| Juvénal Habyarimana | |
|---|---|
| Habyarimana in 1980 | |
| 3rd President of Rwanda | |
| In office July 5, 1973 – April 6, 1994 |
|
| Preceded by | Grégoire Kayibanda |
| Succeeded by | Théodore Sindikubwabo |
| Personal details | |
| Born | March 8, 1937 Ruanda-Urundi |
| Died | April 6, 1994 (aged 57) Kigali, Rwanda |
| Nationality | Rwandan |
| Political party | MRND |
| Spouse(s) | Agathe Habyarimana |
| Religion | Roman Catholic[1] |
Juvénal Habyarimana (March 8, 1937 – April 6, 1994) was the third President of the Republic of Rwanda, the post he held longer than any other president to date, from 1973 until 1994. During his 20-year rule he favored his own ethnic group, the Hutus, and supported the Hutu majority in neighboring Burundi against the Tutsi government. On April 6, 1994, he was killed when his airplane, also carrying the President of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was shot down close to Kigali International Airport. His assassination ignited ethnic tensions in the region and helped spark the Rwandan Genocide.
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On July 5, 1973, while serving as Army Chief of Staff, Habyarimana seized power by overthrowing Grégoire Kayibanda and ousting the then-ruling Parmehutu party. In 1975, he created the Mouvement Révolutionaire National pour le Développement as the country's only legal party. The government stayed almost entirely in military hands until 1978, when a new constitution was approved in a referendum. As a result, the MRND was reaffirmed as the official "State-party". Local administrations simultaneously represented the official party as well as the local authority. Legal and party policies were communicated and enforced from the Head of State down through the local administrative units, especially the general policy of Umuganda where Rwandans were required to “allocate half a day's labour per week” to infrastructural projects.[2]
At the same time, Habyarimana was elected to a five-year term as president as the only candidate. Initially, he won favor among both Hutu and Tutsi groups given his administration’s reluctance to implement policies that catered to his primarily Hutu supporters. This restraint did not last and Habyarimana eventually began to oversee a government that mirrored the policies of his recently overthrown predecessor. Quotas were once again applied to jobs for “universities and government services” which intentionally disadvantaged Tutsis. As Habyarimana continued to favor a smaller and smaller coterie of supporters, the more Hutu groups —slighted by the nation’s leader— cooperated with Tutsis to weaken his leadership. By the start of the Rwandan Civil War, Habyarimana’s supporters had shrunk down to his akazu ("little house" or "President's household"), which was mainly composed of an informal group of Hutu extremists from his home province, namely from the reigions “Gisenyi and Ruhengeri in the north-west”.[2]
He was reelected in single-candidate elections in 1983 and 1989. However, in 1990, he dismantled the one-party state and allowed the formation of other parties such as the Mouvement démocratique républicain, the Parti social démocrate, the Parti libéral and the Parti démocrate chrétien.[2]
Habyarimana's closest advisers were his wife Agathe and the akazu.
In the early 1990s, a rebellion against Habyarimana's government began when rebels from the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a force of mostly Tutsi Rwandan expatriates who had defected in masses from the Ugandan army, crossed the border from Uganda. The French and Zairian militaries intervened on behalf of Habyarimana's government forces, and a ceasefire was officially reached in 1993 through the Arusha Accords.
On April 6, 1994, Habyarimana's private Falcon 50 jet was shot down near Kigali International Airport, killing Habyarimana. Cyprien Ntaryamira, the President of Burundi, the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan military, and numerous others also died in the attack. The plane crashed on the grounds of the presidential residence.[3]
The circumstances of the crash are unclear. At the time, the Hutu Power media claimed the plane had been shot down on orders from RPF leader Paul Kagame. Others, including the RPF, accused militant Hutus from within Habyarimana's party of orchestrating the crash in order to provoke anti-Tutsi outrage while simultaneously seizing power. Since the aircraft had a French crew, a French investigation has been conducted; it concluded that Kagame was responsible for the killing and demanded that he be prosecuted. The response from Kagame, who has since become the president of Rwanda, was that the French were only trying to cover up their own part in the genocide that followed.[4]
The death of Habyarimana ignited a murderous spree by extremists from the majority Hutus against Tutsis and those Hutus who had opposed the government in the past or who had supported the peace accords. Within 100 days, somewhere between 800,000 and 1 million Rwandans were massacred.[5]
At some point following the April 6,1994 assassination, Habyarimana's remains were obtained by Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko and stored in a private mausoleum in Gbadolite, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo). Mobutu promised Habyarimana's family that his body would eventually be given a proper burial in Rwanda. On May 12, 1997, as Laurent-Désiré Kabila's ADFL rebels were advancing on Gbadolite, Mobutu had the remains flown by cargo plane to Kinshasa where they waited on the tarmac of N'djili Airport for three days. On May 16, the day before Mobutu fled Zaire (and the country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Habyarimana's remains were burned under the supervision of an Indian Hindu leader.[6]
Habyarimana was survived by his wife, Agathe Habyarimana, who was evacuated by French troops shortly after his death. She has been described as having been extremely influential in Rwandan politics.[7] She has been accused by Rwandan justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama of complicity in the genocide and was denied asylum in France on the basis of evidence of her complicity.[8] She was arrested March 2010 in the Paris region by police executing a Rwandan-issued international arrest warrant.[9]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Grégoire Kayibanda |
President of Rwanda July 5, 1973 – April 6, 1994 |
Succeeded by Théodore Sindikubwabo |
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