Kenya maintains relations with various countries around the world. Its closest ties are with its fellow Swahili-speaking neighbors in the African Great Lakes region. Swahili speaking neighbours mainly include countries in the East African Community such as Burundi, the DRC, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
The politics of Rwanda reflect Belgian and German civil law systems and customary law takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential republic, whereby the President of Rwanda is the head of state with significant executive power, with the Prime Minister of Rwanda being the constitutional head of government.
Human occupation of Rwanda is thought to have begun shortly after the last ice age. By the 11th century, the inhabitants had organized into a number of kingdoms. In the 19th century, Mwami (king) Rwabugiri of the Kingdom of Rwanda conducted a decades-long process of military conquest and administrative consolidation that resulted in the kingdom coming to control most of what is now Rwanda. The colonial powers, Germany and Belgium, allied with the Rwandan court.
Juvénal Habyarimana was a Rwandan politician and military officer who served as the second president of Rwanda, from 1973 until 1994. He was nicknamed Kinani, a Kinyarwanda word meaning "invincible".
Paul Kagame is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who is the fourth and current president of Rwanda since 2000. He previously served as 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. He was considered Rwanda's de facto leader when he served as Vice President and Minister of Defence under President Pasteur Bizimungu from 1994 to 2000 after which the "Vice President" post was abolished.
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths.
Philippe Douste-Blazy is a French United Nations official and former centre-right politician. Over the course of his career, he served as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Adviser on Innovative Financing for Development in the UN and chairman of UNITAID.
The Second Congo War, also known as the Great War of Africa or the Great African War and sometimes referred to as the African World War, began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August 1998, little more than a year after the First Congo War, and involved some of the same issues. The war officially ended in July 2003, when the Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took power. Although a peace agreement was signed in 2002, violence has continued in many regions of the country, especially in the east. Hostilities have continued since in the ongoing Lord's Resistance Army insurgency, and the Kivu and Ituri conflicts. Nine African countries and around twenty-five armed groups became involved in the war.
The Arusha Accords, officially the Peace Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Rwandaand the Rwandan Patriotic Front, also known as the Arusha Peace Agreement or Arusha negotiations, were a set of five accords signed in Arusha, Tanzania on 4 August 1993, by the government of Rwanda and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), under mediation, to end a three-year Rwandan Civil War. Primarily organized by the Organisation of African Unity and the heads of state in the African Great Lakes region, the talks began on 12 July 1992, and ended on 4 August 1993, when the accords were finally signed.
The failure of the international community to effectively respond to the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has been the subject of significant criticism. During a period of around 100 days, between 7 April and 15 July, an estimated 500,000-1,100,000 Rwandans, mostly Tutsi and moderate Hutu, were murdered by Interahamwe militias.
Jerome Clement Bicamumpaka is a Rwandan politician. He is one of the 402 co-founders of the Rwandan political party MDR, a democratic opposition party, created in Kigali on July 1, 1991. He was born on November 4, 1957, in Mukono (Rwaza), in Ruhondo commune, Ruhengeri prefecture.
Patrick Kayumbu Mazimhaka was the former Deputy Chairperson of the African Union's African Commission. He was elected the Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission in July 2003 held in Maputo, Mozambique, and held the office until 6 February 2008, when he was succeeded by Erastus J. O. Mwencha. He was, until his election, the Senior Presidential Advisor to the President of Rwanda on the Great Lakes Region.
Presidential elections were held in Rwanda on 9 August 2010, the second since the Rwandan Civil War. Incumbent President Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was re-elected for a second seven-year term with 93% of the vote.
Tuliameni Kalomoh is a Namibian diplomat who has among other portfolios served as Special Advisor on Foreign Affairs to the President, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Namibia.
Rosemary Museminali is a Rwandan politician and diplomat, currently working for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), as its representative at the African Union and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Museminali is best known for her role as the Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation from 2005 until 2009. She has also served as the country's Minister of State for International Cooperation and as ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Youssoufou Bamba was an Ivorian diplomat. He served as the Permanent Representative of Côte d'Ivoire to the United Nations from 2010 to 2014; when he was appointed to the position by Alassane Ouattara after the latter claimed victory in the disputed presidential election of that year.
Arlene Render is an American former diplomat. An officer of the United States Foreign Service, she served as the United States Ambassador to the Gambia, Zambia, and Ivory Coast. She was also noted for her role amidst the initial onset of the Rwandan genocide.
The Ikiza, or the Ubwicanyi (Killings), was a series of mass killings—often characterised as a genocide—which were committed in Burundi in 1972 by the Tutsi-dominated army and government, primarily against educated and elite Hutus who lived in the country. Conservative estimates place the death toll of the event between 100,000 and 150,000 killed, while some estimates of the death toll go as high as 300,000.
Rwanda–Spain relations are the bilateral and diplomatic relations between these two countries. Rwanda does not have an embassy in Spain, however its embassy in Paris, France, is accredited to Spain and maintains an honorary consulate in Madrid. Spain does not have an embassy in Rwanda, however, its embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, is accredited to Rwanda and maintains an honorary consulate in Kigali.
Guillaume Kavaruganda is a Rwandan career diplomat who has spent the majority of his career serving in a number of diplomatic capacities. On 11 May 2020, he was appointed Ambassador to the Ministry entrusted with the duties of Director General for Europe, Americas, and International Organizations, within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International cooperation(MINAFFET).
