Paul Kagame

Early life

Kagame was born on 23 October 1957, the youngest of six children, in Tambwe, Ruanda-Urundi, a village located in what is now the Southern Province of Rwanda. His father, Deogratias Rutagambwa, was a member of the Tutsi ethnic group, from which the royal family had been derived since the 18th century or earlier. A member of the Bega clan, Deogratias Rutagambwa had family ties to King Mutara III, but he pursued an independent business career rather than maintain a close connection to the royal court. However, Rutagambwa's uncle Rwubusisi was a powerful and influential politician. Kagame's mother, Asteria Bisinda, descended from the family of the last Rwandan queen, Rosalie Gicanda, that is from the Hebera branch of the royal Nyiginya clan.

At the time of Kagame's birth, Rwanda was a United Nations Trust Territory which had been ruled, in various forms, by Belgium since 1916 under a mandate to oversee eventual independence. Rwandans were made up of three distinct groups: the minority Tutsi were the traditional ruling class, and the Belgian colonial administration had long promoted Tutsi supremacy, while the majority Hutu were agriculturalists. The third group, the Twa, were a forest-dwelling pygmy people descended from Rwanda's earliest inhabitants, who formed less than 1% of the population.

Tensions between Tutsi and Hutu had been escalating during the 1950s, and culminated in the 1959 Rwandan Revolution. Hutu activists began killing Tutsi, forcing more than 100,000 Tutsis to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. Kagame's family abandoned their home and lived for two years in northeastern Rwanda, eventually crossing the border into Uganda. They moved gradually north, and settled in the Nshungerezi refugee camp in the Toro sub-region in 1962. It was around this time that Kagame first met Fred Rwigyema, the future leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

Kagame began his primary education in a school near the refugee camp, where he and other Rwandan refugees learned how to speak English and began to integrate into Ugandan culture. At the age of nine, he moved to the respected Rwengoro Primary School, around 16 kilometres (10 mi) away. He subsequently attended Ntare School, one of the best schools in Uganda, which was also the alma mater of future Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. According to Kagame, the death of his father in the early-1970s, and the departure of Rwigyema to an unknown location, led to a decline in his academic performance and an increased tendency to fight those who belittled the Rwandan population. He was eventually suspended from Ntare and completed his studies at Old Kampala Secondary School.

Military career, 1979–1994

Ugandan Bush War

In 1978, Fred Rwigyema returned to western Uganda and reunited with Kagame. During his absence, Rwigyema had joined the rebel army of Yoweri Museveni. Based in Tanzania, it aimed to overthrow the Ugandan government of Idi Amin. Rwigyema returned to Tanzania and fought in the 1979 war during which Museveni's rebel group, FRONASA, allied with the Tanzanian army and other Ugandan exiles, defeated Amin. After Amin's defeat, Kagame and other Rwandan refugees pledged allegiance to Museveni, who had become a cabinet member in the transition government. Kagame received training at the United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Former incumbent Milton Obote won the 1980 Ugandan general election. Museveni disputed the result, and he and his followers withdrew from the new government in protest. In 1981, Museveni formed the rebel Popular Resistance Army (PRA); Kagame and Rwigyema joined as founding soldiers, along with 38 Ugandans. The army's goal was to overthrow Obote's government, in what became known as the Ugandan Bush War. Kagame took part in the Battle of Kabamba, the PRA's first operation, in February 1981.

Kagame and Rwigema joined the PRA primarily to ease conditions for Rwandan refugees persecuted by Obote. They also had a long-term goal of returning with other Tutsi refugees to Rwanda; military experience would enable them to fight the Hutu-dominated Rwandan army. The PRA merged with another rebel group in June 1981, forming the National Resistance Army (NRA). In the NRA, Kagame specialized in intelligence-gathering, and he rose to a position close to Museveni's. The NRA, based in the Luwero Triangle, fought the Ugandan army for the next five years, even after Obote was deposed in a 1985 coup d'état and the start of peace talks.

In 1986, the NRA captured Kampala with a force of 14,000 soldiers, including 500 Rwandans, and formed a new government. After Museveni's inauguration as president he appointed Kagame and Rwigyema as senior officers in the new Ugandan army; Kagame was the head of military intelligence. In a 2018 paper, Canadian scholar and Rwanda expert Gerald Caplan described this appointment as a remarkable achievement for a foreigner and a refugee. Caplan noted Museveni's reputation for toughness, and said that Kagame would have had to be similarly tough to earn such a position. He also commented on the nature of military intelligence work, saying "it is surely unrealistic to expect that Kagame refrained from the kind of unsavory activities that military security specializes in." In addition to their army duties, Kagame and Rwigyema began building a covert network of Rwandan Tutsi refugees within the army's ranks, intended as the nucleus for an attack on Rwanda. In 1989, Rwanda's President Habyarimana and many Ugandans in the army began to criticise Museveni over his appointment of Rwandan refugees to senior positions, and he demoted Kagame and Rwigyema.

Rwandan Civil War

In October 1990, Rwigyema led a force of over 4,000 RPF rebels into Rwanda at the Kagitumba border post, advancing 60 km (37 mi) south to the town of Gabiro. Kagame was not present at the initial raids, as he was in the United States, attending the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. On the second day of the attack, Rwigyema was shot in the head and killed. The exact circumstances are disputed; the official line of Kagame's government, and the version mentioned by historian Gérard Prunier in his 1995 book on the subject, was that Rwigyema was killed by a stray bullet.

In his 2009 book Africa's World War, Prunier says Rwigyema was killed by his subcommander Peter Bayingana, following an argument over tactics. According to this account, Bayingana and fellow subcommander Chris Bunyenyezi were then executed on the orders of Museveni. In a 2005 conversation with Caplan, Prunier provided a different account, stating that Bayingana and Bunyenyezi's killers were recruited by Kagame. Caplan notes that lack of research means the truth of this is uncertain, but that if true, the "tales of death and intrigue [offer] yet another insight into Kagame's character". Rwigyema's death threw the RPF into confusion. France and Zaire deployed forces in support of the Rwandan army, and by the end of October, the RPF had been pushed back into the far north east corner of the country.

Kagame returned to Africa and took command of the RPF forces, which had been reduced to fewer than 2,000 troops. Kagame and his soldiers moved west, through Uganda, to the Virunga Mountains, a rugged high-altitude area where the terrain worked in their favour. From there, he re-armed and reorganised the army, and carried out fundraising and recruitment from the Tutsi diaspora. Kagame restarted combat in January 1991, with an attack on the northern town of Ruhengeri. Benefiting from the element of surprise, the RPF captured the town and held it for a day before retreating back into the forests.

For the next year, the RPF waged a hit-and-run guerrilla war, capturing some border areas but not making significant gains against the Rwandan army. These actions caused an exodus of around 300,000 Hutu from the affected areas. Prunier wrote in 1995 that the RPF were surprised that Hutu peasants "showed no enthusiasm for being 'liberated' by them". In her 2018 book In Praise of Blood, however, Canadian journalist Judi Rever quoted witnesses who said that the exodus was forced by RPF attacks on the villages including the laying of landmines and shooting of children. Caplan's paper questions the credibility of many of the witnesses Rever had spoken to, but noted that "there are considerable other sources besides Rever that attest to RPF war crimes".

Rwandan genocide

On 6 April 1994, Rwandan President Habyarimana's plane was shot down near Kigali Airport, killing both Habyarimana and the President of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, as well as their entourage and three French crew members. The attackers remain unknown. Prunier, in his 1995 book, concluded that it was most likely a coup d'état carried out by extreme Hutu members of Habyarimana's government who feared that the president was serious about honouring the Arusha agreement, and was a planned part of the genocide. This theory was disputed in 2006 by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, and in 2008 by Spanish judge Fernando Andreu. Both alleged that Kagame and the RPF were responsible.

Rever also held Kagame responsible, giving as his motive a desire to plunge Rwanda into disorder and therefore provide a platform for the RPF to complete their conquest of the country. Evaluating the two arguments later in 2018, Caplan questioned the evidence used by Bruguière and Rever, stating that it has been repeatedly "discredited for its methodology and its dependence on sources who have split bitterly with Kagame". Caplan also noted that Hutu extremists had made multiple prior threats to kill Habyarimana in their journals and radio stations, and cited eyewitness accounts of roadblocks being erected in Kigali and killings initiated within one hour of the crash – evidence that the shooting of the plane was ordered as the initiation of the genocide.

Following Habyarimana's death, a military committee led by Colonel Théoneste Bagosora took immediate control of the country. Under the committee's direction, the Hutu militia Interahamwe and the Presidential Guard began to kill Hutu and Tutsi opposition politicians and other prominent Tutsi figures. The killers then targeted the entire Tutsi population, as well as moderate Hutu, beginning the Rwandan genocide. Over the course of approximately 100 days, an estimated 206,000 to 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed on the orders of the committee. On 7 April, Kagame warned the committee and UNAMIR that he would resume the civil war if the killing did not stop.

The next day, the Rwandan government forces attacked the national parliament building from several directions, but the RPF troops stationed there successfully fought back. Kagame began an attack from the north on three fronts, seeking to link up quickly with the troops isolated in Kigali. An interim government was set up but Kagame refused to talk to it, believing that it was just a cover for Bagosora's rule. Over the next few days, the RPF advanced steadily south, capturing Gabiro and large areas of countryside to the north and east of Kigali. They avoided attacking Kigali or Byumba at this stage, but conducted manoeuvres designed to encircle the cities and cut off supply routes.

Vice President and Minister of Defence

The post-genocide Rwandan government took office in Kigali in July 1994. It was based loosely on the Arusha Accords, but Habyarimana's party, MRND was outlawed. The positions it had been assigned were taken over by the RPF. The military wing of the RPF was renamed as the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), and became the national army. Paul Kagame assumed the dual roles of Vice President of Rwanda and Minister of Defence while Pasteur Bizimungu, a Hutu who had been a civil servant under Habyarimana before fleeing to join the RPF, was appointed president. Bizimungu and his cabinet had some control over domestic affairs, but Kagame remained commander-in-chief of the army and was the de facto ruler of the country. German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle stated that "Bizimungu was commonly seen as a placeholder for Kagame".

Domestic situation

The infrastructure and economy of the country suffered greatly during the genocide. Many buildings were uninhabitable, and the former regime had taken all currency and moveable assets when they fled the country. Human resources were also severely depleted, with over 40% of the population having been killed or fled. Many who remained were traumatised; most had lost relatives, witnessed killings, or participated in the genocide. Kagame controlled the national army and was responsible for maintaining the government's power, while other officials began rebuilding the country.

Non-governmental organisations began to move back into the country, and the international community spent US$1.5 billion on humanitarian aid between July and December 1994, but Prunier described this as "largely unconnected with the real economic needs of the community". Kagame strove to portray the government as inclusive and not Tutsi-dominated. He directed removal of ethnicity from citizens' national identity cards, and the government began a policy of downplaying the distinctions between Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa.

The unity government suffered a partial collapse in 1995. The continuing violence, along with appointing of local government officials who were almost exclusively RPF Tutsi, caused serious disagreement between Kagame and senior Hutu government members, including prime minister Faustin Twagiramungu and interior minister Seth Sendashonga. Twagiramungu resigned in August, and Kagame fired Sendashonga and three others the next day. Pasteur Bizimungu remained president but the makeup of the new government was predominantly RPF Tutsi loyal to Kagame.

Twagiramungu and Sendashonga moved abroad to form a new opposition party shortly after leaving the government. Sendashonga, who had also spoken out about the need for punishing killings by rogue RPF soldiers, moved to Kenya. Having survived an attempt on his life in 1996, he was assassinated in Nairobi in May 1998, when a UN vehicle in which he was travelling was fired upon. Many observers believe Kagame ordered the killing; as Caplan noted: "the RPF denied any responsibility, which no one other than RPF partisans believed".

Refugee crisis and insurgency

Following the RPF victory, approximately two million Hutu fled to refugee camps in neighboring countries, particularly Zaire, fearing RPF reprisals for the Rwandan genocide. The camps were set up by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but were effectively controlled by the army and government of the former Hutu regime, including many leaders of the genocide. This regime was determined to return to power in Rwanda and began rearming, killing Tutsi residing in Zaire, and launching cross-border incursions in conjunction with the Interahamwe paramilitary group. By late 1996, the Hutu militants represented a serious threat to the new Rwandan regime, and Kagame launched a counteroffensive.

Kagame first provided troops and military training to aid a rebellion against Zaire by the Banyamulenge, a Tutsi group living near Bukavu in the Zairian South Kivu province. With Rwandan army support, the Banyamulenge defeated local security forces and began attacking the Hutu refugee camps in the area. At the same time, Kagame's forces joined with Zairian Tutsi around Goma to attack two of the camps there. Most refugees from the attacked camps moved to the large Mugunga camp. In November 1996, the Rwandan army attacked Mugunga, causing an estimated 800,000 refugees to flee. Many returned to Rwanda despite the presence of the RPF; others ventured further west into Zaire.

Despite the disbanding of the camps, the defeated forces of the former regime continued a cross-border insurgency campaign into Rwanda from North Kivu. The insurgents maintained a presence in Rwanda's north western provinces and were supported by the predominantly Hutu population, many of whom had lived in the refugee camps before they were attacked. In addition to supporting the wars in the Congo, Kagame began a propaganda campaign to bring the Hutu to his side. He integrated former soldiers of the deposed genocidal regime's military into the RPF-dominated national army and appointed senior Hutu to key local government positions in the areas hit by insurgency. These tactics were eventually successful; by 1999, the population in the north west had stopped supporting the insurgency and the insurgents were mostly defeated.

Congo wars

Although his primary reason for military action in Zaire was the dismantling of the refugee camps, Kagame also began planning a war to remove long-time dictator President Mobutu Sese Seko from power. Mobutu had supported the genocidaires based in the camps, and was also accused of allowing attacks on Tutsi people within Zaire. Together with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Kagame supported the newly created Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL), an alliance of four rebel groups headed by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, which began waging the First Congo War.

The ADFL, helped by Rwandan and Ugandan troops, took control of North and South Kivu provinces in November 1996 and then advanced west, gaining territory from the poorly organised and demotivated Zairian army with little fighting. By May 1997, they controlled almost the whole of Zaire except for the capital Kinshasa; Mobutu fled and the ADFL took the capital without fighting. The country was renamed as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Kabila became the new president. The Rwandan Defence Forces and the ADFL were accused of carrying out mass atrocities during the First Congo War, with as many as 222,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees declared missing.

Kagame and the Rwandan government retained strong influence over Kabila following his inauguration, and the RPA maintained a heavy presence in Kinshasa. Congolese in the capital resented this, as did many in the eastern Kivu provinces, where ethnic clashes increased sharply. In July 1998, Kabila fired his Rwandan chief-of-staff, James Kabarebe, and ordered all RPA troops to leave the country. Kagame accused Kabila of supporting the ongoing insurgency against Rwanda from North Kivu, the same accusation he had made about Mobutu. He responded to the expulsion of his soldiers by backing a new rebel group, the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), and launching the Second Congo War.

The first action of the war was a blitzkrieg by the RCD and RPA, led by Kabarebe. These forces made quick gains, advancing in twelve days from the Kivu provinces west to within 130 kilometres (81 mi) of Kinshasa. The capital was saved by the intervention of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe on Kabila's side. Following the failure of the blitzkrieg, the conflict developed into a long-term conventional war, which lasted until 2003 and caused millions of deaths and massive damage. According to a report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), this conflict led to the loss of between 3 million and 7.6 million lives, many through starvation and disease accompanying the social disruption of the war.

Presidency

Accession

In the late 1990s, Kagame began to disagree publicly with Bizimungu and the Hutu-led government in Rwanda. Kagame accused Bizimungu of corruption and poor management, while Bizimungu felt that he had no power over appointments to the cabinet and that the Transitional National Assembly was acting purely as a puppet for Kagame. Bizimungu resigned from the presidency in March 2000. Historians generally believe that Bizimungu was forced into resigning by Kagame after denouncing the National Assembly and attempting to sow discord within the RPF. However, Kagame told Kinzer that he was surprised by the development saying that he had received the "startling news" in a phone call from a friend. Following Bizimungu's resignation, the Supreme Court ruled that Kagame should become acting president until a permanent successor was chosen.

Kagame had been de facto leader since 1994, but focused more on military, foreign affairs and the country's security than day-to-day governance. By 2000, the threat posed by cross-border rebels was reduced and when Bizimungu resigned, Kagame decided to seek the presidency himself. The transitional constitution was still in effect, which meant the president was elected by government ministers and the Transitional National Assembly rather than by a direct election.

The RPF selected two candidates, Kagame and RPF secretary general Charles Murigande; the ministers and parliament elected Kagame by eighty-one votes to three. Kagame was sworn in as president in April 2000. Several Hutu politicians, including the prime minister Pierre-Célestin Rwigema, left the government at around the same time as Bizimungu, leaving a cabinet dominated by those close to Kagame. Bizimungu started his own party in 2001, but Kagame's government banned it on the grounds that political campaigning was not permitted under the transitional constitution. The following year, Kagame issued a public statement to Bizimungu, warning him that the government's patience with his continued involvement in party politics was "not infinite", and Bizimungu was arrested two weeks later and convicted of corruption and inciting ethnic violence, charges which human rights groups said were politically motivated. He was imprisoned until 2007, when he was pardoned by Kagame.

New constitution

Between 1994 and 2003, Rwanda was governed by a set of documents combining President Habyarimana's 1991 constitution, the Arusha Accords, and some additional protocols introduced by the transitional government. As required by the accords, Kagame set up a constitutional commission to draft a new permanent constitution. The constitution was required to adhere to a set of fundamental principles including equitable power sharing and democracy. The commission sought to ensure that the draft constitution was "home-grown", relevant to Rwanda's specific needs, and reflected the views of the entire population; they sent questionnaires to civil groups across the country and rejected offers of help from the international community, except for financial assistance.

The draft constitution was released in 2003; it was approved by the parliament, and was then put to a referendum in May of that year. The referendum was widely promoted by the government; ultimately, 95% of eligible adults registered to vote and the turnout on voting day was 87%. The constitution was overwhelmingly accepted, with 93% voting in favour. The constitution provided for a two-house parliament, an elected president serving seven-year terms, and multi-party politics.

The constitution also sought to prevent Hutu or Tutsi hegemony over political power. Article 54 states that "political organizations are prohibited from basing themselves on race, ethnic group, tribe, clan, region, sex, religion or any other division which may give rise to discrimination". According to Human Rights Watch, this clause, along with later laws enacted by the parliament, effectively make Rwanda a one-party state, as "under the guise of preventing another genocide, the government displays a marked intolerance of the most basic forms of dissent".

Elections and referendum

Since ascending to the presidency in 2000, Kagame has faced four presidential elections, in 2003, 2010, 2017 and 2024. On each occasion, he was re-elected in a landslide, winning more than 90 percent of the vote. A constitutional amendment referendum in 2015, which gave Kagame the ability to stand for additional terms, also passed by similar margins. International election monitors, human rights organisations and journalists generally regard these elections as lacking freedom and fairness, with interventions by the Rwandan state to ensure Kagame's victory. According to Ida Sawyer, Central Africa director for Human Rights Watch, "Rwandans who have dared raise their voices or challenge the status quo have been arrested, forcibly disappeared, or killed, independent media have been muzzled, and intimidation has silenced groups working on civil rights or free speech". Following the 2017 poll, Human Rights Watch released evidence of irregularities by election officials including forcing voters to write their votes in full view and casting votes for electors who had not appeared. The United States Department of State said it was "disturbed by irregularities observed during voting" as well as "long-standing concerns over the integrity of the vote-tabulation process".

In their 2018 book How to Rig an Election, political scientists Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas said they were asked by journalists why Kagame went "through the motions of organizing a national poll that he was predestined to win". The book gave likely reasons for the continuation of the polls, including the fact that elections are "important to secure a base level of international legitimacy" and that "not even pretending to hold elections will get a country kicked out of the African Union". Law professor and human rights researcher Lars Waldorf wrote that the RPF's manipulation of polls could be designed to make itself appear stronger. Waldorf said that the party's margins of victory "are not meant to be convincing; rather, they are meant to signal to potential opponents and the populace that Kagame and the RPF are in full control." Scholars are divided on whether Kagame would have won the elections had he not used manipulative tactics. Writing about RPF intimidation of opposition candidates in the run-up to elections, Caplan said "what was most infuriating was that none of this was necessary for the RPF to hold on to power". Belgian academic Filip Reyntjens disagrees, however, stating that "the RPF is fully aware that opening up the political system would eventually lead to a loss of power".

The first post-genocide election was held in August 2003, following the adoption of the new constitution. In May, the parliament voted to ban the Republican Democratic Movement (MDR), following a parliamentary commission report accusing the MDR of "divisive" ideology. The MDR had been one of the coalition parties in the transitional government of national unity, and was the second-largest party in the country after the RPF. Amnesty International criticised this move, claiming that "the unfounded allegations against the individuals mentioned in the report appear to be part of a government-orchestrated crackdown on the political opposition". Kagame was the RPF candidate, while former prime minister Twagiramungu was his main challenger. Twagiramungu had intended to run as the candidate for the MDR, but instead sought the presidency as an independent following the party's banishment. He returned to the country from Europe in June 2003 and began campaigning in August.

Domestic policy

In the late 1990s, Kagame began actively planning methods to achieve national development. He launched a national consultation process and also sought the advice of experts from emerging nations including China, Singapore and Thailand. Following these consultations, and shortly after assuming the presidency, Kagame launched an ambitious programme of national development called Vision 2020. The major purposes of the programme were to unite the Rwandan people and to transform Rwanda from a highly impoverished into a middle income country. The programme consists of a list of goals which the government aimed to achieve before the year 2020. These include reconstruction, infrastructure and transport improvements, good governance, improving agriculture production, private sector development, and health and education improvements.

In 2011, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) issued a report indicating the progress of the Vision 2020 goals. The report examined the stated goals of the programme and rated each one with a status of "on-track", "on-watch" or "off-track". Of 44 goals, it found that 66% were on-track, 11% were on-watch, and 22% were off-track. The major areas identified as off-track were population, poverty and the environment. By 2012, MINECOFIN's review found that 26% of Vision 2020's original indicators had already been achieved. While also highlighting key areas for improvement, the review made several upward revisions, including revising the GDP per capita target from $900 to $1,240. In the same year, an independent review of the strategy carried out by academics based in Belgium rated progress as "quite encouraging", mentioning development in the education and health sectors, as well as Kagame's fostering of a favourable business environment. The review also raised concerns about the policy of "maximum growth at any cost", suggesting that this was leading to a situation in which the rich prospered while the rural poor saw little benefit.

Upon completion of the programme in December 2020, Kagame announced Vision 2050, remarking that "Vision 2020 was about what we had to do in order to survive and regain our dignity. But Vision 2050 has to be about the future we choose, because we can, and because we deserve it." Vision 2050 focuses around the two main pillars of Economic Growth and Prosperity and High Quality of Life and Standards of Life for Rwandans. Vision 2050 is the programmatic articulation of Kagame's ambition for Rwanda to become an upper-middle income country by 2035, and a high-income country by 2050.

Foreign policy

The Second Congo War, which began in 1998, was still raging when Kagame assumed the presidency in 2000. Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Chad had committed troops to the Congolese government side, while Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi were supporting rebel groups. The rebel group Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) had split in 1999 into two factions: the RCD-Goma, supported by Rwanda, and the RCD-Kisangani, which was allied to Uganda. Uganda also supported the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC), a rebel group from the north. All these rebel groups were at war with Kabila's government in Kinshasa, but they were also increasingly hostile to each other. Various peace meetings had been held, culminating in the July 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement which was signed by Kabila, Kagame and all the other foreign governments. The rebel groups were not party to the agreement, and fighting continued. The RPA continued to be heavily involved in the Congo War during 2000, fighting battles against the Ugandan army in Kisangani and against Kabila's army in Kasai and Katanga.

In January 2001, Kabila was assassinated inside his palace. His son Joseph was appointed president and immediately began asserting his authority by dismissing his father's cabinet and senior army commanders, assembling a new government, and engaging with the international community. The new government provided impetus for renewed peace negotiations, and in July 2002 a peace agreement was reached between Rwanda, Congo, and the other major participants, in which all foreign troops would withdraw and RCD-Goma would enter a power-sharing transitional government with Joseph Kabila as interim president until elections could be held. Kagame's government announced at the end of 2002 that all uniformed Rwandan troops had left Congolese territory, but this was contradicted by a 2003 report by UN panel of experts. According to this report, the Rwandan army contained a dedicated "Congo desk" which used the armed forces for large-scale illegal appropriation of Congolese resources.

Despite the agreement and subsequent ceasefire, relations between Kagame and the Congolese government remained tense. Kagame blamed the DRC for failing to suppress the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in North and South Kivu provinces. Kabila accused Rwanda of using the Hutu as a "pretext for maintaining its control and influence in the area". There has been ongoing conflict in Congo's eastern provinces since 2004, during which Kagame has backed two major insurgencies. This included a major rebellion from 2005 to 2009, led by Congolese Tutsi Laurent Nkunda, as well as the a rebellion carried out by the March 23 Movement (M23) under leader Bosco Ntaganda, beginning in 2012. A leaked United Nations report in 2012 cited Kagame's defence minister James Kabarebe as being effectively the commander of the M23. Relations have improved since 2016, as Kagame held a bilateral meeting with Kabila in Gisenyi. When Félix Tshisekedi was elected DRC president in 2019, Kagame – the AU chairman at the time – unsuccessfully called for an AU investigation into the poll. Despite this, he has developed a close relationship with Tshisekedi since the latter's election, with summits in both Kinshasa and Kigali. As of 2020, Kagame still faces accusations that Rwanda's troops are active within the Kivu provinces. Congolese officials such as Walikale member of parliament Juvénal Munubo, as well as civilians, have reported sighting RDF soldiers in the DRC, but Kagame consistently denies these claims.

Assassinations

Throughout Kagame's tenure as vice president and president, he has been linked with murders and disappearances of political opponents, both in Rwanda and abroad. In a 2014 report titled "Repression Across Borders", Human Rights Watch documents at least 10 cases involving attacks or threats against critics outside Rwanda since the late 1990s, citing their criticism of the Rwandan government, the RPF or Kagame. Examples include the killing of Sendashonga in 1998, the assassination attempts against Nyamwasa in South Africa, as well as the murder of former intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya in South Africa on 31 December 2013. Speaking about Karegeya's killing, Kagame spoke of his approval, saying "whoever betrays the country will pay the price, I assure you". In 2015, a former Rwandan military officer testified before the U.S. Congress that the Rwandan government had offered him $1 million to assassinate Karegeya as well as Kagame critic General Kayumba Nyamwasa. After his testimony, this officer himself faced threats in Belgium as did a Canadian journalist. In December 2017, a South African court found that the Rwandan government continued to plot the assassination of its critics overseas.

Chairperson of the African Union

Kagame was Chairperson of the African Union from 28 January 2018 to 10 February 2019. As Chair, Kagame promoted the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) and the African Continental Free Trade Area. The proposed Continental Free Trade Area was signed on 21 March 2018 by 44 of the 55 AU nations. By the time he left office in February 2019, the Continental Free Trade had already been ratified by 19 of the 22 nations needed for it to officially go into effect. Kagame also pushed through a reform of African Union structures in an effort to improve their effectiveness and make them financially sustainable.

Public image and personality

Views on his leadership vary widely among international scholars and journalists. According to political scientist Alexander Dukalskis, Kagame has been adept in developing a sophisticated positive image of Rwanda abroad. Dukalskis says that to suppress negative information, the Kagame regime has curtailed access to academics and journalists, and threatened and assassinated critics of the regime. Others, such as Philip Gourevitch, author of the 1998 book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, focus on his achievements in ending the genocide after the international community failed to do so, as well as the reconciliation, economic growth, foreign investment, improved public health and education. This is countered by authors such as Judi Rever, who highlight war crimes committed by the RPF before, during, and after the 1994 genocide, the effects of the civil war, assassinations of opponents and the totalitarianism of his regime. In Rethinking the Rwandan Narrative for the 25th Anniversary, Gerald Caplan states that a new narrative is required to reconcile these conflicting viewpoints, incorporating aspects from both points of view and "striking the proper balance between the old and the newly revised".

In Rwanda, Kagame's RPF is seen as a Tutsi-dominated party, and in the years following the 1994 genocide, it was deeply unpopular with the Hutu, who constitute 85% of the population. Approximately two million Hutu lived as refugees in neighbouring countries until 1996, when Kagame forced them to return home. Many Hutu also supported the late 1990s cross-border insurgency against Kagame by defeated forces of the former regime. By 1999, the RPF had weakened the insurgents and Tutsi and Hutu began living together peacefully in the northwest. Kayumba Nyamwasa, at the time still part of the Rwandan army, said that "the mood had changed", attributing a shift in Hutu attitude to a shift in the "balance of forces in the country", with the genocidaires having "no chance of returning to power". As of 2021, with a lack of free speech in Rwanda, and elections which are generally regarded as lacking freedom and fairness, Kagame's popularity among the Rwandan population is unknown. Journalists Jason Burke of The Guardian and Al Jazeera's Rashid Abdallah describe the president as "authentically popular in Rwanda" and as enjoying "overwhelming public support" respectively. British journalist and author Michela Wrong and Filip Reyntjens disagree, with Wrong saying that "the level of invective Kagame dedicates to the Rwanda National Congress, the amount of energy he has expended trying to get Uganda and South Africa to expel or extradite or close down these players, suggests he sees them as a real threat".

Personal life

Kagame married Jeannette Nyiramongi, a Tutsi exile living in Nairobi, Kenya, in Uganda on 10 June 1989. Kagame had asked his relatives to suggest a suitable marriage and they recommended Nyiramongi. Kagame travelled to Nairobi and introduced himself, persuading her to visit him in Uganda. Nyiramongi was familiar with the RPF and its goal of returning refugees to Rwanda. She held Kagame in high regard. The couple have four children.

His daughter, Ange Kagame Ndengeyingoma, completed her education abroad and was absent from the public eye for most of her childhood due to security and privacy reasons. She attended Dana Hall School, a private preparatory school located in Wellesley, Massachusetts in the United States. She attended Smith College where she majored in political science with a minor in African studies. She also holds a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University.

Kagame can speak three languages, English, Kinyarwanda, and French, and is a supporter of Arsenal F.C. He is Catholic and teetotal.

Honours

Benin:

Grand Cross of the National Order of Benin (2010)

Burkina Faso:

Grand Cross of the Ordre de l'Étalon, formerly National Order of Burkina Faso (2019)

Central African Republic:

Grand Cross of the Order of Reconnaissance of Central African (2019)

Guinea:

Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (2016)

Guinea-Bissau:

Recipient of the Medal of Amílcar Cabral (20 June 2024)

Ivory Coast

Grand Cross of the National Order of the Ivory Coast (2018)

Morocco:

Collar of the Order of Muhammad (2016)

Liberia:

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Pioneers of Liberia (2009)

Serbia:

Second Class of the Order of the Republic of Serbia (2016)

Uganda:

Most Excellent Order of the Pearl of Africa: Grand Master (2012)

La Francophonie:

Grand Cross of the Order of La Pléiade (2022)