Paul Kagame

President

Date of Birth: 23/10/1957
Place of Birth: Ruhango

Education: Ntare Secondary School, Uganda; Military Training, Fort Leavenworth, United States of America, 1990.

Career: Guerilla fighter, 1979-86; Head of military intelligence, 1986-90: National Resistance Army, Uganda; Leader, Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), 1990-94; Vice President and Minister for Defence, Government of National Unity, 1994-2000; Chairman, PPF (became partner of Government of National Unity); President, Republic of Rwanda, 2000-present.

Commentary: Paul Kagame, born of Tutsi parents on the Rwandan side of that border, was taken as a youth into exile in Uganda, where he learned excellent English and Kiswahili but no French, the language of Rwanda's administration. In due course, with many Tutsi fellow exiles, he left the NRA to become head of the Armée Patriotique Rwandaise. He has been President of Rwanda since May 2000.

2010 started well for Kagame's international standing when an independent inquiry (see Pointer) has scotched the accusation by French anti-terrorism Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière that Kagame's Front Populaire Rwandais (FPR) triggered the genocide by shooting down the aircraft carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April 1994.

Kagame has kept Congolese President Joseph Kabila on side. Britain and the United States think the impressive economic recovery makes Rwanda one of Africa's bright hopes while in November, after some wobbles and bickering, the Commonwealth embraced Rwanda. 

November 2010 saw Kigali win a round of the blame game when a 545-page report mapping human rights violations in Congo-Kinshasa in 1993-2003 was leaked. The report suggested that Rwandan troops might have committed 'crimes of genocide' in eastern Congo-Kinshasa in 1997; if the UN endorsed those claims, Kigali said it would have no choice but to withdraw its 3500 troops from the UN force in Darfur, Sudan.