Paul Kagame is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who has been the fourth President of Rwanda since 2000. He was previously a commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel armed force which invaded Rwanda in 1990. The RPF was one of the parties of the conflict during the Rwandan Civil War and the armed force which ended the Rwandan genocide. He was considered Rwanda's de facto leader when he was Vice President and Minister of Defence under President Pasteur Bizimungu from 1994 to 2000 after which the vice-presidential post was abolished.
Kagame in 2017
The Virunga Mountains, Kagame's RPF base from 1990 to 1991
Vice President Kagame with United States Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, July 1994
A refugee camp in Zaire, 1994
The Rwandan Civil War was a large-scale civil war in Rwanda which was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces, representing the country's government, and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1 October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose from the long-running dispute between the Hutu and Tutsi groups within the Rwandan population. A 1959–1962 revolution had replaced the Tutsi monarchy with a Hutu-led republic, forcing more than 336,000 Tutsi to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. A group of these refugees in Uganda founded the RPF which, under the leadership of Fred Rwigyema and Paul Kagame, became a battle-ready army by the late 1980s.
A reconstruction of the King of Rwanda's palace at Nyanza
Hutu army officer Juvénal Habyarimana (pictured) became President of Rwanda after a 1973 coup.
Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni with Ronald Reagan at the White House in October 1987
The Virunga Mountains, the RPF base from 1990 to 1991