| Chief of the Defence Staff | |
|---|---|
| Umugaba Mukuru w’Ingabo z’u Rwanda (Kinyarwanda) | |
| Rwanda Defence Force | |
| Reports to | Minister of Defence |
| Appointer | the President |
| Formation | April 1992 |
| First holder | Déogratias Nsabimana |
| Website | Official website |
The Chief of the Defence Staff is the highest-ranked officer in the Rwanda Defence Force and is responsible for maintaining control over the branches of the military.
| No. | Portrait | Name (birth–death) | Term of office | Ref. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Took office | Left office | Time in office | ||||
| 1 |  | Major general Déogratias Nsabimana (1945–1994) | April 1992 | 6 April 1994 † | 2 years | |
| 2 | | Colonel Marcel Gatsinzi (born 1948) | 7 April 1994 | 17 April 1994 | 10 days | [1] |
| 3 | | Major general Augustin Bizimungu (born 1952) | 17 April 1994 | July 1994 | 2 months | [2] [3] |
| No. | Portrait | Name (birth–death) | Term of office | Ref. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Took office | Left office | Time in office | ||||
| 1 | | Major general Sam Kanyemera | 1994 | 1998 | 3–4 years | [4] |
| 2 |  | Lieutenant general Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa (born 1962) | 1998 | 2002 | 3–4 years | |
| 3 |  | General James Kabarebe (born 1959) | October 2002 | 10 April 2010 | 7 years, 6 months | |
| 4 |  | Lieutenant general Charles Kayonga (born 1962) | April 2010 | June 2013 | 3 years, 2 months | |
| 5 |  | General Patrick Nyamvumba (born 1967) | 22 June 2013 | 4 November 2019 | 6 years, 4 months | [5] |
| 6 |  | General Jean Bosco Kazura | 4 November 2019 | 5 June 2023 | 5 years, 1 month | [6] |
| 7 |  | Lieutenant general Mubarak Muganga (born 1967) | 5 June 2023 | Incumbent | 1 year, 6 months | [7] |
Rwanda is a de facto one-party state ruled by the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its leader Paul Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide against members of the Tutsi ethnic group. Although Rwanda is nominally democratic, elections are manipulated in various ways, which include banning opposition parties, arresting or assassinating critics, and electoral fraud.
Paul Kagame 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 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 was Vice President and Minister of Defence under President Pasteur Bizimungu from 1994 to 2000 after which the vice-presidential post was abolished.
The Rwandan Patriotic Front is the ruling political party in Rwanda.
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias. While the Rwandan Constitution states that over 1 million people were killed, most scholarly estimates suggest between 500,000 and 662,000 Tutsi died. The genocide was marked by extreme violence, with victims often murdered by neighbors, and widespread sexual violence, with between 250,000 and 500,000 women raped.
The Rwanda Defence Force is the military of the Republic of Rwanda. The country's armed forces were originally known as the Forces armées rwandaises (FAR), but following the Rwandan Civil War of 1990–1994 and the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the victorious Rwandan Patriotic Front (Inkotanyi) renamed it the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), its army name during the struggle of 1990–1994. Later, it was renamed to its current name.
James Kabarebe is a Rwandan retired military officer who serves as Minister of State for Regional Integration in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Fred Gisa Rwigema was a Rwandan military officer and revolutionary. He was the founder of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a political and rebel group formed by Rwandan Tutsi exile descendants of those forced to leave the country after the 1959 Hutu Revolution.
Marcel Gatsinzi was a Rwandan soldier and politician, who was Minister of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs from 2010 to 2013. Gatsinzi also served as Rwanda's Minister of Defence from 2002 to 2010. An ethnic Hutu from Butare, Gatsinzi was a member of the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), which was the national army prior to the takeover of Rwanda by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The New Times is a national English-language newspaper in Rwanda. It was established in 1995 shortly after the Genocide against the Tutsi. A Kinyarwanda-language weekly called Izuba Rirashe was previously published.
On the evening of 6 April 1994, the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutu, was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as their jet prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda; both were killed. The assassination set in motion the Rwandan genocide, one of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.
Gen. Patrick Nyamvumba is the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff of the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and the Minister of Internal Security of the Republic of Rwanda.
Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa is a Rwandan former Lieutenant general who formerly was the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Army from 1998 to 2002. He was also head of Rwandan intelligence from 1998 to 2002 and served as Rwanda's ambassador to India between 2004 and 2010. Nyamwasa has been an opposition leader in exile since as part of the Rwanda National Congress.
Patrick Karegeya was a head of intelligence in Rwanda. He was a member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) group that took power in Rwanda following the genocide against Tutsi. After becoming a critic of RPF leader Paul Kagame, he was stripped of his rank and jailed. Following a time in exile, he was assassinated in Johannesburg, South Africa on December 31, 2013.
Jean Bosco Kazura is a Rwandan General, former Chief of Defence Staff of the Rwanda Defence Force and former head of the Rwandan Football Federation.
Emmanuel Karenzi Karake is a Rwandan Lieutenant-General who is the former Secretary General of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS).
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Kigali, Rwanda.
The Rwandan Air Force is the air branch of the Rwandan Defence Forces.
Nelly Mukazayire is a Rwandan economist and public administrator, who served as the chief executive officer of the Rwanda Convention Bureau, a division of the Rwanda Development Board. she has been promoted to the post of the Deputy CEO of RDB in March 2023 where she was the deputy to Francis Gatare, the CEO of RDB in September 2024 she was promoted to be the permanent secretary in the ministry of sports in Rwanda government In December 2024 she has been promoted as the minister of sports, where she has a mandate to implement the sports policy
The double genocide theory posits that, during the Rwandan genocide, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) engaged in a "counter-genocide" against the Hutus. Most scholars of Rwanda, such as Scott Straus and Gerald Caplan, say that RPF violence against Hutus does not fully match the definition of "genocide", considering that it instead consisted of war crimes or crimes against humanity.
The inauguration of Paul Kagame as the president of Rwanda took place on August 11, 2024, at Amahoro National Stadium in Kigali, Rwanda. This marked the beginning of Kagame's new term of a five-year term following his overwhelming victory in the 2024 presidential election where he received 99.18% of the vote. The ceremony was attended by numerous dignitaries, including at least 22 heads of state, as well as thousands of Rwandans and international guests.
