Paul Kagame (born October 23, 1957) is the current President of Rwanda. He came to prominence as the leader of the guerrilla Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) army.
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Paul Kagame was born to a Tutsi family in Ruhango, Rwanda in October 1957.His military career started in 1979, when he joined Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA) and spent years fighting as a guerrilla against the government of Milton Obote.
In 1985 Kagame was instrumental in forming, along with his close friend Fred Rwigema, the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), which was composed mainly of expatriate Rwandan Tutsi soldiers. In October 1990, the RPF invaded Rwanda in the struggle for the liberation of Rwanda's
minority ethic group Tutsi. Only two days into the invasion, Rwigema
was killed, making Kagame the military commander of the RPF.
The invasion increased ethnic tension throughout the region. On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying both the Rwandan President and the Burundian President was shot down by a surface-to-air missile as it approached Kigali airport. All on board were killed. The deaths immediately sparked the Rwandan Genocide and an estimated 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed. The climax of the war was reached on the 4th July 1994 when RPF, under the leadership of General Paul Kagame, took control of the whole country and rooted out the self-appointed genocidal government of Jean Kambanda, which was fuelling the killings.
Paul Kagame became President of Rwanda in March 2000. Three and a half years later, on August 25, 2003, he won a landslide victory in the first national elections since his government took power in 1994 winning 94% of the votes.
Kagame is highly critical of the United Nations and its role in the 1994 genocide. In March 2004, his public criticism of France for its role in the genocide and its lack of preventative actions caused a diplomatic row.
In recent years, Kagame has stated that it is Rwanda's role to play a part in the prevention of Genocide in Africa and elsewhere. As such, the Rwanda Defense Forces have became one of the major contributors of African peace keeping in Darfur, as well as the newly created hybrid AU-UN force.
(Information found at Wikipedia.com)
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