Talk:Paul Kagame/Archive 1

Archive 1

MISINFORMATION

The opening paragraph of this biography is appalling. This article should not be used on a public forum. The statement, "he is best known for his role in the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 and his involvement into the shooting down of the plane carrying the then President, Juvenal Habyarimana, and his counterpart of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira" is completely alleged and there has been no public scrutiny of evidence. Paul Kagame has vehemently denied any involvement. This biography is completely one-sided. Libel should not be included in any article on Wikipedia. It must be deleted.

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Kagame ordered the shooting of the plane ?

There is some mention already of this, both here and the genocide page, but we have names now.

Where does this go ? Wizzy…☎ 16:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

On 13 July 2005, the official photograph of Paul Kagame was replaced with a completely different image [1]. I feel that the new image violates the principles of NPOV. The new image pictured Kagame with a frown, amongst soldiers. This different image would be more approprate in a different section of the article that describes Kagame's military career. I attempted to revert the image to it's previous version, but there seems to be some sort of issue with MediaWiki at the moment, I created a new image with a file name that is more discriptive and updated the article. --Commonchaos 18:20, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Accuracy / POV

Flagging for NPOV. The article seems overly biased towards Kagame. Notably, it directly implicates the Hutus in the assassination of Habyarimana (an uncertainty at best) while also making no note of claims that Kagame orchestrated the assassination. Additional word choices seem to be unnecessarily biased against the United Nations' response. SReynhout 04:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed - I've made some changes accordingly. 80.41.60.200 21:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Poor Quality

This article needs to be cleaned up... It reads like it was a battlefield for a NPOV war. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.113.69 (talk) 07:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Political Forum

This article must adhere to higher standards and neutraly document to the current ongoings. It is not a french or african political forum. It must state facts not unproven theories. Instead of "Kagame conspired to shoot the plane down" state the fact "Currently France is in process of submitting a request to ICTR for a trial of Kagame for assasination of Juvenal Habyarimana." Please do not try to make this a political forum for purposes of national conflicts, if Paul is innocient he will be vindicated This will not happen on Wikipedia, but rather in the real world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 154.20.127.200 (talk) 06:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

"Precipitating Event of the Rwandan Genocide?" -- Jean-Louis Bruguière's Investigation Paragraph

The introduction reads "[Kagame's] invasion of Rwanda is often cited as one precipitating event of the Rwandan Genocide." I completely disagree with the use of the word "precipitating" because it implies that Kagame's invasion itself kicked off the genocide. As we all know, the genocide was in preparation for years. Perhaps Kagame's invasion stirred Hutu Power and RTLM to intensify their genocidal campaigns, but there is no scholarly proof of that either. Furthermore, the sentence that I quote above is not sourced. It is completely disingenuous and inaccurate.

Likewise, the paragraph about Jean-Louis Bruguière's investigation is inappropriate. It should be removed. Bruguière blamed Kagame immediately following the downing of the plane (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6196226.stm) and before collecting evidence. In November 2006, when Bruguière formally accused Kagame, he was postdating his earlier indictiments. Bruguière himself has not cited any genuine evidence -- only second hand information from two individuals, both who are having a political tiff with Kagame. Bruguière's investigation does not even seem to warrant mention here, since Bruguière himself does not want the investigation continued. Philip Gourevitch documented Bruguière's attempts to blame Tutsis (and Kagame in particular) for the genocide in "We With to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families," published in 1998, eight years before the so-called indictment. Given this, I suggest that this paragraph be removed or properly amended.

Just because one person (Bruguière) decides that Kagame is guilty does not make it a fact. I could just as easily say "John Doe murdered three people in London yesterday," but that doesn't make it a fact. Even the president of a nation can say "John Doe knows witchcraft," but that doesn't make it a reportable fact.

Mvblair 22:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Assasination of Rwanda's and Burundi's presidents.

On p. 37 of Immaculee Iliabagiza's book Left to Tell, she said that in the days immediately preceding the shoot-down of the plane, the RTLM (Hutu power) radio stated that "if anything happens to our president, then we must exterminate all the Tutsis right away!" Immaculee's first thought upon hearing of the assassinations was that the Tutsis would now be exterminated. As soon as the plane was shot down, the planned and listed assassinations in Kigali began. The U.N. was notified of the planned genocide three months in advance, and they could have raided the weapons caches, but chose not to do so. The RTLM radio continued to be used to keep the Tutsis grouped for slaughter.

I might add more later, but just from this it's obvious that Paul Kagame did not order the shoot-down of the plane. 55akw 00:43, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely with 55akw. There is ample evidence from plenty of scholarly articles, books, and popular reports that show Kagame had nothing to do with the downing of the plane. There is plenty of evidence to discredit a shaky investigation by Bruguière.Mvblair 22:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Question : is it clear that the plane was shot down at all? I accept that it was the most likely explanation, but there is no proof offered ( except for heresay trestamny ) so I don't see how there can be any indictment. 145.253.108.22 15:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Kofi Annan quote

"The exact details of the shooting down remain in doubt and only last week the UN admitted that it had failed to investigate properly the plane's black box voice recorder, recovered at the crash site.

The box was shipped back to the UN headquarters in New York where it remained overlooked in a filing cabinet until last week.

The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, said it was a "first-class foul-up" but claimed there had been no cover-up. The black box will now be fully tested to glean as many details as possible about the doomed plane."

Does this source say that the poor investigation was a foul-up, or the shooting down? Ambiguous.. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.69.14.35 (talk) 03:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC).

POV

It now appears that the article is biased against Kagame. There are many quotes attacking and condemning Kagame and his government, but an interesting lack of quotes in defense. There are no quotes, for example, about the UN allowing the Interahamwe to remain in Democratic Republic of Congo, in UN camps, while retaining their weapons--against all international law. Instead, we only have quotes about the evil Rwandan army and the "western guilt" that Kagame is supposedly forcing on everyone, and how Rwanda is robbing the Congolese (or so we are to believe). I know that Rucyahana's book has such quotes, and he is as reliable a source as any--the man travels on a diplomatic passport, and is a native of Rwanda. If no quotes can be given to even out the point of view, I will go through Rucyahana's book again and find quotes. 128.198.21.141 16:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Kagame is a controversial figure - there's no doubt about that. Some people view him as a hero who played an instrumental role in ending the 1994 genocide. Some see him as a cynic who has been behind a lot of killings himself, and who exploited the legacy of the genocide for his own political and economic ends. It is of course possible that both these descriptions tell part of the story. To give an admittedly crude example, many view Joseph Stalin as a hero for his role in defeating the Nazis. Yet at the same time Stalin undoubtedly committed many terrible crimes himself.

I was the one who made several of the edits to include quotes critical of Kagame (at the time the piece seemed to present an unrealistically positive view), and while I believe it is important that this critical perspective is represented, I agree that we also need to include some quotes from people who see Kagame in a different light.

However, I do think we need to note that the evidence of Rwandan atrocities and profiteering in the Congo - and of Kagame's role in this - is widely accepted internationally, not just by the UN but even by governments that have given Kagame significant backing. Let's by all means include the criticisms that have been made of UN policies in the region (including the failure to deal with the extremists based in Eastern Congo) - there's clearly a relevance because some have argued that the UN's criticisms of Kagame are motivated, in part, by a desire to excuse their own failings. But the idea that the UN - and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch among many others - have jointly conspired to just make stuff up about Rwanda's involvement in Congo, and then managed to convince western governments including Britain and the US (among others) of the truth of these allegations, starts to sound like a conspiracy theory.

86.139.91.114 10:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you might be right about this. I'm going to take a look at this article over the next few days to try and resolve some of these issues. I'll be sure to include sources, because this article is lacking them. Mvblair 18:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 20:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Military training at Fort Leavenworth

Quoting the wikipedia article : "In October 1990, while Kagame was participating in a military training program at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas"

- How did this happen?
- How did he get there?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.132.204 (talk) 14:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC) 

173.89.14.170 (talk) 15:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay first of all I want to announce that all the comments made by bcr were made by me! bcr wasn't a real account. That was just a name I came up with to sign under. This was something I signed under with a different IP address before. However, I was wondering if I could remove all the comments I made on this page. I don't think it's fair to leave my comments if nobody cares about them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.89.14.170 (talk) 15:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Paul Kagame-Spanish Judge Paragraph

In virtually every scholarly account of Rwanda and the Rwandan Genocide in particular, (Philip Gourevitch,We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda; Romeo Dallaire,Shake Hands with the Devil : The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda; Stephen Kinzer, A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It. to name a few)Paul Kagame is the hero and not the villain. Particular attention should be given to General Romeo Dallaire, the Force Commander of UNAMIR from 1993-1994, who certainly portrays Kagame in this perspective. To have a third of the article focusing on a Spanish Judge's indictments of Kagame appears awkward and dishonest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.232.231.188 (talk) 19:00, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Removal of most of 'President Kagame' text

I created two updates, one that separated all the allegations into it's own section. This is minor change, in case people have issue with deleting most of what was under 'President Kagame'. The text seemed extremely biased, was not well-written and lacked references. If something so scathing is going to put in, it should evidence to back it up. The only evidence I could find was this press release: http://www.veritasrwandaforum.org/material/press_release_080208_eng.pdf while the press releases mentions Paul Kagame, the copy of the actual warrant that is included in the report does not include Paul Kagame. Without his name in the arrest warrant, I can not see any evidence of all the allegations written and I believe it should not be put back until real references can be found. --165.12.252.112 (talk) 05:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Whitewashing

I took out this series of edits - I think Kagame cannot come out of the Genocide as only the injured party. Wizzy…☎ 15:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that it is rediculous and inhumane for the French to say that the RPF shot down the plane. That is a lie. The Hutu extremists shot down the plane, because they wanted to create propaganda against the tutsis and the RPF. That's why the hutus blamed the RPF in order to "incite" the killing spree. The French on the other hand, are just blaming the RPF for the crashing of the plane in order to excuse themselves for their cooperation with the genocidal Hutu Government. The French cooperated with the Hutu government to wipe out the Tutsis! When the Peace accord was signed between the RPF and the Government in 1993, the Hutu government was angry and just wanted to find a way to stay in power, because they knew that they were loosing to the RPF. That's why the Hutu government lashed out their anger on the Tutsi population because they could not defeat the RPF. They just wanted to use propaganda and their little stupid radio station to provoke hatred against the Tutsi. However, the irony of this is that the tutsi in Rwanda have nothing to do with the RPF. The RPF was based in Uganda. They consisited of Tutsis who decided to leave Rwanda to flee Uganda when the Hutus came to power in the 1950s. The tutsis in Rwanda were those who decided to stay. Overall, the tutsi and hutu violence is not new but it is not old. There was a time that the Tutsis and Hutus lived together in peace. Everything was going okay untill the ignorant belgians came in and practiced divide and conquer( a typical European strategy). The Belgians divided the Tutsi and Hutu, and ever since then, they have watched in entertainment as the Tutsi and Hutu fight each other. When the French "interviened" in the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, they came to watch,laugh, and support the Hutu government, not save the Tutsi and stop the killings. Anyway, the RPF were victorius, even though they fought all by themselves. Plus, the RPF should not be blamed for any massacres. The RPF had to do their job. If it was'nt for the RPF, all the tutsis and moderate hutus would of been dead because of the Hutu government, Hutu extremists, and the French troops!!!

I think that the article about the 30-year old so called Interhamwhe needs to be removed, because it is rediculous. The same interhamwe were responsible for 800,000 deaths in 100 days in Rwanda. Its obvious that he is lying. What does he mean that the RPF are shooting in the air? The RPF are trying to eliminate cowards like him who have been hiding in the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than 10 years. Furthermore, the RPF are definitely not tired of fighting. The only reason why there are not invading the hutu extremists is because the international community asked them to leave. That 30-year old Interhamwhe better stop running his mouth and be lucky that the RPF did not catch him!! Furthermore, what does the interhamwhe mean that the his army has not fought the RPF in a while? I'll tell you what the Interhamwhe have been doing. The've been running away for a while-not fighting the RPF!

The French need to quit this garbage about Kagame being a criminal. The French are just making excuses for supporting the Hutu genocidal Government. Kagame is not a criminal, he is a good leader who stopped a horrific genocide in its tracks. When the French came to Rwanda for their so-called intervention, they came only to support the Hutu Genocidal Government. The strangest thing about the French troops is that they had 95% more troops than Romeo Dallaire did, wherelse Romeo Dallaire saved 200% more tutsis than the French did. So really, that explains a lot about the "real" reason the french came to Rwanda, because it obviously wasn't to protect the "tutsis", it was to "watch" them being slaughtered and arm the barbaric and ignorant hutu genocidal government. Anyways, Kagame is one of the best leaders in Africa. No leader in Africa compares to him except for maybe Nelson Mandela! Now, here is a translation for the lying French to understand:

La nécessité française de stopper ces ordures au sujet de Kagame étant un criminel. Les Français sont des excuses de fabrication justes pour soutenir le gouvernement génocide hutu. Kagame n'est pas un criminel, il est un bon chef qui a arrêté un génocide terrifiant dans ses voies. Quand le Français est venu au Rwanda pour leur prétendue intervention, ils sont venus pour soutenir seulement le gouvernement génocide hutu. La chose la plus étrange au sujet des troupes françaises est qu'ils ont eu 95% troupes supplémentaires que Romeo Dallaire, wherelse Romeo que Dallaire a sauvé 200% tutsis supplémentaires que le Français a fait. Tellement vraiment, cela explique beaucoup au sujet de la « vraie » raison que le Français est venu au Rwanda, parce qu'il n'était pas évidemment de protéger les « tutsis », il était « les observent » étant abattus et arment le gouvernement génocide de hutu barbare et ignorant. Quoi qu'il en soit, Kagame est l'un des meilleurs chefs en Afrique. Aucun chef en Afrique ne compare à lui excepté peut-être Nelson Mandela !

We just honestly don't know. Kagame and the RPF deny it and the French findings supposedly support Kagame ordering the shoot down. I personally don't believe he did, it really wouldn't make sense. Everyone in Rwanda at the time knew what that would have meant, and if Kagame cared enough about his own people, he would have known better than to order the shoot down. But you never know. He may have had a convoluted plot to achieve power, because he knew the Hutu militia were no match for the RPF. I doubt it, war is the most unpredictable act and Kagame has proven himself to be rational and a reasonably moderate leader. I don't think the present situation in Rwanda where race classification is now criminal would be on the books if Kagame was that sinister in his previous actions. But the court is still out. The French were well known to have supplied the militias and were a blocking force against the efforts of the UN to try to aid the Tutsis and moderate Hutus. If the Socialists of Mdm. Royale come to power in France, let us see if the opinions of the Gallic courts change. I say both sides of the debate about Mr. Kagame's innocence or guilt in the shoot down should be presented and let history decide the truth of the allegations later. It is not the place of Wikipedia to be the judge and jury for such a serious and awful charge. Diggerjohn111 2/5/2007 23:42 PM

By the way, in response to the Congo "church" leader, every hutu should feel guilty, because they made themselves to be guilty. Most of the hutus participated in the Rwandan Genocide, plus, 2 million hutus fled into Zaire after the genocide. Why would all those hutus flee if they were not guilty?

Clap clap calp... What a partial point of view!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.9.29.217 (talk) 11:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Removal of most of 'President Kagame' text

I created two updates, one that separated all the allegations into it's own section. This is minor change, in case people have issue with deleting most of what was under 'President Kagame'. The text seemed extremely biased, was not well-written and lacked references. If something so scathing is going to put in, it should evidence to back it up. The only evidence I could find was this press release: http://www.veritasrwandaforum.org/material/press_release_080208_eng.pdf while the press releases mentions Paul Kagame, the copy of the actual warrant that is included in the report does not include Paul Kagame. Without his name in the arrest warrant, I can not see any evidence of all the allegations written and I believe it should not be put back until real references can be found. --165.12.252.112 (talk) 05:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I moved this comment to the bottom of the page, where it is customary for new sections to go. Please, in the future, offer a comment about what you have done in the edit summary. A simple "see the talk page" will be enough, if you will be explaining what you have done on the talk page. Deleting large amounts of material with out an edit summary looks like vandalism, and will likely result in all changes being reversed. -- Donald Albury 00:10, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

"Without his name in the arrest warrant". And you won't find one tomorrow. As president of Rwanda, he's protected by immunity.90.9.29.217 (talk) 11:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

External links

Hi, I recently cleaned this article's "External links" section and there were quite a few links that did not meet our guidelines but qualify as reliable sources so they may be used as references if anyone is interested in building up the article. I'll list them here for convienience.

• Biography from BBC News
• BBC News, October 2003 - Rwandan ruling party wins election
• BBC News, UN boosts DR Congo border force
• [2]
• BBC News, Rwanda leader defiant on killing claim, January 30, 2007
• International Forum for Truth and Justice in Africa of the Great Lakes region, SPANISH COURTS ISSUE 40 INTERNATIONAL ARREST WARRANTS AGAINST HIGHESTRANKING OFFICIALS OF RWANDA’S POLITICAL-MILITARY HELM February 6, 2008
• USA TODAY, Spanish judge charges Rwanda's military with genocide February 6, 2008
• Paul Kagame, Why Africa welcomes the Chinese, The Guardian, November 2, 2009

ThemFromSpace 22:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense?

"During the 1959 revolt and its aftermath, more than 150,000 people were killed in the fighting, with the Tutsis suffering the greatest losses. Several thousand moved to neighbouring countries including Burundi and Uganda. In all, some 20,000 Tutsis were killed."

I have no idea of the truth of any of these statements but they certainly aren't compatible as they stand. 20,000 is definitely not the greater part of 150,000, whatever your point of view. Simple maths seems to indicate this is nonsense. Can someone elucidate?Sjwells53 (talk) 20:03, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Press Freedom: the Jury is In

Recent arrests of editors of the press and other actions, such as a governmental agency in Rwanda to "monitor" the press, raise questions re: the autocratic tendencies of the government of Paul Kagame. These recent developments appear to this editor to now make the case that this article about Kagame is out of date and needs revision. There appears to me to be very little question now in regards to the neutrality question. The jury is in. 75.6.224.160 (talk) 15:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I think part of the POV war here is the inability of either side to consider that he doesn't have to be either a hero or a demagogue....he's quite capable of being both, or some degree of each. Yes, he has done fantastic things for Rwanda, given where it was...but it's become apparent that the means he has used have been a bit more draconian than his hero image would suggest. Neither aspect of the man cancels out the other. NPOV dictates that both be given consideration. Perhaps this article should be semi-protected?204.65.34.246 (talk) 22:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• That's right, folks. People can be many things at once. Let's talk about everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
• As a matter of fact, this source talks about that very dynamic: Grant, Richard. "Paul Kagame: Rwanda's redeemer or ruthless dictator?" The Telegraph. 22 July 2010.
• WhisperToMe (talk) 04:04, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

photo.

i am sorry to intervene but isn't there a better stock photo for this article than the one with kagame making that sinister grin? Innocenzio (talk) 10:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I have replaced the image with one that has a more neutral facial expression. :-)  — Amakuru (talk) 11:56, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Kagame the worst war criminal alive ? PLEASE REVIEW THIS ARTICLE FAR TOO LENIENT

Series of articles and books (in French, by Canadian, European and African) have been published :

Je pense qu'il est rediculous et inhumain pour que le Français indique que le RPF a tiré en bas de l'avion. C'est un mensonge. Les extrémistes hutus ont tiré en bas de l'avion, parce qu'ils ont voulu créer la propagande contre les tutsis et le RPF. C'est pourquoi les hutus ont blâmé le RPF « incitent » la fête de massacre. Les Français d'une part, sont justes blâmant le RPF de se briser de l'avion afin de s'excuser pour leur coopération avec le gouvernement hutu génocide. Le Français a coopéré avec le gouvernement hutu à éliminer les Tutsis ! Quand l'entente de paix a été signée entre le RPF et le gouvernement en 1993, le gouvernement hutu était fâché et juste a voulu trouver une manière de rester dans la puissance, parce qu'ils ont su qu'ils desserraient au RPF. C'est pourquoi le gouvernement hutu a fouetté dehors leur colère sur la population tutsie parce qu'ils ne pourraient pas défaire le RPF. Ils ont juste voulu employer la propagande et leur petite station par radio stupide pour provoquer la haine contre le Tutsi. Cependant, l'ironie de ceci est que le tutsi au Rwanda n'ont rien à faire avec le RPF. Le RPF a été basé en Ouganda. Ils consisited des Tutsis qui ont décidé de quitter le Rwanda pour se sauver l'Ouganda quand les Hutus sont venus pour actionner dans les années 50. Les tutsis au Rwanda étaient ceux qui ont décidé de rester. De façon générale, le tutsi et la violence de hutu n'est pas nouveau mais elle n'est pas vieille. Il y avait un temps que les Tutsis et les Hutus ont vécu ensemble dans la paix. Tout était untill correct allant que les Belges ignorants sont entré et ont pratiqué se divisent et conquièrent (une stratégie européenne typique). Les Belges ont divisé le Tutsi et le Hutu, et depuis puis, ils ont observé dans le divertissement comme Tutsi et combat hutu. Quand le Français « interviened » dans le génocide rwandais en 1994, ils sont venus pour observer, rire, et soutenir le gouvernement hutu, pas économiser le Tutsi et pour arrêter les massacres. Quoi qu'il en soit, le RPF étaient victorius, quoiqu'ils aient combattu tous par eux-mêmes. Le plus, le RPF ne devrait pas n'être blâmé d'aucun massacre. Le RPF a dû faire leur travail. S'il was'nt pour le RPF, tous tutsis et hutus modérés de l'été mort en raison du gouvernement hutu, des extrémistes hutus, et des troupes françaises ! ! !

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20060421/CPARTS/604210635/1041/CPARTS

http://www.radiocanada.ca/nouvelles/International/2006/04/20/003-rwanda-zone-libre-jeudi.shtml

http://www.spcm.org/Journal/article.php3?id_article=2171

http://www.lalibre.be/article.phtml?id=10&subid=83&art_id=279648

http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2268054152/qid=1145626306/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/403-1243190-2872442 François Mitterrand, l'armée française et le Rwanda de Bernard Lugan

http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2842059298/qid=1145711494/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/403-1243190-2872442 Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs : Rwanda 1990-1994 de Pierre Péan

Recently a TV broadcast on the French service of the CBC (Radio-Canada) was rather blunt about it :

"Dans le reportage, deux anciens officiers du Front patriotique rwandais (FPR) affirment que l'actuel président du Rwanda, Paul Kagame, aurait programmé l'attentat contre le général Habyarimana. Selon les témoins interrogés, en plus des 800 000 Tutsis tués pendant le génocide, entre 400 000 et 600 000 Hutus auraient subi le même sort." http://www.radio-canada.ca/radio/sansfrontieres/72010.shtml

C'est ignorant, le RPF n'a pas tué que beaucoup de hutus, et s'ils, les hutus qu'ils étaient massacre étaient des extrémistes de hutu responsables de tuer beaucoup plus de personnes pendant le génocide rwandais en 1994!

(Radio interview on same news) http://www.radio-canada.ca/Medianet/2006/CBF/CestBienMeilleurLeMatin200604210815_1.asx —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.205.142.205 (talk • contribs) 22 April 2006.

It should be kept in mind when reviewing this article that all negative sources I have seen here are French in origin, or actually in French. Please remember that the French supplied the genocidal (francophone) government that Kagame fought against in arms, training and leadership. France and Rwanda still have very negative relations and many such sources may well be biased.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.26.37.191 (talk • contribs) 9 August 2006.

I'm sorry, but we can't just dismiss any article written in French simply on the basis that the French government doesn't like Kagame. The British and US governments have very positive relations with Kagame, but that's not a reason for us to dismiss all sources written in English!

Having said this, I do have to query some of the anti-Kagame wording in this article. The initial paragraph could be interpreted as claiming that Kagame took part in the Rwandan genocide rather than, as most mainstream sources would suggest, helping to stop it. 80.43.36.38 16:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia. You, anyone, everyone is welcome to edit the article. Just provide references for your edits. If you find anything that is untrue or unsourced, remove it, or tag it as {{fact}}. If you believe the article is unbalanced, if something is missing, add to it. That, monsieur, is how Wikipedia works. --Ezeu 17:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the two last sources are canadian. French doesn't necessarily mean "from France". That being said, I'm just read "Rwanda : memoire d'un genocide" published by unesco. Genocide survivors report She shootin down of the presidential plane was broadcasted by the Hutu racist radios. A little too convenient for them if you ask me. Especially since the witnesses retracted their allegationsMighty.Yggdrasil (talk) 08:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Honors and accolades?

The section is full of honors, but I see only one citation in the whole list. I am prepared to start soon cleaning out all the un-sourced "honors and accolades". I think we also need to discuss the significance in this article of individual "honors and accolades", even if reliable sources are cited. -- Donald Albury 12:06, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree. This section seems inappropriate, as it does not appear on other noteworthy individuals' pages. Willyfreddy (talk) 19:55, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

As with the NPOV tag, if there is no discussion in a week, I'll remove this section as well. Willyfreddy (talk) 16:44, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I've checked other politician pages, honors and awards are very common except for most noteworthy dictators. I believe we should leave them since its not contentious and is easy to find with a little effort. I would like to point that not all of them have references. I don't think its a big concern Mighty.Yggdrasil (talk) 05:33, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Examples :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela#Orders_and_decorations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_Annan#Honours_and_awards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felipe_Calder%C3%B3n#Orders.2C_awards_and_recognition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez#Recognition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Ki-moon#Honors_and_awards

Started Cleaning

I've started cleaning this article, I removed much of the things that were not directly related to Kagame or were unverified allegations, complying with Wikipedia's policy on poorly sourced contentious material about living persons. I will most likely fix most of the misinformation, i got my hands on a very good book called Rwanda : les medias du génocide" published in 2002 (Rwanda : medias of the genocide), and many other very solid books. We have to keep in mind that even if Rwanda has reunited it's people, there are still ethnic tensions and ex militia still living in Rwanda. I've spotted a reference to a Hutu hate blog; Rwandan racism still exists... The president being Tutsi combined to the diplomatic tensions with France will make the verifiability or articles and their selection more challenging since many Hutu's who participated in the genocide who fled to neighboring countries may misinform. I've spotted the UN security council article about the Congo conflict citing a interhamwe soldier as a source of information on Rwanda's implication in the war [need I remind everyone that the interhamwe were the army that killed Tutsi's with machetes during the genocide?]. I may be wrong but I doubt that such an individual would be favorable to any actions led by a Tutsi president. Goodluck guys Mighty.Yggdrasil (talk) 08:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I reinserted, and sourced more thoroughly items from, the UN report on the exploitation of Congo's natural resources. The items therein pertain to Kagame and are well-sourced.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 17:52, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

NPOV?

Hello. This article has been tagged as disputed neutrality since June of 2010. Going through the discussion points I can see that this was previously warranted, but I wonder if it still is. Thoughts? Willyfreddy (talk) 19:57, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I'll give it another week and if there is no response here then it will be removed. Willyfreddy (talk) 16:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, upon reading the article again, I believe that the NNPOV tag is appropriate in some parts. For example, only one sentence is provided to describe the RPF's taking of Rwanda after peace talks break down: "The RPF, under the leadership of Kagame, proceeded to take control of the whole country. Kigali was captured 4 July 1994, bringing the downfall of the government of Jean Kambanda." And yet there are numerous paragraphs regarding foreign countries' investigations into the president's plane being shot down (including quotes that are totally irrelevant). Within these discussions there is no mention of the French's partiality, except for the RPF's own claims, and no discussion of those who believe that the RGF was responsible. Furthermore, entitling the section "Invasions, assassinations" is highly inflammatory. I will work on replacement text for the article. But the NNPOV tag stays. Willyfreddy (talk) 16:56, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The NPOV tag was removed, but the issue hasn't been resolved and the resolution (above) was to keep the tag, not remove it (so it's not a question of the "discussion becoming stagnant" as a decision was taken to keep it). I have to agree that it needs to be there, especially because this is a bio of a living person and failure to acknowledge the biases remaining in this article run the risk of it failing to meet the WP standards for such biographies in terms of defamatory content. The issue here is finding someone who has the time and skill to resolve the issues in the article. I'd love to try but have a long list of other Madagascar related articles to work on first. I'm reaching out to some of the editors who had been working on this before to see if they can make time to resolve the worst of the problems. If not, I expect I will return to it in a couple of months. But until then, the tag should not be removed. Lemurbaby (talk) 09:05, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

The NPOV tag

Hi all

I just wanted to put out a feeler for opinions on whether the article as it stands now strikes a sufficiently neutral tone that the tag could be removed. I've substantially rewritten large sections of it, with the aim of being completely neutral throughout - highlighting successes where they are covered by sources, and also mentioning criticisms that the sources come up with. I'd like to try to push this article through to WP:GA and maybe even WP:FA if possible, but the first step would be to get the tag off the top of the article!

Any opinions and suggestions welcome. Many thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 23:11, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

• I think you've done a great job with the edits here. You've captured both perspectives on Kagame's activities and administration and state them in an objective way. Really nice work on a difficult and sensitive topic. Lemurbaby (talk) 04:24, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that you've done a great job with this article, and I think the tone is sufficiently neutral. I've done a copy edit, but the citation style still needs work. Ashleyleia (talk) 04:38, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Paul Kagame/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Lemurbaby (talk · contribs) 13:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

1. I'll begin this review over the weekend. Cheers, Lemurbaby (talk) 13:39, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• "Kagame's mother, Asteria Rutagambwa, was also a Tutsi from the family of the Queen" - specifically from the last queen of Rwanda, or from a clan that had supplied queens, or from a family that had once supplied a queen at some point? Does the source provide clarification? It would be good to include a name and wikilink once we have that level of detail. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Done: The source says "His wife, Asteria, was very closely related to the queen and so the family had access to the benefits of a position in traditoinal Rwandan society". So I think that must mean the wife of the king of the day, which would be Rosalie Gicanda. I have put that name into the article.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:34, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

• "It is likely that Rwigyema was killed by his subcommander Peter Bayingana" - what authorities have come to consensus on this version of the story? Ideally, the article would read (for example): "According to studies by the United Nations, government of Tanzania and..." etc. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done? actually I think I possibly overstated the "likelihood" of that version of events. I have rewritten to make it balanced and say which sources state what. Let me know if this works.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:30, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• In the Rwandan Civil War section, the first mention of the size of the RPF is "hundreds of troops", and then next it's stated the troops were "reduced to fewer than 2,000". It would be good to find how many RPF troops were in Rwanda at its height (and when it hit its maximum) during this period to provide context to these two figures. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done I've found a source giving it as "over 4,000".  — Amakuru (talk) 20:29, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• "a 2012 report by French judges" - I think it's important to find a way to underscore that this report was highly scientific (unlike the 2006 report) and was meant to supersede the earlier findings. I believe (but I'd have to verify) that the 2012 report was endorsed by major bodies within the international community. If this is the case, it would be good to make it clear that the belief Kagame was involves is a minority view that has been largely refuted. Though the article needs to remain neutral, we also don't want to give more weight than is due to a position that has generally been rejected. But of course we need to be careful to keep the focus on facts and substantiated data on opinions. I know this is complicated and sensitive. What are your thoughts? Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Done - well I have rephrased it as a chronological set of theories: first Prunier said this, then Bruguiere said that, then the later report used ballistic experts blah blah blah. Hopefully this conveys the balance of probabilities well enough. I'm somewhat sceptical that anyone can really say they know for sure what happened, particularly examining the case from 18 years on; but if we just follow what the sources say then we can't go far wrong really!  — Amakuru (talk) 21:33, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

• "the Interahamwe and the presidential guard began to kill" - it would be good to acknowledge those killed include moderate Hutus Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Done  — Amakuru (talk) 22:11, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• the Domestic Situation section is the first time the Twa are mentioned. I added a wikilink, but I think it would make sense to explain early in the article that there were three traditional categories of people in Rwanda, name them, and possibly offer a brief explanation as it relates to the political conflicts. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Done - I've introduced the three groups in the lead, and then put a bit more context in the Ugandan army section on how the Tutsi planned to fight the Hutu-dominated Rwandan army. Let me know if that fits.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:07, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

• "led to the loss of an estimated three million lives" - The article on the Second Congo War gives a range up to 5 million. Let's nuance this sentence to include what organization is offering the estimated range and then providing the range itself. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done I have found an article quoting the IRC as stating a range of 3m to 7.6m. Let me know if that is nuanced enough.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:10, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

• In the section on Kagame's alleged involvement in the illegal exploitation of minerals in eastern DRC, are there more primary sources than the one report against him? If not, this may need to be reformulated to make it clear this is the only report to make such allegations. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done Found another report from March this year and added that.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:58, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

• " he plans to extend this free education to cover the final three secondary years." - the extension to 12 years basic education is already in effect. Would you update this information and provide a more recent source? Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done  — Amakuru (talk) 16:42, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

• "only the English syllabi are now offered" - The point can be made even stronger by explaining that since 2009 English is the language of instruction in all public schools from grade 4 onward. Recent info here. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Done: Thanks for the new ref. I've incorporated this into the paragraph... it seems slightly long and unwieldy the way I've written it, but might be OK. Let me know.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:34, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• It would be good to add in the economy section or foreign relations that the Kagame administration brought Rwanda into the Commonwealth of Nations, one of only two countries to do so without having been a former colony. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Done. I've also added a line about the UN security council seat and presidency.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• Regarding the shortage of qualified medical personnel, I would suggest rephrasing to something like "In response to shortages in qualified medical personnel, in 2012 the Government of Rwanda launched a nine-year $160(? can't recall) million initiative to train medical professionals..." with info from this or a better source on the Human Resources for Health (HRH) initiative. It's a problem that's being actively addressed right now and with the amount of money and attention of experts focused on it right now, it's likely to yield significant results, possibly even transforming Rwanda into a medical care hub for the region. I would also suggest rephrasing "the country's health profile remains dominated by communicable diseases..." because the actual incidence rates of some of these diseases (at least HIV and malaria for sure) is reportedly very low compared to most African countries, and the way it's currently described gives the opposite impression. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Partially done - I've put in your suggested sentence about the training programme. However, I've currently left in the part about communicable diseases, now at the beginning of the rejigged paragraph. It's pretty much a direct quotation from the world health organisation report for 2009 (which had a missing ref until now, apologies for that). I'm sure you know more about this topic than I do, but the WHO seems like quite an authoritative source unless they've issued any kind of update or change to literature since that 2009 document?  — Amakuru (talk) 23:03, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• "(M23), began in 2012 and is still continuing as of 2013" - a peace agreement was signed in February and in March the leader turned himself in at the US Embassy (fun times); he's since been transferred to the ICC. This part probably should be rephrased to indicate a tenuous peace agreement was reached in February 2013, although M23 remains militarized and has issued threats against the UN peace keeping troops (or some more concise alternative). But then again, it's not over till it's over... Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done I've tried to reflect the latest news  — Amakuru (talk) 20:52, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

• "it is likely that he had prior knowledge of the plan" - the authoritative source(s) need to be stated here and you'll want to clarify that it is a belief (not a known fact) as it's a statement that could be challenged. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done it was Prunier who stated this.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:11, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• "donating large sums each year in budget support" and "stopped short of ending budgetary support altogether" - This doesn't seem quite accurate. DFID provides mainly budget support but USAID at an Agency level has only begun to shift toward budget support in principle in 2008, and in Rwanda it hasn't started yet due to political obstructions that have only lifted in the last couple of months. Project-based aid, yes, but not budget support. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done I'm not really an expert in this area, so I mistakenly assumed military aid was a form of budget support. I've rephrased. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 22:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• "critical of the West's lack of development aid in Africa" - maybe rephrase to something like "inadequate development aid" if the source supports this? Lack implies there is no aid at all (at least to my ears) and Kagame would be unlikely to assert there is no development aid in Africa. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done - actually that was one of the few bits of the article that I left in place from before I started work on it; obviously "aid" is the wrong term because the article pretty much says that Kagame blames the west for only giving aid. Hope this is better now. As I said below, I will revisit the China paragraph in due course. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 21:22, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

• I think it would be interesting to expand just a little on the China relations section. The general feeling here is that the Rwandan government was positive toward China's development model initially, but as their infrastructure investments began deteriorating much more quickly than those of Western countries, the bloom came off the rose so to speak. But I haven't looked for any solid sources to confirm that rumor. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  To do - yes I always intended to expand on this section and will do so hopefully in the next few weeks. Let me know if it's urgent to do it now - I kind of thought I'd get by with the "broad coverage" required for GA as opposed to the "comprehensive" coverage needed for FA!  — Amakuru (talk) 20:48, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• In the citations, there are some instances where p= is used for page ranges. Would you edit to make sure p= is used for single pages and pp= is used for multiple pages? Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Done  — Amakuru (talk) 22:30, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

• The Manual of Style sets that wikilinks be used on the term's first use in the lead, first use in the body and first use in an fffimage caption. I'm seeing some terms linked more often. Would you please go through and remove the extra links? Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done OK then that's done. My personal preference has usually been to have further links in unrelated sections, particuarly if they are a long way apart, because the sections of an article should be able to stand alone if that's the bit a particular reader wants to home in on. But no use arguing with the manual of style I guess!  — Amakuru (talk) 23:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• I corrected an instance of Month-Day-Year date format in the prose. Would you make sure all the other dates in the prose are Day-Month-Year? I think it's probably fine to leave the dates in the citations as year-month-day. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done I can't see any other instances of this.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:15, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

• Double-check capitalization is consistent throughout. Examples: "Arusha accords" or "Arusha Accords", "Virunga Mountains" or "Virunga mountains" (the latter I changed to "Virunga mountains" throughout) etc. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done I've tried to be reasonably consistent in style throughout. Most words like president, queen, constitution, parliament etc. are now lower cae per WP:MOSCAP except where they are directly part of a title. Arusha Accords kept capitals as it's the title of a single thing.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

• Double-check that punctuation is only used at the end of image captions when the caption is a complete sentence. I removed one instance of this. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done I couldn't see any other examples of this.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:12, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• There are some foreign-language words that you italicize on the first instance, others you always italicize, and some you never italicize. It would be good if you could apply the same system throughout the article for all foreign language words. I typically italicize on the first instance only, but I don't believe the Manual of Style has a set rule for this, just that it needs to be consistent. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

  Done - yes, I think I prefer to italicise all occurrences of foreign words so have hopefully implemented that consistently. Per the MOS (somewhere) I've not italicised words such as "de facto" and "blitzkrieg" and also "Tutsi" because they are now genuine English words appearing in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

• There seems to be some kind of an issue with many of the citations' Harvard formatting. There are 60+ that seem to have lost their "anchor" so when I click the short ref in the Notes section, they don't connect to the main ref in the References section. There is also a reference in the first section that isn't in shortened format. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Done I think it's OK now. I'll check again in a while to make sure I haven't missed one.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:08, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

• Well done - that was a lot of work. I'm seeing just a few anchors that still need fixing: refs 92, 104, 144, 145, 278, 279 and 281. Lemurbaby (talk) 06:27, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

  D'oh, silly me. Done again I hope.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:37, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

• Really nice job throughout. You've got a real talent for writing on complex and sensitive topics in a clear, understandable and objective way. I especially liked how you handled the section on possible mineral wealth gained by Kagame through the Congo wars. Short, sweet, factual and fair. Thanks for all you're doing here to improve info on important Rwandan topics. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• These changes look great. I've done a sweep and adjusted wording in a couple of places. This is ready for GA, and I hope you'll nominate it for FA soon as well. The piece on China could always be expanded during the FA review since they tend to go on for 2-4 weeks. Let me know if you do nominate it so I can provide my support there as well. - Lemurbaby (talk) 04:02, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

• Actually, one last detail. There are still several sources in the References section that aren't connected to their "anchors" in the notes section. They are the following:

• Ministry of Education (MINEDUC), Republic of Rwanda (2010-07-13). "Achievements (2003–2010)". Retrieved 2012-02-16. (Anchor = CITEREFMINEDUC2010)
• CNN (2012-01-11). "Report: Rebels cleared in plane crash that sparked Rwandan genocide". Retrieved 2012-10-10. (Anchor = CITEREFCNN2012)
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2000). "Ch. 10: "The Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath"". The State of the World's Refugees 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action. Geneva; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 019924104X. Retrieved 2010-10-29.(Anchor = CITEREFUNHCR2000)
• Washington Post (1996-10-31). "Rwanda, Zaire move toward war". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved 2010-11-04. (Anchor = CITEREFWashington_Post1996)

Vision 2020

This sentence "At the halfway point, the overall picture is quite encouraging. Rwanda's economy is thriving and reporAnsoms, An1; Rostagno, Donatellaed growth figures have been impressive" is garbled, and seems to have been that way since before FA review. Colonies Chris (talk) 10:49, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi @User:Colonies Chris

That's an odd one - thanks for picking it up. I think the paragraph you mention is more or less the literal text from the source - I put it temporarily on one of my user space draft pages while I was drafting the paragraph below that one, then I seem to have accidentally copied and pasted it into the article itself. I have now removed that offending paragraph completely, as it must be a copyvio if nothing else. Interesting that nobody else at FAC picked up on that, but also shows that I should have read the thing from top to bottom myself again.

Thanks as well for the bit of copyediting you've done this morning. Hope you're happy with the overall general quality of the article. Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 11:18, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick fix. Yes, I think it's a well-written article, but I'm disappointed at the large number of copyedit issues that weren't picked up in FA review. Maybe there needs to be a review of the review process. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:41, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I guess so, although looking over the copy edits you've done most of the issues seem to be either (a) missing accents in foreign names, use of sentence case in titles, quotes around publications etc. or (b) wikilinks to common terms such as United States and France. Which is all great stuff, but I would say those are arguably more stylistic preferences and not fundamental detractors from the quality of the article. You may disagree, however. The major howlers were the spelling mistake in "between" and the mangled paragraph you mentioned above, and yes the review needed to have picked those up.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:44, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree that they're not fundamental, but they should have been picked up nonetheless. Any departure from accurate spelling (as used in the WP article about the person) or from guidelines such as WP:Overlink should at least be noted and discussed. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I have a concern about the use of the {{sfn}} template. It's primarily designed for use with works that have a specific author, and doesn't work well for articles from news agencies or newspapers that don't have a named author. The approach in this article seems to have been to get around that by pretending that, for example, "Al Jazeera (I)" is the author. This is really unsatisfactory. A better approach is described at Template:Harvard_citation_documentation#No_author_name_in_citation_template, using {{harvid}}. Then Al Jazeera can be correctly given as the publisher, not the author. Colonies Chris (talk) 11:41, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Does this really make a big difference? The important thing with citations is how it appears in the rendered text, and as far as I can tell using {{harvid}} rather than {{sfn}} would make no difference to how it rendered. For the record I didn't intend to "pretend" that Al Jazeera was the author, actually I took the view that if no specific author was given then you could regard the publisher itself as being the author. I'll take your point on board though, and will try to use {{harvid}} in future for such cases. If you really want me to go back and do it for this article I can have a look at that later on. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:44, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree that it's only the final appearance that matters. Any editor looking at the template used that way will have a pretty hard time working out what's going on and why. I have years of programming experience, so I recognize that sort of kludge. Others would likely be baffled. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Revert?

Was this edit nonconstructive? I thought organizing the categories in alphabetical order would be beneficial. I do this often, especially for featured content, without reverts. --Another Believer _(Talk) 18:29, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

My mistake someone was vandalizing the page so I went to revert, but accidentally reverted your work.

OK, thanks. --Another Believer _(Talk) 18:35, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Who is Roger Winter?

Who is Roger Winter? And what role played the U.S. Committee for Refugees in implementing Kagame?--79.223.2.231 (talk) 19:14, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

pov concerns

I know nothing about Rwanda , but have watched Jane Corbins programme about the genocide and its 20 year aftermath - right up to recent assassinations in South Africa of defectors from kagamas regime - just reading the lead it looks very, it looks too, sympathetic to kagame -bbc Rwanda programme details - he has 'abolished' ethnic division but the tutsis dictate what the narrative of the country's recent history will be, and dominate the government, that's what the programme suggested - nothing of any tensions and controversy is really conveyed very well by the lead - its very 'neat' but too un-nuanced - the lead says nothing about RPF killings of hutus in 1994, general Nyamwasa said there were 'excesses', - the elections of 2003 were fake, he imprisons people who challenge the narrative at all- it says glibly 'kagame is popular in Rwanda - ' Sayerslle (talk) 21:33, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

You have to understand one thing, this article is sympathetic to Paul Kagame, there is no way around. The tutsi narrative about 1994 events in Rwanda is crystal clear and awfully manichean, the Hutu were the bad guys, the Tutsi were the good ones. Did you know there are no monuments in Rwanda for the Hutu killed in 1994, there are only for the Tutsi ? The worst is this article doesn't even say that he's acting as a classic dictator with a restriction of individual liberties, a one-sided narrative of 1994, the systematic suppression of any opposition of any kind (journalists, politics), the financing of rebel groups in east Congo and finally some interventions by his army in Congo. Thinking about those elements, Kagame looks like Putin before Putin... Don't get me wrong, a genocide was committed in Rwanda and it was against the Tutsi, but it doesn't give a blank cheque to anybody to deny some facts as Kagame is unfortunately no different to others dictators and his regime is simply repressive, as he seized power by force in 1994 and as the RPF committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in 1994 and then after in Congo. 90.42.4.7 (talk) 15:20, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

POV

As above, I'm going go put a POV tag on this article. The simple fact that he is portrayed as the "hero" that "ended the genocide" without serious findings of evidence that he actually participated in it is enough. The lead, at least, is horribly undue. Here is some info straight from CNN and a spanish human rights court: click.

• Story Highlights:
• A Spanish judge has indicted 40 current or former Rwandan military officers
• Men were indicted for several counts of genocide and human rights abuses
• More than 4 million Rwandans died or disappeared during the 1990s
• The majority of the victims were Hutu Rwandan refugees or [also Hutu] Congolese civilians

77.165.250.227 (talk) 04:38, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Autocrat / dictator

There are numerous, highly reliable sources that label Kagame an autocrat (e.g. FT The Australian) or a dictator (The Times Politico African Affairs_{highly cited academic paper} New York Times) but absolutely nothing about this in the article. Is there any reasoning behind this? I'm a bit baffled how this didn't come up at the FA review, which I thought included at least some source reviewing. SmartSE (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

The article discusses the accusations of political repression that the likes of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have made, both in the lead and in the public image section. In the interest of neutrality in a BLP article, when I was writing a lot of this I stuck quite rigidly to reporting what those big players were saying when it came to possibly negative commentary. For example, in the Amnesty document cited[3] it mentions "political repression" but it doesn't use the word dictator or autocrat, so the article cites them as saying political repression. That said, there may be a case for mentioning that some commentators have used those words, if you or others feel that's appropriate. I've just looked over at Vladimir Putin, another guy for whom this is sometimes alleged, and noticed that includes the word "dictator" once, with quotes around it, and clearly cited to Garry Kasparov. It's worth bearing in mind as well that there are sources saying his support amongst the population is genuine,[4] it's actually difficult for us to be sure either way on that. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 23:03, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. This is really the same problem as the section below and I agree that it is difficult both to determine who holds the opposing views and the weight that should be given to them. When so many sources state that there is disagreement about his presidency we should explain the reasons for the controversy. The current article is neutral but not NPOV as their are significant views that are omitted. Hopefully between us we can find a way to represent the views in the available sources. SmartSE (talk) 20:37, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Hero or villain?

The lead currently states "Kagame previously commanded the rebel force that ended the 1994 Rwandan Genocide." which I don't dispute, but it may be that he also started the genocide. Is there a fairer way this uncertainty can be expressed while staying the right side of WP:BLP? --John (talk) 08:15, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

The most recent investigation into the plane crash concluded that it was unlikely Kagame was behind it...[5], but your wider question is a very difficult one to answer. What makes a hero and a villain? Maybe he's both - there's little doubt that Rwanda is a safer and more prosperous country than it was pre-1994, but at what cost? This article tries to cover everything that's factual, which is easy enough, but where it gets difficult is how much of the conjecture and third hand reports form people who've fallen out with him it's safe to include in a BLP article. I guess I've erred towards mentioning only the high level accusations by the big players, rather than having a lot of detailed material on negative stuff...  — Amakuru (talk) 20:50, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

It's a difficult problem. I will think about it some more. --John (talk) 08:38, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

OK, thanks, let me know what you think and good luck with it... every time I try to get definitive answers on this I end up wading through article after article, book after book, with no two sources apparently saying the same thing consistently. It's a real minefield! It could definitely use extra objective pairs of eyes on it though. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:28, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• With apologies to User:Dweller and User:SilkTork, I noticed quite a useful discussion between them regarding this article. I thought it might be useful to discuss this here.

(Copied from User talk:Dweller) Just reading the section of Amakuru's RfA concerning your removal of the word despot. Doing a Google search for the subject's name and the word despot, I find it is a fairly widespread description of him. It is used by respected newspapers and media sources such as The Times, The Telegraph, the BBC, and others. And it's not just newspapers - various books discuss him with that description: [6], [7], [8]. It seems that the description is so widespread that it would be appropriate for someone to consider as biased an article on him which does not discuss that aspect of opinions of his rule. As such it appears the oppose comment was justified, and can only really be understood with the term despot replaced. I understand why you went for the safe option of removing it, but people, including myself after looking into the matter, are feeling that the removal was not only unnecessary, but also distorts the oppose comment. Would you consider restoring the word? Or would you object if I restored it if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:03, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

[end of copied text]

Can we use these sources to provide a more balanced description of Kagame? --John (talk) 18:16, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

And I'm sorry, I only just noticed the section above, which discusses a very similar subject. If nobody minds, I will maybe coalesce the two sections and we can continue discussion under one head. --John (talk) 20:43, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Bias

After having read Dallaire's (head of UNAMIR) "Shaking Hands with the Devil" and Gourevitch's, "We wish to inform you..."-two of the most authoritative sources for the Rwandan Genocide, one get the impression that this article has an axe to grind with Kagame. Kagame and the RPF ended the genocide in Rwanda, without establishing a policy of retribution. Kagame is a military genious. This is attested to by both Dallaire and Gourevitch. The article gives the impression that Kagame is another brutal dictator, which does not fit the image given in the most unbiased authoritative sources. Paul —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.232.208.150 (talk) 02:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

After reading Gen. Dallaire's Book, "Shake Hands with the Devil", I find this article horrible biased. - Greg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.49.78.6 (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

After reading Gen. Dallaire's book and seen the recent activity of the Rwandan Army in the East Congo, where there is another systematic massacre, I find this article quite honest and Dallaire's book incomplete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.206.236.153 (talk) 21:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I verified all the articles concerning the french accusations... most of the material points to Kagame being innocent and the french pretty much making up accusations. Romeo Dallaire's war journal is very clear concerning French and Rwandese diplomatic relations, they were never very good. Also, if you read the text and sources accurately, pretty much only France accuses him of anything and considering their role in the Rwandan genocide and Operation Turquoise I think the article shouldn't mention in such dept the accusations without solid proofs. The person being alive, this information is pretty much weaseling, very biased and should be promptly reduced, keeping only general informations. The tone of the article is biaised.... this needs major fixing preferably using academic sources and avoiding French journals.(from france, not nevessarely in french language) Mighty.Yggdrasil (talk) 07:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC) I suggest reading the works of Kieth Harmon Snow for information on the brutality of Kagame24.238.89.22 (talk) 05:35, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Only one important thing people need to know about him

He has caused the deaths of over 10 million people in the Congo, with the help of its allies the U.S.A and multi-national corporations, so they can get coltan for our mobile phones and other electronics.. Coltan is found in the Congo. Can we please have something written about this? People need to be told the truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.40.54.254 (talk) 19:07, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Not unless serious evidence and articles are found regarding this. Wiki's policy about living person is clear, no hearsay, no weaseling. Mighty.Yggdrasil (talk) 22:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Check out this link then: http://www.consciousbeingalliance.com/2012/04/pentagon-reveals-satelitte-photos-of-1994-rwanda-genocide24.238.89.22 (talk) 05:40, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

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Rationalization of attacks on refugee camps

Requires a citation. At a minimum. Removed this text from intro:

"which were controlled by the genocidaires (participants in the genocide) and threatened Rwanda's security." Elinruby (talk) 11:28, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

New image?

The main image is from 2014, is it time to update it to a more recent one? My thoughts are on these two:

Kagame in 2016

Kagame in 2020

The 2020 one is more recent, but the 2016 one better shows Kagame's face. Josharaujo1115 (talk) 00:49, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

FA criteria

I am concerned that this article is overly favorable to Kagame.

• There are nearly 40 citations to Kinzer's book, described in one review by Susan Thomson as depending heavily on interviews with Kagame and even being "an exercise in public relations, aimed at further enhancing Kagame's stature in the eyes of the west".[9] Another source states, "This book may not quite be the authorized biography of Paul Kagame, but it’s close enough, as Kinzer himself boasts." It is reliable for Kagame's POV but relying on it to such an extent is unwise.
• Other important details are sourced to Dallaire's memoir. While it is likewise reliable for his POV, one has to take into consideration "Dallaire’s extremely high regard for rebel leader General Paul Kagame, now president of Rwanda."
• "Kagame is popular in Rwanda and with some foreign observers; human rights groups accuse him of political repression." This is not true, according to Waldorf, who writes that Kagame/RPF never held fair elections and since 2003 have falsified election results and used various authoritarian tactics to suborn or ban the opposition.

Other issues

• There are some parts of the article which could be done better. The section on who shot down the plane just says some prominent people who believe either theory. Wouldn't it be better to sum up the arguments on either side? (Hint: there's a good summary in a 2018 review article by Gerald Caplan)
• Inconsistent citation format with some articles cited inline and others in the bibliography.
• Since the article was promoted, new scholarly sources have been published on the subject. New information should be integrated into the article to make sure that comprehensiveness and NPOV continue to be satisfied. The Reyntjens and Thomson books look particularly important for covering the post 1995 period. (t · c) buidhe 11:06, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Random brainstorming

POV 1: Kagame ended the genocide after the international community failed to do so. Despite great challenges, his regime achieved reconciliation, economic growth, foreign investment, improved public health and education, etc. From the utilitarian perspective, these benefits far outweigh the occasional assassination. Maybe he is a dictator, but at least a benevolent one. In a real democracy, Rwandans would choose the wrong leader and re-ignite ethnic violence. POV 2: Under Kagame's leadership (command responsibility) the RPF committed war crimes before, during, and after the 1994 genocide—costing tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. The civil war started by the RPF and the downing of the plane inadvertently brought the genocide about. To this day he runs a dictatorship with many characteristics of totalitarianism[10] and continues to assassinate other Rwandans. Kagame may be responsible for more deaths in war crimes than anyone else currently in power. These POVs appear irreconcilable, but in fact they aren't. (t · c) buidhe 20:42, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

References

@Buidhe: I can certainly look into addressing these issues, and I will try to get hold of copies of the recent sources you mention to update the article. Unfortunately it will have to be a fairly slow process though, as I don't have huge amounts of time in real life. I take your point about the Kinzer book, and maybe material from that relating to Kagame's intentions should be either qualified or removed. I think it's fine for some of the uncontroversial facts about his childhood and upbringing though, and even for details of his specific movements around the time of the genocide. Those generally are not found elsewhere, and it's unlikely Kagame would have had reason to lie to Kinzer about those.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:49, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Kagame (surname) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 11:33, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hi Amakuru, thanks for your work on this article. I was writing an article on Susan Thomson and found something that might be relevant to this article. In her 2018 book Rwanda: From Genocide to Precarious Peace, published by Yale University Press, Thomson argues (in the words of one reviewer):

Thomson’s argument that Rwanda’s political culture has not fundamentally changed from pre-colonial times is striking. In her view, the role of an authoritarian and more or less benevolent ‘father of the nation’ persists, and the similarities between Habyarimana, the country’s second president after independence, and President Kagame are both significant and numerous.

Sadly I do not have access to this book, but you may be able to get parts of it at WP:RX. (t · c) buidhe 00:43, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

@Buidhe: apologies, I missed this message from January. I definitely need to prune my watchlist so I see things on the important talk pages in amongst the random junk I've accumulated there! I'll hopefully get back to updating Paul Kagame some more this week, time permitting. That new book you mention sounds interesting, I should be able to access a copy at the British Library, although they're currently closed due to the lockdown, with a tentative reopening date of 12 April. I've also now got a copy of Linda Melvern's new book "Intent to Deceive: Denying the Genocide of the Tutsi", partly because Caplan mentioned it in his paper that you highlighted before. I'm not sure how useful that really is though, because I tend to find Melvern unduly supportive of the Tutsi/RPF narrative, in the same way that Judi Rever is unduly negative about it. Neither of those two are bona fide academics, anyway, they're more journalists with a keen interest in Rwanda. It's a shame that there aren't more sources presenting the debate from a neutral point of view, as Caplan's seems to. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:40, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you on the utility of the sources. (t · c) buidhe 10:45, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

References

Attributing economic and social improvements to Kagame

It is extraordinary to claim that Kagame's rule is responsible for "development on key indicators, including healthcare, education and economic growth". It should be removed from the lead. Parts of the body that make those extraordinary claims should be removed, as well. Causes of macro outcomes are murky and it's unclear what the counterfactual would have been. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:55, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

A 1:1 counterfactual is difficult to impossible, but it is not an extraordinary claim to suggest governments can significantly impact a variety of macro outcomes. Rwanda's development gets a significant amount of attention internationally, and Kagame is inextricably linked with Rwandan government policy. CMD (talk) 15:30, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Kagame-Netanyahu Relations

I understand that Kagame has close ties to Israel and is a Good Friend of Benjamin Netanyahu, but I don't know where to put it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dunutubble (talk • contribs) 01:05, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Kagame rules an authoritarian regime

There is no dispute in reliable sources about this. The lead should clearly note this. The lead should absolutely not say, "Kagame is popular with some foreign observers, but human rights groups accuse him of political repression." Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:07, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

The opinion by foreign observers is definitely not "mixed" as to whether the regime is authoritarian. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:43, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

The article doesn't say they are. CMD (talk) 15:58, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

This is what the lead says after your edit: "Kagame's rule is considered authoritarian, and human rights groups accuse him of political repression. Overall opinion on the regime by foreign observers is mixed and as president, Kagame has prioritized national development, launching programmes which have led to development on key indicators, including healthcare, education and economic growth." To readers, this suggests that foreign observers are divided as to the regime type and human rights situation in the country. There is also no support for this in the body of the article. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:10, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

I wrote "overall" specifically to note that it encompassed more than the authoritarianism, while also adding back in the explicit note of political repression. The second sentence does not refer just to authoritarianism. The overall phrasing is a pretty close reflection of the Public image and personality section, which explicitly contrasts the narrative of authoritarianism with the narrative of socioeconomic development. CMD (talk) 16:15, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

That is exactly the intention of that opening line in the P&PI section, and I've reworked that back in, per CMD above. There's obviously a place for what Dukaskis says, but the "Gourevitch" angle is still present in some international circles, as a cite to Caplan's 2018 paper now confirms.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:56, 12 August 2021 (UTC)