Paul Kagame - Vice President and Minister of Defence

Vice President and Minister of Defence

The post-Genocide Rwandan government took office in Kigali in July 1994; it was based loosely on the Arusha accords, but Habyarimana's party was outlawed and the RPF took over the positions it had been assigned. The military wing of the RPF was renamed to the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) and became the national army. Paul Kagame assumed the dual roles of Vice President and Minister of Defence while Pasteur Bizimungu, a Hutu who had been a civil servant under Habyarimana before fleeing to join the RPF, was appointed President. Bizimungu and his Cabinet had some control over domestic affairs, but Kagame remained commander-in-chief of the army and was the de facto ruler of the country.

Read more about this topic:  Paul Kagame

Famous quotes containing the words vice, president, minister and/or defence:

    It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness.
    —E.M. (Edward Morgan)

    You are, or you are not the President of The National University Law School. If you are its President I wish to say to you that I have been passed through the curriculum of study of that school, and am entitled to, and demand my Diploma. If you are not its President then I ask you to take your name from its papers, and not hold out to the world to be what you are not.
    Belva Lockwood (1830–1917)

    Just let him be minister if that’s what he desires, but without his brother and his brother-in-law.
    Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)

    There can be no defence like elaborate courtesy.
    —E.V. (Edward Verrall)