Jean Kambanda

Who is Jean Kambanda?

Jean Kambanda was the Prime Minister in the caretaker government of Rwanda from the start of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. He is the only head of government to plead guilty to genocide, in the first group of such convictions since the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into effect in 1951.

Kambanda holds a degree in commercial engineering and began his career as a low-level United Popular BPR banker, rising as a technocrat to become the chair of the bank. At the time of the April 1994 crisis he was vice president of the Butare section of the opposition Democratic Republican Movement.

He was sworn in as prime minister on April 9, 1994 after the President, Juvénal Habyarimana, and former Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, were assassinated. The opposition MDR had been promised the prime ministerial post in the transitional government established by the Arusha accords, but Kambanda leapfrogged several levels in the party's hierarchy to take the job from the initial choice, Faustin Twagiramungu. He remained in the post for the hundred days of the genocide until July 19, 1994. After leaving office he fled the country.