Important figures
Roméo Dallaire
Most notably, General Dallaire was appointed Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda prior to and during the 1994 genocide. General Dallaire provided the United Nations with information about the planned massacre. The permission to intervene was denied and the UN withdrew its peacekeeping forces. General Dallaire, along with a small contingent of Ghanaian and Tunisian soldiers and military observers, disobeyed the command to withdraw and remained in Rwanda to fulfill their ethical obligation to protect those who sought refuge with the UN forces.
His courage and leadership during this mission earned him the Meritorious Service Cross, the United States Legion of Merit, the Aegis Award on Genocide Prevention, and the affection and admiration of people around the globe.
PAUL KAGAME
Paul Kagame is a Rwandan politician and former military leader. He is the 4th and current President of Rwanda, having taken office in 2000.
Kagame previously commanded the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the Uganda-based rebel force.
He resumed the civil war in which Hutu extremists killed an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu, and ended the genocide with a military victory.
During his vice presidency, he controlled the national army and maintained law and order, while other officials began rebuilding the country.
As president, he has prioritized national development. The country is developing strongly on key indicators, including health care and education.
Kagame is popular in Rwanda and with some foreign observers; human rights groups accuse him of political repression. Due to changes in the constitution, he could potentially be President until 2034. His role in the assassination of exiled political opponents has been controversial.
Juvénal Habyarimana
Juvénal Habyarimana (March 8, 1937 - April 6, 1994) was the second president of the Republic of Rwanda, serving longer than any other president to date, from 1973 until 1994. He has been nicknamed "Kinani", than in "invincible" kinyarwanda.
On July 5, 1973, when he was defense minister, Habyarimana deposed the then president Grégoire Kayibanda with a coup d'etat and assumed the position of president of the country. Habyarimana was the leader of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development.
in 1975 with the formation of the Mouvement révolutionnaire national pour le développement (MRND) Habyarimana laid the foundations for the establishment of a single-party regime. He then promulgated the new Constitution (December 1978) and called the legislative elections (December 1981). Faced with the worsening of the economic situation and under pressure from the opposition, in June 1991 Habyarimana approved a new Constitution which reintroduced multi-partyism. Although an expression of the political dominance of the Hutu ethnic group, Habyarimana's regime led to a temporary improvement in the country's interethnic relations (Hutu-Tutsi), which seemed to be reflected positively in relations with neighboring Burundi as well, in Tutsi hegemony. His measures, however, only postponed the degeneration of the confrontation between ethnic groups.
On the evening of 6 April 1994, the airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutu, was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda.
The assassination set in motion the Rwandan genocide, one of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.
