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:

    The President has only 190 million bosses. The Vice President has 190 million and one.
    Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)

    “It’s hard enough to adjust [to the lack of control] in the beginning,” says a corporate vice president and single mother. “But then you realize that everything keeps changing, so you never regain control. I was just learning to take care of the belly-button stump, when it fell off. I had just learned to make formula really efficiently, when Sarah stopped using it.”
    Anne C. Weisberg (20th century)

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

    Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his life of thought and prayer.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)