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2003 Rwandan Presidential Election
Presidential elections were held in Rwanda on 25 August 2003. They were the first direct presidential elections since the Rwandan Civil War and the first multi-party presidential elections in the country's history. Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was elected to a seven-year term with 95% of the vote. The results were disputed by Faustin Twagiramungu, the main opposition candidate, who argued that "People were controlled, people were forced to vote. It’s not possible that we in the opposition got only 3.7% of the vote. There is something wrong." The elections were widely condemned as fraudulent by outside observers; according to the scholar Timothy Longman, "the Rwandan population experienced the elections not as a transition to democracy but as a series of forced mobilizations that ultimately helped to consolidate RPF rule." The international reactions were nevertheless muted, which, according to Filip Reyntjens, "reinforced the RPF in its conviction that thing ...
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Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame ( ; born 23 October 1957) is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who has been the 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 main belligerents of the Rwandan Civil War and was the armed force which ended the 1994's Rwandan genocide. He was since considered Rwanda's '' de facto'' leader while Vice President and Minister of Defence under President Pasteur Bizimungu, up to his 2000's election as Rwanda's 4th president and the abolition of the vice-presidential position. Born to a Tutsi family in southern Rwanda that fled to Uganda when he was two years old, Kagame spent the rest of his childhood there during the Rwandan Revolution, which ended Tutsi political dominance. 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 Ugand ...
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Faustin Twagiramungu
Faustin Twagiramungu (14 August 1945 – 2 December 2023) was a Rwandan politician. He was Prime Minister of Rwanda from 1994 until his resignation in 1995, the first head of government appointed after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) captured Kigali. He soon came to disagree with the RPF's policies and actions, resigned and was placed under house arrest, but managed to leave the country and settle in Belgium. He continued his opposition activity against Paul Kagame's rule, subsequently returning to Rwanda and standing for elections, but without success. Early life and career Twagiramungu was born in Cyangugu Province, Cyangugu prefecture on 14 August 1945. Although Hutu in origin, Twagiramungu rejected the ethnic group, ethnic label and preferred to see himself as a Rwandan. Twagiramungu spoke Kinyarwanda, French language, French, Swahili language, Swahili and English language, English. Twagiramungu studied and worked in Quebec, Canada, from 1968 to 1976, during which time he ...
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Rwanda
Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With a comparatively high elevation, Rwanda has been given the sobriquet "land of a thousand hills" (), with its geography dominated by mountains in the west and savanna to the southeast, with numerous lakes throughout the country. The climate is temperate to subtropical, with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons each year. It is the most densely populated mainland African country; among countries larger than 10,000 km2, it is the third-most densely populated country in the world. Its Capital city, capital and largest city is Kigali. Hunter-gatherers settled the territory in the Stone Age, Stone and Iron Ages, followed later by Bantu peoples. The population coalesce ...
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Rwandan Civil War
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 1October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose from the long-running dispute between the Hutu and Tutsi groups within the Rwandan population. The Rwandan Revolution, which broke out in 1959, had replaced the Kingdom of Rwanda, Tutsi monarchy with a Hutu-led republic, forcing more than 336,000 Tutsis 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. The war began on 1 October 1990, when the RPF invaded north-eastern Rwanda, advancing into the country. They suffered a major setback when Rwigyema was killed in action on the second day. The Rwandan Army, assisted by Expeditionary warfare, expeditionary troops from France, gained the upper ...
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Rwandan Patriotic Front
The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF–Inkotanyi; , FPR) is the ruling political party in Rwanda. The RPF was founded in December 1987 by Rwandan Tutsi in exile in Uganda because of the ethnic violence that had occurred during the Rwandan Hutu Revolution in 1959–1962. In 1990, the RPF started the Rwandan Civil War in an attempt to overthrow the government, which was dominated by Hutu. Later on, the Rwandan genocide occurred that ended on 4 July with the RPF conquest of the entire country. The RPF have ruled the country since then as a one-party state, and its current leader, Paul Kagame, became the president of Rwanda in 2000, and remains in office. Since 1994, RPF rule has been characterized by political repression, relative stability, and economic growth. Among other policies implemented by the government are the non-recognition of ethnic identities and a wide-ranging prohibition on what the government calls " genocide ideology", including discussion of ethnic differences. Des ...
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Voice Of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American international broadcasters, producing digital, TV, and radio content in 48 languages for affiliate stations around the world.* * by * Its targeted and primary audience is non-Americans outside the American borders, especially those living in countries without press freedom or independent journalism. VOA was established in 1942, during World War II. Building on American use of shortwave radio during the war, it initially served as an anti-propaganda tool against Axis misinformation but expanded to include other forms of content like American music programs for cultural diplomacy. During the Cold War, its operations expanded in an effort to fight communism and played a role in the decline of communism in several countries. Throughout its operation ...
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Filip Reyntjens
Filip Reyntjens (born 1952) is professor emeritus at University of Antwerp. His academic training is in constitutional law, but he later pivoted towards the study of politics especially of the Great Lakes region of Africa. Career In 1975, while working as a research assistant at the University of Antwerp, Reyntjens was asked to be involved in a project that involved running a law school at the National University of Rwanda, in Butare. This began a long affiliation with Rwanda. His PhD Thesis: 'Power and Law in Rwanda. Public Law and Political Evolution, 1916-1973' (Original French: ''Pouvoir et droit au Rwanda. Droit public et évolution politique, 1916-1973)'', was completed in 1983, and later published as a book in 1985. After this, his research widened from Rwanda to the Great Lakes Region as a whole - publishing work on Burundi and on the Democratic Republic of Congo. Outside of academia, Reyntjens has been called as an expert witness in cases relating to the Great Lakes reg ...
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Democratic Republican Movement
The Republican Democratic Movement (, MDR) was a political party in Rwanda. History The party was established in 1991,Profiles: Kagame's opponents
BBC News, 22 August 2003
after the (MRND) lost its monopoly on politics and opposition parties were legalised. The MDR took its name from MDR-Parmehutu, the ruling party in the early 1960s. Like Parmehutu, the MDR's primary base of political support was Hutus in the centre of the country, particularly Kayibanda's home prefect ...
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Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crimes against humanity, Child labour, child labor, torture, human trafficking, and Women's rights, women's and LGBTQ rights. It pressures governments, policymakers, companies, and individual abusers to respect human rights, and frequently works on behalf of refugees, children, migrants, and political prisoners. The organization was founded in 1978 as Helsinki Watch, whose purpose was to monitor the Soviet Union's compliance with the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Its separate global divisions merged into Human Rights Watch in 1988. The group publishes annual reports on about 100 countries with the goal of providing an overview of the worldwide state of human rights. In 1997, HRW shared the Nobel Peace Prize as a founding member of the International C ...
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The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. Mostly written and edited in London, it has other editorial offices in the United States and in major cities in continental Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The newspaper has a prominent focus on data journalism and interpretive analysis over News media, original reporting, to both criticism and acclaim. Founded in 1843, ''The Economist'' was first circulated by Scottish economist James Wilson (businessman), James Wilson to muster support for abolishing the British Corn Laws (1815–1846), a system of import tariffs. Over time, the newspaper's coverage expanded further into political economy and eventually began running articles on current events, finance, commerce, and British politics. Throughout the mid-to-late 20th century, it greatl ...
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Presidential Elections In Rwanda
Presidential may refer to: * "Presidential" (song), a 2005 song by YoungBloodZ * Presidential Airways (charter), an American charter airline based in Florida * Presidential Airways (scheduled), an American passenger airline active in the 1980s * Presidential Range, a range in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, US * Presidential Range (Green Mountains), a mountain range in Vermont, US See also * * President (other) President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...
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2003 Elections In Africa
3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious and cultural significance in many societies. Evolution of the Arabic digit The use of three lines to denote the number 3 occurred in many writing systems, including some (like Roman and Chinese numerals) that are still in use. That was also the original representation of 3 in the Brahmic (Indian) numerical notation, its earliest forms aligned vertically. However, during the Gupta Empire the sign was modified by the addition of a curve on each line. The Nāgarī script rotated the lines clockwise, so they appeared horizontally, and ended each line with a short downward stroke on the right. In cursive script, the three strokes were eventually connected to form a glyph resembling a with an additional stroke at the bottom: ३. The Indian digits spread to the Caliphate in the 9th ...
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