Paul Kagame

At the time of Kagame's birth, Rwanda was a United Nations Trust Territory which had been ruled, in various forms, by Belgium since 1916 under a mandate to oversee eventual independence.

Rwandans were made up of three distinct groups: the minority Tutsi were the traditional ruling class, and the Belgian colonialists had long promoted Tutsi supremacy, while the majority Hutu were agriculturalists.

The third group, the Twa, were a forest-dwelling pygmy people descended from Rwanda's earliest inhabitants, who formed less than 1% of the population.

Tensions between Tutsi and Hutu had been escalating during the 1950s, and culminated in the 1959 Rwandan Revolution.

Hutu activists began killing Tutsi, forcing more than 100,000 Tutsis to seek refuge in neighbouring countries.

Kagame's family abandoned their home and lived for two years in the far northeast of Rwanda and eventually crossing the border into Uganda.

Paul Kagame (born 23 October 1957) is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who has been the fourth President of Rwanda since 2000.

Kagame was born on 23 October 1957, the youngest of six children, in Tambwe, Ruanda-Urundi, a village located in what is now the Southern Province of Rwanda.

They moved gradually north, and settled in the Nshungerezi refugee camp in the Toro sub-region in 1962.

It was around this time that Kagame first met Fred Rwigyema, the future leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

In the 1980s, Kagame fought in Yoweri Museveni's rebel army, becoming a senior Ugandan army officer after many military victories led Museveni to the Ugandan presidency.

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.

Kagame joined the RPF, taking control of the group when previous leader Fred Rwigyema died on the second day of the 1990 invasion.

By 1993, the RPF controlled significant territory in Rwanda and a ceasefire was negotiated.

The assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana set off the genocide, in which Hutu extremists killed an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu.

Kagame resumed the civil war and ended the genocide with a military victory.

During his vice presidency, Kagame controlled the national army and was responsible for maintaining the government's power, while other officials began rebuilding the country.

Many RPF soldiers carried out retribution killings.

Kagame said he did not support these killings but failed to stop them.

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.

Born to a Tutsi family in southern Rwanda that fled to Uganda when he was two years old, he would spend the rest of his childhood there during the Rwandan Revolution, which ended centuries of Tutsi political dominance.

Hutu refugee camps formed in Zaire and other countries and the RPF attacked the camps in 1996, but insurgents continued to attack Rwanda.

As part of the invasion, Kagame sponsored two rebel wars in Zaire.

Rwandan- and Ugandan-backed rebels won the first war (1996–97), installing Laurent-Désiré Kabila as president in place of dictator Mobutu and returning Zaire to its former pre-Mobutu name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The second war was launched in 1998 against Kabila, and later his son Joseph, following the DRC government's expulsion of Rwandan and Ugandan military forces from the country.

Bizimungu resigned in 2000, most likely having been forced to do so, following a falling out with the RPF.

He was replaced by Kagame.

Bizimungu was later imprisoned for corruption and inciting ethnic violence, charges that human rights groups described as politically motivated.

Kagame's rule is considered authoritarian, and human rights groups accuse him of political repression.

Overall opinion on the regime by foreign observers is mixed, and as president, Kagame has prioritized national development, launching programmes which have led to development on key indicators including healthcare, education and economic growth.

The war escalated into a conflict that lasted until a 2003 peace deal and ceasefire.

Relations with the DRC remain tense despite the 2003 ceasefire; human rights groups and a leaked United Nations report allege Rwandan support for two insurgencies in the country, a charge Kagame denies.

Kagame has had mostly good relations with the East African Community and the United States; his relations with France were poor until 2009.

Several countries suspended aid payments in 2012 following these allegations.

Since coming to power, Kagame has won three presidential elections, but none of these have been rated free or fair by international observers.

His role in the assassination of exiled political opponents has been controversial.

His father, Deogratias Rutagambwa, was a member of the Tutsi ethnic group, from which the royal family had been derived since the 18th century or earlier.

A member of the Bega clan, Deogratias Rutagambwa had family ties to King Mutara III, but he pursued an independent business career rather than maintain a close connection to the royal court.

Kagame's mother, Asteria Bisinda, descended from the family of the last Rwandan queen, Rosalie Gicanda, that is from the Hebera branch of the royal Nyiginya clan.