Paul Kagame

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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 thirty-eight 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 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.

Kagame and Rwigeema remained de facto senior officers, but the change caused them to accelerate their plans to invade Rwanda. They joined an organisation called the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a refugee association which had been operating under various names since 1979. Rwigyema became the RPF leader shortly after joining and, while still working for the Ugandan army, he and Kagame completed their invasion plans.

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". Following the June 1992 formation of a multi-party coalition government in Kigali, Kagame announced a ceasefire and initiated negotiations with the Rwandan government in Arusha, Tanzania. In early-1993, groups of extremist Hutu formed and began campaigns of large-scale violence against the Tutsi. Kagame responded by suspending peace talks temporarily and launching a major attack, gaining a large swathe of land across the north of the country.

Peace negotiations resumed in Arusha, and the resulting set of agreements, known as the Arusha Accords, were signed in August 1993. The RPF were given positions in a broad-based transitional government (BBTG) and in the national army. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), a peacekeeping force, arrived and the RPF were given a base in the national parliament building in Kigali to use during the establishment of the BBTG.

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 invasion 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.

Throughout April there were numerous attempts by UNAMIR to establish a ceasefire, but Kagame insisted each time that the RPF would not stop fighting unless the killings stopped. In late April, the RPF secured the whole of the Tanzanian border area and began to move west from Kibungo, to the south of Kigali. They encountered little resistance, except around Kigali and Ruhengeri. By 16 May, they had cut the road between Kigali and Gitarama, the temporary home of the interim government, and by 13 June, they had taken Gitarama, following an unsuccessful attempt by the Rwandan government forces to reopen the road. The interim government was forced to relocate to Gisenyi in the far north west. As well as fighting the war, Kagame was recruiting heavily to expand the army. The new recruits included Tutsi survivors of the genocide and refugees from Burundi, but were less well trained and disciplined than the earlier recruits.

Having completed the encirclement of Kigali, Kagame spent the latter half of June fighting to take the city. The government forces had superior manpower and weapons, but the RPF steadily gained territory, as well as conducting raids to rescue civilians from behind enemy lines. According to Roméo Dallaire, the force commander of UNAMIR, this success was due to Kagame being a "master of psychological warfare"; he exploited the fact that the government forces were concentrating on the genocide rather than the fight for Kigali, and capitalised on the government's loss of morale as it lost territory. The RPF finally defeated the Rwandan government forces in Kigali on 4 July, and on 18 July took Gisenyi and the rest of the north west, forcing the interim government into Zaire and ending the genocide. At the end of July 1994, Kagame's forces held the whole of Rwanda except for a zone in the south west, which had been occupied by a French-led United Nations force as part of Opération Turquoise.

Kagame's tactics and actions during the genocide have proved controversial. Western observers such as Dallaire and Luc Marchal, the senior Belgian peacekeeper in Rwanda at the time, have stated that the RPF prioritised taking power over saving lives or stopping the genocide. Scholars also believe that the RPF killed many Rwandan civilians, predominantly Hutu, during the genocide and in the months that followed. The death toll from these killings is in the tens or even hundreds of thousands. In her book Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, written for Human Rights Watch, Rwanda expert Alison des Forges wrote that despite saving many lives, the RPF "relentlessly pursued those whom they thought guilty of genocide" and that "in their drive for military victory and a halt to the genocide, the RPF killed thousands, including noncombatants as well as government troops and members of militia". Human rights violations by the RPF during the genocide have also been documented in a 2000 report compiled by the Organisation of African Unity, and by Prunier in Africa's World War. In an interview with journalist Stephen Kinzer, Kagame acknowledged that killings had occurred but said that they were carried out by rogue soldiers and had been impossible to control. RPF killings continued after the end of the genocide, gaining international attention with the 1995 Kibeho massacre, in which soldiers opened fire on a camp for internally displaced persons in Butare Province. Australian soldiers serving as part of UNAMIR estimated at least 4,000 people were killed, while the Rwandan government claimed that the death toll was 338.

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• Paul Kagame is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (Champions of the Earth) in 2016.