Juvénal Habyarimana, Rwandan politician, 3rd President of Rwanda (d. 1994)
Juvénal Habyarimana (Kinyarwanda: [hɑ.βɟɑː.ɾí.mɑ̂ː.nɑ]; French: [ʒy.ve.nal a.bja.ʁi.ma.na]; 8 March 1937 – 6 April 1994) 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".
An ethnic Hutu, Habyarimana served several security positions including minister of defense under Rwanda's first president, Grégoire Kayibanda. After overthrowing Kayibanda in a coup in 1973, he became the country's new president and eventually continued his predecessor's pro-Hutu policies. He was a dictator, and electoral fraud was suspected for his unopposed re-elections: 98.99% of the vote on 24 December 1978, 99.97% of the vote on 19 December 1983, and 99.98% of the vote on 19 December 1988. During his rule, Rwanda became a totalitarian, one-party order in which his MRND-party enforcers required people to chant and dance in adulation of the President at mass pageants of political "animation". While the country as a whole had become slightly less impoverished during Habyarimana's tenure, the great majority of Rwandans remained in circumstances of extreme poverty.In 1990, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched the Rwandan Civil War against his government. After three years of war, he signed the 1993 Arusha Accords with the RPF as a peace agreement. The following year, he was killed under mysterious circumstances when his aircraft, also carrying the President Cyprien Ntaryamira of neighbouring Burundi, was shot down by a missile near Kigali, Rwanda. His assassination ignited ethnic tensions in the region and helped spark the Rwandan genocide.
1937Mar, 8
Juvénal Habyarimana
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Events on 1937
- 23Jan
Leon Trotsky
The trial of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist center sees seventeen mid-level Communists accused of sympathizing with Leon Trotsky and plotting to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime. - 21Feb
Spanish Civil War
The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War. - 12May
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey. - 27May
Golden Gate Bridge
In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California. - 22Jul
Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937
New Deal: The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.