Paul Kagame the inspirational leader
Paul Kagame, a politician and former military officer, was born in southern Rwanda, in a prominent political family of the Tutsi ethnic group, on October 23, 1957.
As the country prepared for independence from Belgium in 1959, a Hutu rebel movement fomented violence against the Tutsis. Kagame’s family fled their home, eventually seeking refuge in the neighbouring British colony of Uganda.
Kagame was only two years old when his family went into exile, and he began school while living in a refugee camp. It was there that he met his friend and future comrade, Fred Rwigyema.
The Journey of Paul Kagame’s Ascent
In 1979, the Ugandan rebels, with the assistance of Tanzanian forces, ousted Amin, but the rule of his successor, Milton Obote, threatened persecution against Kagame’s fellow Rwandan refugees, and Kagame and Rwigyema joined a new armed movement against Obote’s rule, the National Resistance Army, led by Yoweri Museveni. After the resistance’s victory in 1986, Kagame became a senior officer in the new Ugandan army.
With his success in Uganda, Kagame’s eyes turned to his native country, and along with Rwigyema and fellow Rwandan Tutsi exiles, he founded the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and planned a war of liberation against the regime in Rwanda. In that country, leaders of the regime had turned on one another, and the RPF’s Tutsi founders were joined by moderate members of Rwanda’s Hutu ethnic group, disillusioned with the country’s Hutu-led regime.
Beginning in 1990, as commander of the forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), he led the struggle to liberate the Rwandan Republic. The RPF halted the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, which claimed over a million victims. The hallmarks of Kagame’s administration are peace and reconciliation, women’s empowerment, promotion of investment and entrepreneurship, and access to information technology, a cause he also champions as Co-Chair of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development.
Key events
In 2003, Kagame was elected to his first full term as president, the same year that Rwanda approved a new constitution. In that year, Kagame endorsed a global peace accord, bringing an end to Congo’s protracted war. The DRC agreed to disarm and repatriate the Rwandan Hutu militants on its soil when Rwandan soldiers withdrew from the Congo.
Between 2004 and 2010, the nation’s economy grew by an average of 8% a year, and it has continued to make strides in terms of income, education, and other development indices. Kagame was accused of plotting President Habyarimana’s assassination by a French court in 2009. But Rwandan authorities have determined that Hutu extremists who wanted to sabotage the peace process shot down the presidential jet. France’s diplomatic ties were put on hold.
In 2010, over-the-charge, diplomatic relations with France were terminated. Kagame, who was elected to a second term, has fostered tight connections with the United States, and the East African Community, as well as better relations with France.
In 2017, he was elected to a third seven-year term. A contentious amendment to the country’s constitution allows President Kagame to run for two more five-year terms.
In 2019, he was elected Chairperson of the East African Community and has been leading the institutional reform of the African Union (AU) since 2016.
Kagame is currently Chairperson of the AU Development Agency’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) as well as the African Union Leader for Domestic Health Financing.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
