered results that are unusual in the region: growth averaging around seven per cent, near-universal health insurance, sharp falls in child mortality, low corruption, and the highest proportion of women in any national parliament. The gacaca community courts processed roughly two million genocide cases. The other record is a one-party state in substance. Opposition figures have been imprisoned, exiled, or killed abroad; journalists have disappeared; a 2015 referendum let him stand until 2034; and he wins elections with well above ninety per cent. Rwandan forces intervened repeatedly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where UN experts have documented support for the M23 rebellion and where millions died in the wars that followed.
- Lived: 1957 CE – ?
- Nationality: Rwandan
- Roles: head_of_state, military_leader
