Major General Juvénal Habyarimana (1937–1994) was a Rwandan military officer and politician who served as the second President of Rwanda from 1973 until his assassination in April 1994. An ethnic Hutu, he came to power in a coup and ruled an authoritarian one-party state for over two decades. His death, when his plane was shot down over Kigali, served as the immediate trigger for the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutu.
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Key Biographical Information
| Detail | Information |
| Full Name | Juvénal Habyarimana |
| Born | March 8, 1937, Gisenyi, Ruanda-Urundi (now Rwanda) |
| Died | April 6, 1994 (aged 57), near Kigali International Airport, Rwanda |
| Ethnicity | Hutu |
| Political Party | Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement (MRND) |
| Presidential Term | July 5, 1973 – April 6, 1994 |
| Cause of Death | Assassination (surface-to-air missile targeting his plane) |
| Nickname | “Kinani” (Kinyarwanda word meaning “invincible”) |
Military Career and The 1973 Coup
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Rise Through the Ranks: After studying mathematics and medicine, Habyarimana enrolled in officer training and quickly rose within the military ranks. He became the first black officer in the Rwandan National Guard in 1961. He served as the Minister of Defense under Rwanda’s first president, Grégoire Kayibanda.
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The Coup: On July 5, 1973, Major General Habyarimana seized power in a bloodless coup d’état, overthrowing his cousin, President Grégoire Kayibanda. He claimed the coup was necessary to end ethnic violence and political division, placing the nation under military rule until 1978.
The MRND One-Party State (1973–1994)
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Authoritarian Rule: In 1975, Habyarimana created the National Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND) as the country’s only legal political party. His regime was totalitarian, with himself as the unchallenged leader, confirmed in office through heavily controlled elections in which he was the only candidate (winning by margins often exceeding 99%).
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Pro-Hutu Policies: While initially less openly discriminatory than his predecessor, Habyarimana eventually continued and cemented policies that favored the Hutu majority, particularly those from his own region in the North. Ethnic quotas were entrenched in public service and education, systematically disadvantaging the Tutsi minority.
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The Akazu: His regime was marred by corruption and concentrated power in the hands of his wife, Agathe Kanziga, and her family and associates, an extremist Hutu network known as the Akazu (Little House). This group strongly opposed any reconciliation with the Tutsi.
Civil War and the Arusha Accords
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Rwandan Civil War: In October 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi-dominated rebel group consisting primarily of exiles who had fled earlier Hutu-led purges, invaded Rwanda from Uganda, initiating the Rwandan Civil War.
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Multi-Party Pressure: Under international and domestic pressure, Habyarimana was forced to introduce political reforms, including a move toward a multi-party system in 1991.
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The Peace Deal: After three years of conflict, Habyarimana signed the Arusha Accords in August 1993 in Tanzania with the RPF. This comprehensive peace agreement stipulated a ceasefire and the establishment of a power-sharing transitional government that would integrate the RPF and the political opposition. The accords were fiercely opposed by Hutu hardliners and the Akazu.
Assassination and the Genocide Trigger
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The Fatal Crash: On the evening of April 6, 1994, Habyarimana was returning from a peace summit in Dar es Salaam, where he had been pressured to implement the Arusha Accords. His plane, a Dassault Falcon 50, was shot down by two surface-to-air missiles as it approached Kigali International Airport. The crash killed Habyarimana, along with Cyprien Ntaryamira, the President of neighboring Burundi (also a Hutu), and everyone else on board.
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The Trigger: The assassination of the Hutu President and the Burundian President was immediately seized upon by Hutu extremist forces within the Rwandan military and the Interahamwe militia (MRND’s youth wing). They falsely blamed the attack on the RPF and used it as the pretext to launch a pre-planned, systematic campaign of mass slaughter against the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutu opposition. The Rwandan Genocide began within hours of the crash, leading to the murder of an estimated 800,000 people in 100 days.
The exact identity of the group that fired the fatal missiles remains a subject of intense debate, with investigations pointing to both Hutu extremist soldiers who wanted to derail the peace process and, at one point, allegations against leaders of the RPF. However, the tragic historical consensus is that the assassination was the spark that ignited one of the 20th century’s most horrific genocides.