title: Esports

text: Additionally, competitions are also often conducted over a local area network or LAN. The smaller network usually has very little lag and higher quality. Because competitors must be physically present, LANs help ensure fair play by allowing direct scrutiny of competitors. This helps prevent many forms of cheating, such as unauthorized hardware or software modding. The physical presence of competitors helps create a more social atmosphere at LAN events. Many gamers organize LAN parties or visit Internet cafés, and most major tournaments are conducted over LANs.


title: Esports

text: Individual games have taken various approaches to LAN support. In contrast to the original "StarCraft", "StarCraft II" was released without support for LAN play, drawing some strongly negative reactions from players. "League of Legends" was originally released for online play only, but announced in October 2012 that a LAN client was in the works for use in major tournaments. In September 2013, Valve added general support for LAN play to "Dota 2" in a patch for the game.


title: Esports

text: Professional gamers, or "pro gamers", are often associated with gaming teams and/or broader gaming associations. Teams like FaZe Clan, 100 Thieves, Evil Geniuses, Team SoloMid, Cloud9, Fnatic, Counter Logic Gaming, T1, G2 Esports, Team Envy, and Natus Vincere consist of several professionals. These teams often cover multiple esports games within tournaments and leagues, with various team makeups for each game. They may also represent single players for one-on-one esports games like fighting games within Evolution Championship Series, or "Hearthstone" tournaments. In addition to prize money from tournament wins, players in these teams and associations may also be paid a separate team salary. Team sponsorship may cover tournament travel expenses or gaming hardware. Prominent esports sponsors include companies such as Logitech and Razer. Teams feature these sponsors on their website, team jerseys and on their social media, in 2016 the biggest teams have social media followings of over a million. Associations include the Korean e-Sports Association (KeSPA), the International e-Sports Federation (IeSF), the British esports Association, and the World esports Association (WESA).


title: Esports

text: Some traditional sporting athletes have invested in esports, such as Rick Fox's ownership of Echo Fox, Jeremy Lin's ownership of Team VGJ, and Shaquille O'Neal's investment in NRG Esports. Some association football teams, such as FC Schalke 04 in Germany, Paris Saint-Germain esports in France; Besiktas JK, Fenerbahce S.K., and Galatasaray in Turkey; Panathinaikos F.C. in Greece either sponsor or have complete ownership in esports teams.


title: Esports

text: While different from the regimens of traditional sports, esports athletes still have extensive training routines. Team Liquid, a professional League of Legends team, practice for a minimum of 50 hours per week and most play the game far more. In April 2020, researchers from the Queensland University of Technology found that some of the top esports players showed similar aspects of mental toughness as Olympic athletes. This training schedule for players has resulted in many of them retiring an early age. Players are generally in competition by their mid- to late-teens, with most retiring by their late-20s.


title: Esports

text: In most team-based esports, organized play is centered around the use of promotion and relegation to move sponsored teams between leagues within the competition's organization based on how the team fared in matches; this follows patterns of professional sports in European and Asian countries. Teams will play a number of games across a season as to vie for top positioning in the league by the end of that season. Those that do well, in addition to prize money, may be promoted into a higher-level league, while those that fare poorly can be regulated downward. For example, until 2018 Riot Games runs several "League of Legends" series, with the League of Legends Championship Series being the top-tier series. Teams that did not do well were relegated to the League of Legends Challenger Series, replaced by the better performing teams from that series. This format was discontinued when Riot opted to use the franchise format in mid-2018.


title: Esports

text: With rising interest in viewership of esports, some companies sought to create leagues that followed the franchise approach used in North American professional sports, in which all teams, backed by a major financial sponsor to support the franchise, participate in a regular season of matches to vie for top standing as to participate in the post-season games. This approach is more attractive for larger investors, who would be more willing to back a team that remains playing in the esport's premiere league and not threatened to be relegated to a lower standing. Though the details vary from league to league, these leagues generally require all signed player to have a minimum salary with appropriate benefits, and may share in the team's winnings. While there is no team promotion or relegation, players can be signed onto contracts, traded among teams, or let go as free agents, and new players may be pulled from the esports' equivalent minor league.


title: Esports

text: The first such league to be formed was the Overwatch League, established by Blizzard Entertainment in 2016 based on its "Overwatch" game. Initially launched in 2018 with 12 teams, the league expanded to twenty teams in 2019. Though the first two seasons were played at Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles, the Overwatch League's third season in 2020 will implement the typical home/away game format at esports arenas in the teams' various home cities or regions.


title: Esports

text: Take-Two Interactive partnered with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to create the NBA 2K League, using the "NBA 2K" game series. It is the first esports league to be operated by a professional sports league, and the NBA sought to have a League team partially sponsored by each of the 30 professional NBA teams. Its inaugural season is set to start May 2018 with 17 teams. Similarly, EA Sports and Major League Soccer (MLS) established the eMLS in 2018, a league using EA's "FIFA" series.


title: Esports

text: Activision launched its 12-team Call of Duty League in January 2020, following the format of the Overwatch League but based on the "Call of Duty" series.


title: Esports

text: Cloud9 and Dignitas, among others, have started development of a franchise-based "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" league, Flashpoint, in February 2020. This will be the first such esports league to be owned by the teams rather than any single organization.


title: Esports

text: Esports are also frequently played in tournaments, where potential players and teams vie to be placed through qualification matches before entering the tournament. From there, the tournament formats can vary from single or double elimination, sometimes hybridized with group stage. Esports tournaments are almost always physical events in which occur in front of a live audience, with referees or officials to monitor for cheating. The tournament may be part of a larger gathering, such as Dreamhack, or the competition may be the entirety of the event, like the World Cyber Games or the Fortnite World Cup. Esports competitions have also become a popular feature at gaming and multi-genre conventions.


title: Esports

text: Although competitions involving video games have long existed, esports underwent a significant transition in the late 1990s. Beginning with the Cyberathlete Professional League in 1997, tournaments became much larger, and corporate sponsorship became more common. Increasing viewership both in person and online brought esports to a wider audience. Major tournaments include the World Cyber Games, the North American Major League Gaming league, the France-based Electronic Sports World Cup, and the World e-Sports Games held in Hangzhou, China.


title: Esports

text: The average compensation for professional esports players does not compare to those of the top classical sports organizations in the world. According to Julian Krinsky Camps & Programs website, the top Esports player in the world earned around $2.5 million in 2017. The highest overall salary by any esports professional at the time was around $3.6 million. While prizes for esports competitions can be very large, the limited number of competitions and large number of competitors ultimately lowers the amount of money one can make in the industry. In the United States, Esports competitions have prizes that can reach $200,000 for a single victory. Dota 2 International hosted a competition where the grand-prize winning team walked home with almost $10.9 million.


title: Esports

text: For well established games, total prize money can amount to millions of U.S. dollars a year. As of 10 September 2016, "Dota 2" has awarded approximately US$86 million in prize money within 632 registered tournaments, with 23 players winning over $1 million. "League of Legends" awarded approximately $30 million within 1749 registered tournaments, but in addition to the prize money, Riot Games provides salaries for players within their "League of Legends" Championship Series. Nonetheless, there has been criticism to how these salaries are distributed, since most players earn a fairly low wage but a few top players have a significantly higher salary, skewing the average earning per player. In August 2018, The International 2018, Valve's annual premier "Dota 2" tournament, was held and broke the record for holding the largest prize pool to date for any esports tournament, amounting to over US$25 million.


title: Esports

text: Often, game developers provide prize money for tournament competition directly, but sponsorship may also come from third parties, typically companies selling computer hardware, energy drinks, or computer software. Generally, hosting a large esports event is not profitable as a stand-alone venture. For example, Riot has stated that their headline "League of Legends" Championship Series is "a significant investment that we're not making money from".


title: Esports

text: There is considerable variation and negotiation over the relationship between video game developers and tournament organizers and broadcasters. While the original "StarCraft" events emerged in South Korea largely independently of Blizzard, the company decided to require organizers and broadcasters to authorize events featuring the sequel "StarCraft II". In the short term, this led to a deadlock with the Korean e-Sports Association. An agreement was reached in 2012. Blizzard requires authorization for tournaments with more than US$10,000 in prizes. Riot Games offers in-game rewards to authorized tournaments.


title: Esports

text: In addition to professional and amateur esports, esports have drawn attention of colleges and high schools since 2008.


title: Esports

text: Along with the bursting popularity of esports over the last two decades came a demand for extended opportunities for esports athletes. Universities across the world (mostly China and America) began offering scholarship opportunities to incoming freshmen to join their collegiate esports teams. According to Schaeperkoetter (2017) and others, the potential impact that an esports program could have on a university, coupled with the growing interest that universities are showing in such a program, combine to make this line of research relevant in sport literature.


title: Esports

text: While game publishers or esports broadcasters typically act in oversight roles for specific esports, a number of esports governing bodies have been established to collectively represent esports on a national, regional or global basis. These governing bodies may have various levels of involvement with the esport, from being part of esports regulation to simply acting more as a trade group and public face for esports.


title: Esports

text: The International Esports Federation (IESF) was one of the first such bodies. Originally formed in 2008 to help promote esports in the southeast Asian region, it has grown to include 56 member countries from across the global. The IESF has managed annual Esports World Championships for teams from its member countries across multiple games.


title: Esports

text: The European Esports Federation was formed in April 2019 and includes UK, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, Russia, Slovenia, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey, and Ukraine. This body was designed more to be a managing partner for other esports, working to coordinate event structures and regulations across multiple esports.


title: Esports

text: Additionally, trade groups representing video games have also generally acted as governing bodies for esports. Notably, in November 2019, five major national trade organizations – the Entertainment Software Association in the United States, the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment, Interactive Software Federation of Europe, and the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association of Australian and New Zealand – issued a joined statement for supporting the promotion and participation of esports to respect player safety and integrity, respect and diversity among players, and enriching game play.


title: Esports

text: Esports athletes are usually obligated to behave ethically, abiding by both the explicit rules set out by tournaments, associations, and teams, as well as following general expectations of good sportsmanship. For example, it is common practice and considered good etiquette to chat "gg" (for "good game") when defeated. Many games rely on the fact competitors have limited information about the game state. In a prominent example of good conduct, during a 2012 IEM "StarCraft II" game, the players Feast and DeMusliM both voluntarily offered information about their strategies to negate the influence of outside information inadvertently leaked to "Feast" during the game. Players in some leagues have been reprimanded for failure to comply with expectations of good behavior. In 2012 professional "League of Legends" player Christian "IWillDominate" Riviera was banned from competing for a period of one year following a history of verbal abuse. In 2013 "StarCraft II" progamer Greg "Idra" Fields was fired from Evil Geniuses for insulting his fans on the Team Liquid internet forums. "League of Legends" players Mithy and Nukeduck received similar penalties in 2014 after behaving in a "toxic" manner during matches.


title: Esports

text: Team Siren, an all-female "League of Legends" team, was formed in June 2013. The announcement of the team was met with controversy, being dismissed as a "gimmick" to attract the attention of men. The team disbanded within a month, due to the negative publicity of their promotional video, as well as the poor attitude of the team captain towards her teammates. Team Vaevictis attempted the same in 2018, with an all-female roster in the LCL, the top-level esports league in Russia. The team was met with similar criticism. Vaevictis went 0–14 in both splits, and the LCL announced in February 2020 that Vaevictis would be disband due to a failure to field a competitive roster. The LCL put out a statement saying: "The results of the 2019 season showed a huge difference in Vaevictis Esports' results compared to other LCL teams, which is an unacceptable level of competitiveness in a franchised league.


title: Esports

text: There have been serious violations of the rules in certain esports. In 2010, eleven "StarCraft: Brood War" players were found guilty of fixing matches for profit, and were fined and banned from future competition. Team Curse and Team Dignitas were denied prize money for collusion during the 2012 MLG Summer Championship. In 2012, "League of Legends" team Azubu Frost was fined US$30,000 for cheating during a semifinal match of the world playoffs. "Dota 2" player Aleksey "Solo" Berezin was suspended from a number of tournaments for intentionally throwing a game in order to collect $322 from online gambling. In 2014, four high-profile North American "Counter-Strike" players from iBuyPower, namely Sam "DaZeD" Marine, Braxton "swag" Pierce, Joshua "steel" Nissan and Keven "AZK" Lariviere were suspended from official tournaments after they had been found guilty of match-fixing. The four players had allegedly profited over US$10,000 through betting on their fixed matches. Gambling on esports using "Counter-Strike: Global Offense" "skins", worth an estimated US$2.3 billion in 2015, had come under criticism in June and July 2016 after several questionable legal and ethical aspects of the practice were discovered.


title: Esports

text: Reports of widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in esports are not uncommon, with players discussing their own, their teammates' and their competitors' use as well as officials acknowledging the prevalence of the issue. Players often turn to stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall and Vyvanse, drugs which can significantly boost concentration, improve reaction time, and prevent fatigue. Selegiline, a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease, is reportedly popular, because like stimulants, it enhances mood and motivation. Conversely, drugs with calming effects are also sought after. Some players take propranolol, which blocks the effects of adrenaline, or Valium, which is prescribed to treat anxiety disorder, in order to remain calm under pressure. According to Bjoern Franzen, a former SK Gaming executive, it is second nature for some "League of Legends" players to take as many as three different drugs before competition. In July 2015 Kory "Semphis" Friesen, an ex-Cloud9 player, admitted that he and his teammates were all using Adderall during a match against Virtus.pro in the ESL One Katowice 2015 "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" tournament, and went on to claim that "everyone" at ESEA League tournaments uses Adderall. In 2020, former Call of Duty champion Adam "KiLLa" Sloss told The Washington Post that one of the major reasons he stopped competing in esports was the "rampant" use of Adderall in the competitive scene.


title: Esports

text: The unregulated use of such drugs poses severe risks to competitors' health, including addiction, overdose, serotonin syndrome and, in the case of stimulants, weight loss. Accordingly, Adderall and other such stimulants are banned and their use penalized by many professional sporting bodies and leagues, including Major League Baseball and the National Football League. Although International e-Sports Federation (IeSF) is a signatory of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the governing body has not outlawed any PEDs in its sanctioned competitions. Action has been taken on the individual league level, however, as at least one major league, the Electronic Sports League, has made use of any drugs during matches punishable by expulsion from competition. Although not all players use drugs, the use of over-the-counter energy drinks is common. These energy drinks are often marketed specifically toward gamers, and have also faced media and regulatory scrutiny due to their health risks.


title: Esports

text: There has been some concern over the quality of life and potential mistreatment of players by organizations, especially in South Korea. Korean organizations have been accused of refusing to pay competitive salaries, leading to a slow exodus of Korean players to other markets. In an interview, "League of Legends" player Bae "Dade" Eo-jin said that "Korean players wake up at 1 pm and play until 5 am", and suggested that the 16-hour play schedule was a significant factor in causing burnout. Concerns over the mental health of players intensified in 2014 when "League of Legends" player Cheon "Promise" Min-Ki attempted suicide a week after admitting to match fixing.


title: Esports

text: To combat the negative environment, Korean "League of Legends" teams were given new rules for the upcoming 2015 season by Riot Games, including the adoption of minimum salaries for professional players, requiring contracts and allowing players to stream individually for additional player revenue.


title: Esports

text: Since esports games often requires many actions per minute, some players may get repetitive strain injuries, causing hand or wrist pain. During the early development of the esports industry, sports medicine and gaming-related injuries were ignored by players and organizations, leading to some early player retirements.


title: Esports

text: The "League of Legends" Championship Series and "League of Legends" Champions Korea offer guaranteed salaries for players. Despite this, online streaming is preferred by some players, as in some cases, streaming can be more profitable than competing with a team, and streamers have the ability to determine their own schedule. The International tournament awards US$10 million to the winners, however teams that do not have the same amount of success often do not have financial stability and frequently break up after failing to win.


title: Esports

text: In 2015 it was estimated by SuperData Research, that the global esports industry generated revenue of around US$748.8 million that year. Asia is the leading esports market with over $321 million in revenue, with North America at around $224 million, and Europe at $172 million. For comparison, the rest of the world combines for approximately $29 million. Global esports revenue is estimated to reach $1.9 billion by 2018.


title: Esports

text: The number of female viewers has been growing in esports, with an estimated 30% of esports viewers being female in 2013, a significant increase from 15% the previous year. However, despite the increase in female viewers, there is not a growth of female players in high level competitive esports. The top female players that are involved in esports mainly get exposure in female-only tournaments, most notably "Counter-Strike", "Dead or Alive 4", and "StarCraft II". Current all-female esports teams include Frag Dolls and PMS Clan.


title: Esports

text: Gambling on esports matches have historically been illegal or unregulated by major markets. This created a black market via virtual currency. In places where esports gambling is not officially recognized, the lack of regulation has resulted in match-fixing by players or third parties, and created issues with underage gambling due to the draw of video games. Some games allow bets in their in-game currency, while third-party gambling platforms will often take bets placed using virtual items earned in games. In esports gambling, most bets and odds are structured in the same way as traditional sports. Most gambling sites offering the booker service allow users to bet based on the outcome of tournaments, matches or special esports titles. On the other hand, due to the nature of esports, there are numerous innovative ways to make bets, which are based on in-game milestones. For example, League of Legend bettors may place their money on which team/champion will take the "First Blood".


title: Esports

text: Esports gambling in the United States has been illegal under the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA). The Act prevented all but five states from allowing gambling on sporting events. However, regulation of esports betting still depended on state law. Some betting houses in Nevada, where sports betting has been already exempted under PASPA, classify esports as non-competitive "other events" similar to the selection of the Heisman Trophy winner or NFL Draft which are considered as legal. Other companies established in the United States allow betting on esports to international users but are restricted to Americans. Nevada legalized esports gambling in June 2017, classifying esports along with competitive sports and dog racing. With the Supreme Court of the United States's ruling in "Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association" in May 2018, PASPA was recognized as unconstitutional, as the Court claimed that the federal government cannot limit states from regulating sports betting. This created the potential for legalized esports-based betting in the United States. However, New Jersey, the state at the center of the Supreme Court case, passed its bill to legalize sports gambling but restricted gambling on esports to only international competitions where most players are over 18 years of age. Without PASPA, interstate gambling on esports would be still be limited by the Federal Wire Act, preventing users from betting on national esports events outside of the state.


title: Esports

text: In 2019, the countries where esports gambling is legal include the UK, New Zealand, Australia, China, Spain, Canada, South Korea, and Japan, and many of them are the international hosts for gaming tournaments. By the end of 2019, the state of New Jersey approved esports betting, just in time for the finals of the LoL Worlds Cup 2019 final match, which had over 4.000.000 spectators.


title: Esports

text: The esports gambling industry has attracted criticism because of its target audience. As a large part of the esports audience is underage, governments and regulators have expressed skepticism regarding the market and the possibility of underage gambling. Additionally, gambling platforms have received criticism for their integration with the larger esports industry. Esports platforms regularly sponsor professional esports teams, as happened with the contract between Betway and PSG.LGD team (Dota 2) in August 2019.


title: Esports

text: With the growing popularity of machine learning in data analytics, esports has been the focus of several software programs that analyze the plethora of game data available. Based on the huge number of matches played on a daily basis globally (League of Legends alone had a reported 100 million active monthly players worldwide in 2016 and an average of 27 million League of Legends games played per day reported in 2014), these games can be used for applying big-data machine learning platforms. Several games make their data publicly available, so websites aggregate the data into easy-to-visualize graphs and statistics. In addition, several programs use machine learning tools to predict the win probability of a match based on various factors, such as team composition. In 2018, the DotA team Team Liquid partnered with a software company to allow players and coaches to predict the team's success rate in each match and provide advice on what needs to be changed to improve performance.


title: Esports

text: As more esports competitions and leagues are run entirely or in portion by the video game publisher or developer for the game, the ongoing viability of that game's esports activities is tied to that company. In December 2018, Blizzard announced that it was reducing resources spent on the development of "Heroes of the Storm" and canceling its plans for tournaments in 2019. This caused several professional "Heroes" players and coaches to recognize that their career was no longer viable, and expressed outrage and disappointment at Blizzard's decision.


title: Esports

text: The main medium for esports coverage is the Internet. In the mid-2010s, mainstream sports and news reporting websites, such as "ESPN", "Yahoo!", "Sport1", "Kicker", and "Aftonbladet" started dedicated esports coverage. esports tournaments commonly use commentators or casters to provide live commentary of games in progress, similar to a traditional sports commentator. For popular casters, providing commentary for esports can be a full-time position by itself. Prominent casters for "StarCraft II" include Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski and Nick "Tasteless" Plott. However, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic affected how esports were covered in addition to the sports themselves. Notably, "ESPN" dedicated esports coverage was shuttered in November 2020 as the network refocus on more traditional sports, though said they would still have some coverage of esports events.


title: Esports

text: In 2018, the Associated Press' AP Stylebook officially began spelling the word as "esports", dropping support for both the capital "S" and the dash between "e" and "sports" styles, similar to how "e-mail" transformed with common usage to "email". Richard Tyler Blevins, better known as "Ninja", became the first professional gamer to appear in a cover story for a major sports magazine when he appeared in the September 2018 issue of "ESPN The Magazine".


title: Esports

text: Many esports events are streamed online to viewers over the internet. With the shutdown of the Own3d streaming service in 2013, Twitch is by far the most popular streaming service for esports, competing against other providers such as Hitbox.tv, Azubu, and YouTube Gaming. Dreamhack Winter 2011 reached 1.7 million unique viewers on Twitch. While coverage of live events usually brings in the largest viewership counts, the recent popularization of streaming services has allowed individuals to broadcast their own gameplay independent of such events as well. Individual broadcasters can enter an agreement with Twitch or Hitbox in which they receive a portion of the advertisement revenue from commercials which run on the stream they create.


title: Esports

text: Another major streaming platform was Major League Gaming's MLG.tv. The network, which specializes in "Call of Duty" content but hosts a range of gaming titles, has seen increasing popularity, with 1376% growth in MLG.tv viewership in Q1 of 2014. The 2014 "" broadcast at MLG's X Games event drew over 160,000 unique viewers. The network, like Twitch, allows users to broadcast themselves playing games, though only select individuals can use the service. For several years, MLG.tv was the primary streaming platform for the "Call of Duty" professional scene; famous players such as NaDeSHoT and Scump have signed contracts with the company to use its streaming service exclusively. In January 2016, MLG was acquired by Activision Blizzard.


title: Esports

text: YouTube also relaunched its livestreaming platform with a renewed focus on live gaming and esports specifically. For The International 2014, coverage was also simulcast on ESPN's streaming service ESPN3. In December 2016, Riot Games announced a deal with MLB Advanced Media's technology division BAM Tech for the company to distribute and monetize broadcasts of "League of Legends" events through 2023. BAM Tech will pay Riot at least $300 million per-year, and split advertising revenue.


title: Esports

text: Especially since the popularization of streaming in esports, organizations no longer prioritize television coverage, preferring online streaming websites such as Twitch. Ongamenet continues to broadcast as an esports channel in South Korea, but MBCGame was taken off the air in 2012. Riot Games' Dustin Beck stated that "TV's not a priority or a goal", and DreamHack's Tomas Hermansson said "esports have [been proven] to be successful on internet streaming [services]."


title: Esports

text: On the night before the finals of The International 2014 in August, ESPN3 broadcast a half-hour special profiling the tournament. In 2015, ESPN2 broadcast "Heroes of the Dorm", the grand finals of the "Heroes of the Storm" collegiate tournament. The first-place team from the University of California, Berkeley received tuition for each of the team's players, paid for by Blizzard and Tespa. The top four teams won gaming equipment and new computers. This was the first time an esport had ever been broadcast on a major American television network. The broadcast was an attempt to broaden the appeal of esports by reaching viewers who would not normally come across it. However, the broadcast was met with a few complaints. Those living outside of the United States were unable to view the tournament. Additionally, the tournament could not be viewed online via streams, cutting off a large portion of viewers from the main demographic in the process.


title: Esports

text: In September 2015, Turner Broadcasting partnered with WME/IMG. In December 2015, the partnered companies announced two seasons of the ELeague, a league based in North America including 15 teams from across the world competing for a $1,200,000 prize pool each 10-week season. The tournament, filmed at Turner's studios in Atlanta, Georgia, is simultaneously streamed on online streaming websites and TBS on Friday nights.


title: Esports

text: In January 2016, Activision Blizzard, publishers of the "Call of Duty" and "StarCraft" series, acquired Major League Gaming. In an interview with "The New York Times" about the purchase, Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick explained that the company was aspiring to create a U.S. cable network devoted to esports, which he described as "the ESPN of video games". He felt that higher quality productions, more in line with those of traditional sports telecasts, could help to broaden the appeal of esports to advertisers. Activision Blizzard had hired former ESPN and NFL Network executive Steve Bornstein to be CEO of the company's esports division.


title: Esports

text: TV 2, the largest private television broadcaster in Norway, broadcasts esports across the country. TV 2 partnered with local Norwegian organization House of Nerds to bring a full season of esports competition with an initial lineup of "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive", "League of Legends", and "StarCraft II".


title: Esports

text: In April 2016, Big Ten Network announced a collaboration with Riot to hold an invitational "League of Legends" competition between two universities from the collegiate Big Ten Conference, as part of Riot's collegiate championships at PAX East. On 17 January 2017, Big Ten Network and Riot announced that it would hold a larger season of conference competition involving 10 Big Ten schools.


title: Esports

text: Nielsen Holdings, a global information company known for tracking viewership for television and other media, announced in August 2017 that it would launch Nielsen esports, a division devoted to providing similar viewership and other consumer research data around esports, forming an advisory board with members from ESL, Activision Blizzard, Twitch, YouTube, ESPN, and FIFA to help determine how to track and monitor audience sizes for esports events.


title: Esports

text: In July 2018, on the first day of the inaugural 2018 Overwatch League season playoffs, Blizzard and Disney announced a multi-year deal that gave Disney and its networks ESPN and ABC broadcast rights to the Overwatch League and Overwatch World Cup, starting with the playoffs and continuing with future events.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Ciryl Gane (born 12 April 1990) is a French professional mixed martial artist. He currently competes in the Heavyweight division in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where he is a former Interim UFC Heavyweight Champion. A professional fighter since 2014, Gane has also formerly competed for TKO Major League MMA where he was the Heavyweight Champion. As of March 29, 2022, he is #1 in the UFC heavyweight rankings.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane was born in La Roche-sur-Yon, and is of Guadeloupean descent through his father. His father Romain Gane was a bus driver, and footballer in the Division d'Honneur. As a youth, Gane played football and basketball. Despite his sporting talent, Gane decided to work in sales at a furniture store and he joined a work-study program in Paris. During this time, a former classmate introduced Gane to Muay Thai.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane made his professional debut on June 4, 2016, in a AFMT Muay thai heavyweight title fight against Jérémy Jeanne. He won the fight by a second-round knockout.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: After a decision win against Samih Bachar, Gane was scheduled to fight the K-1 veteran Brice Guidon at La Nuit Des Titans. He beat Guidon by a third-round knockout.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane was scheduled to defend his AFMT title against Jonathan Gengoul at Muay Thai Spirit 5. He won the fight by a first-round knockout.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: At Warriors Night, Gane beat Bangaly Keita by a third-round knockout. He was then scheduled to fight the multiple-time WBC Muaythai champion Yassine Boughanem at Duel 2. Gane won the fight by decision.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Coached by Fernand Lopez, Ciryl Gane made his professional MMA debut in 2018. He was first contracted to the Canadian MMA promotion TKO, where his first fight was for the vacant TKO heavyweight championship, against Bobby Sullivan. He won the title fight in the first round through a front choke.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: He defended the heavyweight championship a month later against Adam Dyczka, winning the fight in the second round via a TKO. His third fight in TKO, and his second title defense, was against Roggers Souza, which he won in the first round by a TKO.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane made his promotional debut on August 10, 2019 at against Raphael Pessoa. Gane won the fight by an arm triangle choke at the end of the first round.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane faced Don'Tale Mayes on October 26, 2019 at . Gane won the fight via a heel hook in the third round, earning him a Performance of the Night bonus.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane was scheduled to face Shamil Abdurakhimov on April 18, 2020 at UFC 249. However, on March 5, 2020 it was announced that Gane was forced to pull out from the event after suffering pneumothorax during training. The bout was eventually rescheduled for July 11, 2020 at UFC 251. Subsequently, the pairing was cancelled a second time and scrapped from this event in mid-June as Abdurakhimov was removed from the bout for undisclosed reasons. In turn, Gane was expected to face Sergei Pavlovich on August 8, 2020 at UFC Fight Night 174. Pavlovich however had to pull out because of an injury. Therefore the original fight against Shamil Abdurakhimov was scheduled again on September 26, 2020 at UFC 253; however, the bout was rescheduled again to UFC Fight Night 180 on October 18, 2020. The bout fell through once again as Abdurakhimov pulled out due to undisclosed reasons on September 28, 2020 and he was replaced by promotional newcomer Ante Delija. On October 14, 2020, it was announced that the bout was cancelled due to Delija's contractual problems with his previous deal with the PFL.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane faced Junior dos Santos on December 12, 2020 at UFC 256. He won the fight via technical knockout in the second round.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane faced Jairzinho Rozenstruik on February 27, 2021 at UFC Fight Night 186. He won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane faced Alexander Volkov on June 26, 2021 at UFC Fight Night 190. He won the fight via unanimous decision.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane faced Derrick Lewis on August 7, 2021 at UFC 265 for the Interim UFC Heavyweight Championship. He won the one-sided fight via technical knockout in round three. This fight earned him the " Performance of the Night" award.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane faced Francis Ngannou for the UFC Heavyweight Championship on January 22, 2022 at UFC 270. Gane was ahead after the first two rounds, but Ngannou switched to wrestling and controlled him for the majority rounds three through five. He lost the fight via unanimous decision, marking his first defeat in any martial arts competition.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane faced Tai Tuivasa on September 3, 2022 at UFC Fight Night 209. He won the fight via knockout in round three. This fight earned him the "Fight of the Night" award.


title: Ciryl Gane

text: Gane and his wife have two daughters. They live in Nogent-sur-Marne, in the eastern suburbs of Paris.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The Battle at Lake Changjin () is a 2021 Chinese war film co-directed and co-produced by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam, written by Lan Xiaolong and Huang Jianxin, and starring Wu Jing and Jackson Yee. It was commissioned by the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party as part of the Party's 100th anniversary celebrations. The film depicts the story of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army forcing U.S. forces to withdraw in a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: "The Battle at Lake Changjin" is the most expensive film ever produced in China, with a budget of $200 million. The film grossed $913 million at the worldwide box office, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 2021, the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time, the highest-grossing non-English film, and the second highest-grossing film in a single market. A sequel to the film, "The Battle at Lake Changjin II", was released on 1 February 2022.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The film's historical inaccuracies garnered controversy in some countries, including South Korea. The film has been described as propaganda.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: Wu Qianli, commander of the People's Liberation Army's 7th Company, returns home after the Chinese Civil War. He tells his family that his brother, Wu Baili, was killed in action. Having been allotted land for his service, he promises his parents he will build them a house. However, the People's Republic of China enters the Korean War and his leave is canceled. Qianli's younger brother, Wanli, asks to go with him, but Qianli tells him not to.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The film jumps to 15 September 1950, where the Battle of Incheon is underway. Captions state that on 7 July 1950 General MacArthur "announced war on North Korea" and that "the U.S. air force carpet-bombed the total terrain of the enemy". The film makes no mention of the North Korean invasion of South Korea on 25 June 1950. U.S. aircraft are then shown indiscriminately bombing a village in Andong Province, China, north of the Yalu River.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The film then jumps to Beijing on 4 October 1950 where the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party is meeting in Zhongnanhai to discuss the situation in North Korea. Mao Zedong asks whether the U.S. Army crossing the 38th parallel means they will also cross the Yalu (the China–North Korea border). The military briefer states that by stationing forces in Taiwan, the U.S. has already invaded China and that the buildup of U.S. forces in Korea threatens China's security. Early the next morning, Peng Dehuai visits Mao. Mao tells Peng that he doesn't want war, but that he will fight to protect the Chinese Communist Revolution. Mao's eldest son Mao Anying asks Peng if he can join the People's Volunteer Army forces being sent to Korea and Mao gives his blessing.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The 7th Company is instructed to deliver communications supplies to the front lines. To Qianli's horror, Wanli enlisted in the army despite his family's wishes. Wanli gets bullied by the other members of the 7th Company en route to Korea, with Qianli refusing to help him. When Qianli refuses to give him a gun, Wanli almost jumps out of the troop train in anger but is mesmerized by the sight of the Great Wall of China. After Wanli stands by the train door all night, Qianli decides to give him a rifle.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The troop train is bombed while the train track is being fixed, forcing the 7th Company to continue on foot. They have several close encounters with American aircraft along the way. While attempting to cross a dried-up lake, the 7th Company comes across patrolling American aircraft. The soldiers pretend to be dead but the American pilots decide to shoot the "stiffs" on a bet. Several members of the company are killed in the strafing, including Zhang Xiaoshan, a young soldier who had befriended Wanli.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The 7th Company stumble upon a battle in which they aid a group of Chinese soldiers and storm an American outpost, killing numerous American soldiers and destroying several tanks. Wanli and Qianli kill four American soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. An American tank tries to run over Wanli and Qianli, but the Chinese soldiers kill its crew and commandeer the tank. The battle ends in a tank duel, in which the Chinese infantrymen win. The 7th Company continues to the front lines, eventually arriving and delivering field radios.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The 7th Company is allowed to rest. Mao Anying, serving under the pseudonym "Liu", helps distribute clothing to them, but shortly after the company is ordered back to the front lines in anticipation of an offensive on American positions. The Chinese soldiers stay hidden in the mountains, running low on supplies and facing below-freezing temperatures. The film shows American soldiers celebrating Thanksgiving in relative comfort and anticipating going home for Christmas.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: U.S. radio detection detects Peng Dehuai's headquarters and aircraft are sent to bomb the base. While most of the staff take shelter in bunkers, Mao Anying runs back to the base to collect a map and is killed in the bombing.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The offensive begins on the night of 27 November, with Chinese soldiers swarming the positions of the U.S. Army 31st Infantry Regiment at Sinhung-ni. One Chinese soldier kills three Americans in hand-to-hand combat, while several U.S. trucks and tanks are destroyed. The Americans begin to retreat; Qianli shoots the U.S. commander, Colonel Allan MacLean, wounding him, but then stops Wanli from executing him. At Hagaru-ri reinforcements are ordered to Sinhung-ni. A USMC Vought F4U Corsair attacks the Chinese forces and drops a smoke marker on the overrun base but is then shot down by a Chinese soldier using a bazooka. Lei Suisheng puts the smoke marker in a jeep and drives off, joining up with the retreating U.S. column. The U.S bombers destroy the American column and Lei is killed.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The scene then cuts to Hagaru-ri which is under attack by the Chinese. U.S. forces are forced to retreat by air and land while they are pursued by Chinese forces. The scene then shifts again to the 3rd Company, 3rd Division, 58th Corps on Hill 1071, which is shown holding out against U.S. forces, having previously repelled seven attacks, fighting to the last man. Yang Gensi, as the last surviving member of his unit, suicidally attacks American tanks with a satchel charge.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The retreating U.S. Marine column finds a group of Chinese soldiers frozen to death at their post. General Oliver P. Smith salutes them; his voiceover is heard saying that fighting against such strong-willed men, the U.S. was not ordained to win.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The closing scenes show a U.S. mass grave at Hungnam as the city burns during the Hungnam evacuation. Captions state that 105,000 U.S. troops were evacuated by 24 December and that the 9th Corps captured Hungnam. The captions explain the significance of the battle of Lake Changjin, which was a "perfect example for annihilating a U.S. reinforced regiment", how it, together with operations in the west, stopped MacArthur's "presumptuous" plan to end the war by Christmas and forced the U.S. led "UN Command" back from the Yalu River and below the 38th Parallel and "set the stage for the final victory of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea." The captions state that more than 197,000 Chinese died in the war. The film ends with the caption: "The great spirit of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid (North) Korea will eternally be renewed! Eternal glory to the great martyrs of the People's Volunteer Army!"


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The story of "The Battle at Lake Changjin" was commissioned by the National Radio and Television Administration, the Central Military Commission and the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, Hebei and Liaoning. The film was produced by Polybona Films. The screenplay was written by Lan Xiaolong, who previously wrote the novel "Soldiers Sortie" and its TV drama adaptation, and Huang Jianxin. In February 2020, it was reported that Andrew Lau had been offered the job of directing the film, but he was hired to direct "Chinese Doctors" instead; Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam were later hired to direct the film. "The Battle at Lake Changjin" is one of the most expensive films ever made, with a production budget of over US$200 million.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: Shooting began in Beijing on 25 October 2020, and ended on 25 May 2021. 70,000 People's Liberation Army soldiers acted as extras.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: Part of the film was shot in Zhangjiakou, and part was shot on location in Zhejiang. The scene of the People's Volunteer Army boarding trucks to North Korea was filmed at Meishan railway station in Huzhou. Parts of the scenes were filmed in Lishimen Reservoir.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: On 26 July 2021, the producers announced that the film was scheduled for release on 12 August 2021. On 5 August, the producers announced that the film was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in China.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The film was selected to be the opening film of the 11th Beijing International Film Festival and premiered on 21 September 2021.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: "The Battle at Lake Changjin" was released on 30 September 2021, in China. It was theatrically released in Hong Kong and Macau on 11 November. It was released in North America, the United Kingdom and Ireland on 19 November, and is scheduled to be released in Australia on 2 December.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: "The Battle at Lake Changjin" has earned a total of CN¥5.77 billion ($913 million). It is the second-highest-grossing film of 2021 and the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time. The film earned a total of $82 million in its first two days of release, and reached 1.012 billion yuan ($155.12 million) on 2 October. By 3 October, it grossed 1.5 billion yuan ($233 million) at the Chinese box office. The film earned a total of 2 billion yuan ($310.3 million) in its first five days. On 6 October, the film grossed over 3 billion yuan ($465.46 million), becoming the 13th film with a box office of more than 3 billion yuan in China's film history.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: By the end of its second weekend, it had earned $555.3 million. The film remained atop the Chinese box office for a month, being displaced by "No Time to Die" during the weekend of 29–31 October. It overtook "Wolf Warrior 2" on 24 November to become the highest-grossing film in China. It also became the second highest-grossing film of all-time in a single market, after "" (2015) in the United States.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The "Global Times", the official tabloid of the Chinese Communist Party, said that "the national feeling displayed in the film echoes the rising public sentiment in safeguarding national interests in front of provocations, which has great implications for today's China-US competition."


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: Film critic Todd McCarthy of "Deadline Hollywood" in reviewing, said that "Anyone into big-time action cinema on the largest possible screen will more than get their money's worth, even if the film is simplistic and entirely predictable in its goals, both as action and politics. But it doesn't matter how big your screen is at home—if you want to see this at all, see it on a really big screen." Conversely, Phil Hoad of "The Guardian" gave a two out of five rating, saying the film was a "sporadically thrilling, historically dubious account of a Korean war standoff, with all the subtlety of a rocket launcher."


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: Reviewing for "Forbes", Scott Mendelson said "It’s arguably no more jingoistic, at least until the final montage, than (offhand) "Pearl Harbor" or "We Were Soldiers"." He further described the film as spectacular with its "copious mass battle sequences and intricate action set pieces" against what was a "pretty dry war picture" and a "generic war actioner" when compared with "The Eight Hundred".


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: Reviewing in "The Independent", Louis Chilton wrote that, while it was fair to describe the film as propaganda, the same criticism should be directed at similar American films such as "American Sniper" or "Captain Marvel".


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The movie has been described as propaganda. "The Telegraph" described it as an "anti-US propaganda film", while the "BBC" wrote that it was "Chinese propaganda". Stanley Rosen, a political science professor from the University of Southern California, stated that the release and popularity of the film "is definitely related to the ongoing tensions with the US, and has been promoted that way—sometimes indirectly, but still very clearly". Sun Hongyun, an associate professor at Beijing Film Academy said that the film was "an extraordinary and perfect collusion of capital and political propaganda."


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: CNN noted that the film was commissioned by the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party, while "Business Insider" and "The Economist" said that the movie was part of a "main melody" genre of entertainment that praises China, the Chinese Communist Party, and the People's Liberation Army.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: An article in the "New York Times" described the film as a government-sponsored movie that appeared to resonate with the Chinese public at a time of tension in the US-China relationship despite "mixed reviews, a torturous running time and technical errors of military history, tapping into nationalistic sentiment that China's leader, Xi Jinping, has nurtured" and underscored the extent to which the Chinese Communist Party was determined to shape popular culture.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: After the release of the movie, former Chinese journalist Luo Changping was arrested by police and held on the charge of "infringing the reputation and honour of national martyrs" after multiple police reports were filed over his online post in Sina Weibo, where he posted commentary questioning China's role in the Korean War, drawing criticism from thousands of social media users.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: The film has been banned in Malaysia, a country where the dissemination of communist ideology is illegal.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: "Deutsche Welle" reported that the film has raised anger in South Korea, with the public calling it "propaganda filled with historical inaccuracies." South Korean former diplomat Ra Jong-yil called the film "nonsense" and "whitewashing" and accused it of attempting to reshape the narrative of events during the Korean War. The reaction raised the possibility that the film would not be distributed in South Korea.


title: The Battle at Lake Changjin

text: A sequel entitled "The Battle at Lake Changjin II" was released on 1 February 2022, the first day of Chinese New Year. (Chinese: 长津湖之水门桥; Pinyin: zhǎng jīn hú zhī shuǐ mén qiáo; literal meaning: Water Gate Bridge of Lake Changjin). The movie is about a maneuver undertaken by the PVA in the same campaign to destroy a bridge that was used by the US forces as part of their withdrawal.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Paul Kagame (; born 23 October 1957) is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who is the 4th and current president of Rwanda since 2000. He previously served as a commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Uganda-based rebel force which invaded Rwanda in 1990 and 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 served as Vice President and Minister of Defence under President Pasteur Bizimungu from 1994 to 2000 after which the "Vice President" post was abolished.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Born to a Tutsi family in southern Rwanda, his family fled to Uganda when he was two years old would be where he spend the rest of his childhood during the Rwandan Revolution which ended centuries of Tutsi political dominance. In the 1980s, Kagame fought in Yoweri Museveni's rebel army, becoming a senior Ugandan army officer after Museveni's military victories carried him to the Ugandan presidency. Kagame joined the RPF, taking control of the group when previous leader Fred Rwigyema died on the second day of the 1990 invasion. By 1993, the RPF controlled significant territory in Rwanda and a ceasefire was negotiated. The assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana set off the genocide, in which Hutu extremists killed an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu. Kagame resumed the civil war and ended the genocide with a military victory.


title: Paul Kagame

text: During his vice presidency, Kagame controlled the national army and was responsible for maintaining the government's power, while other officials began rebuilding the country. Many RPF soldiers carried out retribution killings. Kagame said he did not support these killings but failed to stop them. Hutu refugee camps formed in Zaire and other countries and the RPF attacked the camps in 1996, but insurgents continued to attack Rwanda. As part of the invasion, Kagame sponsored two rebel wars in Zaire. Rwandan- and Ugandan-backed rebels won the first war (1996–97), installing Laurent-Désiré Kabila as president in place of dictator Mobutu and returning Zaire to its former pre-Mobutu name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The second war was launched in 1998 against Kabila, and later his son Joseph, following the DRC government's expulsion of Rwandan and Ugandan military forces from the country. The war escalated into a conflict that lasted until a 2003 peace deal and ceasefire.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Bizimungu resigned in 2000, most likely having been forced to do so, following a falling out with the RPF. He was replaced by Kagame. Bizimungu was later imprisoned for corruption and inciting ethnic violence, charges that human rights groups described as politically motivated. 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. Kagame has had mostly good relations with the East African Community and the United States; his relations with France were poor until 2009. Relations with the DRC remain tense despite the 2003 ceasefire; human rights groups and a leaked United Nations report allege Rwandan support for two insurgencies in the country, a charge Kagame denies. Several countries suspended aid payments in 2012 following these allegations. Since coming to power, he has won three presidential elections, but none of these have been rated free or fair by international observers. His role in the assassination of exiled political opponents has been controversial.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame was born on 23 October 1957, the youngest of six children, in Tambwe, Ruanda-Urundi, a village located in what is now the Southern Province of Rwanda. His father, Deogratias Rutagambwa, was a member of the Tutsi ethnic group, from which the royal family had been derived since the eighteenth century or earlier. A member of the Bega clan, Deogratias Rutagambwa had family ties to King Mutara III, but he pursued an independent business career rather than maintain a close connection to the royal court. Kagame's mother, Asteria Bisinda, descended from the family of the last Rwandan queen, Rosalie Gicanda, that is from the Hebera branch of the royal Nyiginya clan. At the time of Kagame's birth, Rwanda was a United Nations Trust Territory which had been ruled, in various forms, by Belgium since 1916 under a mandate to oversee eventual independence. Rwandans were made up of three distinct groups: the minority Tutsi were the traditional ruling class, and the Belgian colonialists had long promoted Tutsi supremacy, whilst the majority Hutu were agriculturalists. The third group, the Twa, were a forest-dwelling pygmy people descended from Rwanda's earliest inhabitants, who formed less than of the population.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Tensions between Tutsi and Hutu had been escalating during the 1950s, and culminated in the 1959 Rwandan Revolution. Hutu activists began killing Tutsi, forcing more than 100,000 Tutsis to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. Kagame's family abandoned their home and lived for two years in the far northeast of Rwanda and eventually crossing the border into Uganda. They moved gradually north, and settled in the Nshungerezi refugee camp in the Toro sub-region in 1962. It was around this time that Kagame first met Fred Rwigyema, the future leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame began his primary education in a school near the refugee camp, where he and other Rwandan refugees learned how to speak English and began to integrate into Ugandan culture. At the age of nine, he moved to the respected Rwengoro Primary School, around 16 kilometres (10 mi) away. He subsequently attended Ntare School, one of the best schools in Uganda, which was also the alma mater of future Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. According to Kagame, the death of his father in the early-1970s, and the departure of Rwigyema to an unknown location, led to a decline in his academic performance and an increased tendency to fight those who belittled the Rwandan population. He was eventually suspended from Ntare and completed his studies at Old Kampala Secondary School.


title: Paul Kagame

text: After completing his education, Kagame made two visits to Rwanda, in 1977 and 1978. He was initially hosted by family members of his former classmates, but upon arrival in Kigali; he made contact with members of his own family. He kept a low profile on these visits, believing that his status as a well-connected Tutsi exile could lead to arrest. On his second visit, he entered the country through Zaire rather than Uganda to avoid suspicion. Kagame used his time in Rwanda to explore the country, familiarise himself with the political and social situation, and make connections that would prove useful to him in his later activities.


title: Paul Kagame

text: In 1978, Fred Rwigyema returned to western Uganda and reunited with Kagame. During his absence, Rwigyema had joined the rebel army of Yoweri Museveni. Based in Tanzania, it aimed to overthrow the Ugandan government of Idi Amin. Rwigyema returned to Tanzania and fought in the 1979 war during which Museveni's rebel group, FRONASA, allied with the Tanzanian army and other Ugandan exiles, defeated Amin. After Amin's defeat Kagame and other Rwandan refugees pledged allegiance to Museveni, who had become a cabinet member in the transition government. Kagame received training at the United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Former incumbent Milton Obote won the 1980 Ugandan general election. Museveni disputed the result, and he and his followers withdrew from the new government in protest. In 1981, Museveni formed the rebel Popular Resistance Army (PRA); Kagame and Rwigyema joined as founding soldiers, along with thirty-eight Ugandans. The army's goal was to overthrow Obote's government, in what became known as the Ugandan Bush War. Kagame took part in the Battle of Kabamba, the PRA's first operation, in February 1981.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame and Rwigema joined the PRA primarily to ease conditions for Rwandan refugees persecuted by Obote. They also had a long-term goal of returning with other Tutsi refugees to Rwanda; military experience would enable them to fight the Hutu-dominated Rwandan army. The PRA merged with another rebel group in June 1981, forming the National Resistance Army (NRA). In the NRA, Kagame specialized in intelligence-gathering, and he rose to a position close to Museveni's. The NRA, based in the Luwero Triangle, fought the Ugandan army for the next five years, even after Obote was deposed in a 1985 coup d'état and the start of peace talks.


title: Paul Kagame

text: In 1986, the NRA captured Kampala with a force of intelligence. In a 2018 paper, Canadian scholar and Rwanda expert Gerald Caplan described this appointment as a remarkable achievement for a foreigner and a refugee. Caplan noted Museveni's reputation for toughness, and said that Kagame would have had to be similarly tough to earn such a position. He also commented on the nature of military intelligence work, saying "it is surely unrealistic to expect that Kagame refrained from the kind of unsavory activities that military security specializes in." In addition to their army duties, Kagame and Rwigyema began building a covert network of Rwandan Tutsi refugees within the army's ranks, intended as the nucleus for an attack on Rwanda. In 1989 Rwanda's President Habyarimana and many Ugandans in the army began to criticise Museveni over his appointment of Rwandan refugees to senior positions, and he demoted Kagame and Rwigyema.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame and Rwigeema remained "de facto" senior officers, but the change caused them to accelerate their plans to invade Rwanda. They joined an organisation called the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a refugee association which had been operating under various names since 1979. Rwigyema became the RPF leader shortly after joining and, while still working for the Ugandan army, he and Kagame completed their invasion plans.


title: Paul Kagame

text: In October 1990, Rwigyema led a force of over 4,000 RPF rebels into Rwanda at the Kagitumba border post, advancing south to the town of Gabiro. Kagame was not present at the initial raids, as he was in the United States, attending the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. On the second day of the attack, Rwigyema was shot in the head and killed. The exact circumstances are disputed; the official line of Kagame's government, and the version mentioned by historian Gérard Prunier in his 1995 book on the subject, was that Rwigyema was killed by a stray bullet. In his 2009 book "Africa's World War", Prunier says Rwigyema was killed by his subcommander Peter Bayingana, following an argument over tactics. According to this account, Bayingana and fellow subcommander Chris Bunyenyezi were then executed on the orders of Museveni. In a 2005 conversation with Caplan, Prunier provided a different account, stating that Bayingana and Bunyenyezi's killers were recruited by Kagame. Caplan notes that lack of research means the truth of this is uncertain, but that if true, the "tales of death and intrigue [offer] yet another insight into Kagame's character". Rwigyema's death threw the RPF into confusion. France and Zaire deployed forces in support of the Rwandan army, and by the end of October, the RPF had been pushed back into the far north east corner of the country.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame returned to Africa and took command of the RPF forces, which had been reduced to fewer than 2,000 troops. Kagame and his soldiers moved west, through Uganda, to the Virunga Mountains, a rugged high-altitude area where the terrain worked in their favour. From there, he re-armed and reorganised the army, and carried out fundraising and recruitment from the Tutsi diaspora. Kagame restarted combat in January 1991, with an attack on the northern town of Ruhengeri. Benefiting from the element of surprise, the RPF captured the town and held it for a day before retreating back into the forests.


title: Paul Kagame

text: For the next year, the RPF waged a hit-and-run guerrilla war, capturing some border areas but not making significant gains against the Rwandan army. These actions caused an exodus of around 300,000 Hutu from the affected areas. Prunier wrote in 1995 that the RPF were surprised that Hutu peasants "showed no enthusiasm for being 'liberated' by them". In her 2018 book "In Praise of Blood", however, Canadian journalist Judi Rever quoted witnesses who said that the exodus was forced by RPF attacks on the villages including the laying of landmines and shooting of children. Caplan's paper questions the credibility of many of the witnesses Rever had spoken to, but noted that "there are considerable other sources besides Rever that attest to RPF war crimes". Following the June 1992 formation of a multi-party coalition government in Kigali, Kagame announced a ceasefire and initiated negotiations with the Rwandan government in Arusha, Tanzania. In early-1993, groups of extremist Hutu formed and began campaigns of large-scale violence against the Tutsi. Kagame responded by suspending peace talks temporarily and launching a major attack, gaining a large swathe of land across the north of the country.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Peace negotiations resumed in Arusha, and the resulting set of agreements, known as the Arusha Accords, were signed in August 1993. The RPF were given positions in a broad-based transitional government (BBTG) and in the national army. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), a peacekeeping force, arrived and the RPF were given a base in the national parliament building in Kigali to use during the establishment of the BBTG.


title: Paul Kagame

text: On 6 April 1994, Rwandan President Habyarimana's plane was shot down near Kigali Airport, killing both Habyarimana and the President of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, as well as their entourage and three French crew members. The attackers remain unknown. Prunier, in his 1995 book, concluded that it was most likely a coup d'état carried out by extreme Hutu members of Habyarimana's government who feared that the president was serious about honouring the Arusha agreement, and was a planned part of the genocide. This theory was disputed in 2006 by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, and in 2008 by Spanish judge Fernando Andreu. Both alleged that Kagame and the RPF were responsible. Rever also held Kagame responsible, giving as his motive a desire to plunge Rwanda into disorder and therefore provide a platform for the RPF to complete their invasion of the country. Evaluating the two arguments later in 2018, Caplan questioned the evidence used by Bruguière and Rever, stating that it has been repeatedly "discredited for its methodology and its dependence on sources who have split bitterly with Kagame". Caplan also noted that Hutu extremists had made multiple prior threats to kill Habyarimana in their journals and radio stations, and cited eyewitness accounts of roadblocks being erected in Kigali and killings initiated within one hour of the crash – evidence that the shooting of the plane was ordered as the initiation of the genocide.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Following Habyarimana's death, a military committee led by Colonel Théoneste Bagosora took immediate control of the country. Under the committee's direction, the Hutu militia Interahamwe and the Presidential Guard began to kill Hutu and Tutsi opposition politicians and other prominent Tutsi figures. The killers then targeted the entire Tutsi population, as well as moderate Hutu, beginning the Rwandan genocide. Over the course of approximately 100 days, an estimated 206,000 to 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed on the orders of the committee. On 7 April, Kagame warned the committee and UNAMIR that he would resume the civil war if the killing did not stop. The next day, the Rwandan government forces attacked the national parliament building from several directions, but the RPF troops stationed there successfully fought back; Kagame began an attack from the north on three fronts, seeking to link up quickly with the troops isolated in Kigali. An interim government was set up but Kagame refused to talk to it, believing that it was just a cover for Bagosora's rule. Over the next few days, the RPF advanced steadily south, capturing Gabiro and large areas of countryside to the north and east of Kigali. They avoided attacking Kigali or Byumba at this stage, but conducted manoeuvres designed to encircle the cities and cut off supply routes.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Throughout April there were numerous attempts by UNAMIR to establish a ceasefire, but Kagame insisted each time that the RPF would not stop fighting unless the killings stopped. In late April, the RPF secured the whole of the Tanzanian border area and began to move west from Kibungo, to the south of Kigali. They encountered little resistance, except around Kigali and Ruhengeri. By 16 May, they had cut the road between Kigali and Gitarama, the temporary home of the interim government, and by 13 June, they had taken Gitarama, following an unsuccessful attempt by the Rwandan government forces to reopen the road. The interim government was forced to relocate to Gisenyi in the far north west. As well as fighting the war, Kagame was recruiting heavily to expand the army. The new recruits included Tutsi survivors of the genocide and refugees from Burundi, but were less well trained and disciplined than the earlier recruits.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Having completed the encirclement of Kigali, Kagame spent the latter half of June fighting to take the city. The government forces had superior manpower and weapons, but the RPF steadily gained territory, as well as conducting raids to rescue civilians from behind enemy lines. According to Roméo Dallaire, the force commander of UNAMIR, this success was due to Kagame being a "master of psychological warfare"; he exploited the fact that the government forces were concentrating on the genocide rather than the fight for Kigali, and capitalised on the government's loss of morale as it lost territory. The RPF finally defeated the Rwandan government forces in Kigali on 4 July, and on 18 July took Gisenyi and the rest of the north west, forcing the interim government into Zaire and ending the genocide. At the end of July 1994, Kagame's forces held the whole of Rwanda except for a zone in the south west, which had been occupied by a French-led United Nations force as part of "Opération Turquoise".


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame's tactics and actions during the genocide have proved controversial. Western observers such as Dallaire and Luc Marchal, the senior Belgian peacekeeper in Rwanda at the time, have stated that the RPF prioritised taking power over saving lives or stopping the genocide. Scholars also believe that the RPF killed many Rwandan civilians, predominantly Hutu, during the genocide and in the months that followed. The death toll from these killings is in the tens or even hundreds of thousands. In her book "", written for Human Rights Watch, Rwanda expert Alison des Forges wrote that despite saving many lives, the RPF "relentlessly pursued those whom they thought guilty of genocide" and that "in their drive for military victory and a halt to the genocide, the RPF killed thousands, including noncombatants as well as government troops and members of militia". Human rights violations by the RPF during the genocide have also been documented in a 2000 report compiled by the Organisation of African Unity, and by Prunier in "Africa's World War". In an interview with journalist Stephen Kinzer, Kagame acknowledged that killings had occurred but said that they were carried out by rogue soldiers and had been impossible to control. RPF killings continued after the end of the genocide, gaining international attention with the 1995 Kibeho massacre, in which soldiers opened fire on a camp for internally displaced persons in Butare Province. Australian soldiers serving as part of UNAMIR estimated at least 4,000 people were killed, while the Rwandan government claimed that the death toll was 338.


title: Paul Kagame

text: On 10 June 1989 in Uganda, Kagame married Jeannette Nyiramongi, a Tutsi exile living in Nairobi, Kenya. Kagame had asked his relatives to suggest a suitable marriage and they recommended Nyiramongi. Kagame travelled to Nairobi and introduced himself, persuading her to visit him in Uganda. Nyiramongi was familiar with the RPF and its goal of returning refugees to Rwanda. She held Kagame in high regard. The couple have four children. Their first son, Ivan Cyomoro, was born in 1990 and their other children are Ange, Ian, and Brian.


title: Paul Kagame

text: The post-genocide Rwandan government took office in Kigali in July 1994. It was based loosely on the Arusha Accords, but Habyarimana's party, MRND was outlawed. The positions it had been assigned were taken over by the RPF. The military wing of the RPF was renamed as the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), and became the national army. Paul Kagame assumed the dual roles of Vice President of Rwanda and Minister of Defence while Pasteur Bizimungu, a Hutu who had been a civil servant under Habyarimana before fleeing to join the RPF, was appointed president. Bizimungu and his cabinet had some control over domestic affairs, but Kagame remained commander-in-chief of the army and was the de facto ruler of the country. German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle stated that "Bizimungu was commonly seen as a placeholder for Kagame".


title: Paul Kagame

text: The infrastructure and economy of the country suffered greatly during the genocide. Many buildings were uninhabitable, and the former regime had taken all currency and moveable assets when they fled the country. Human resources were also severely depleted, with over of the population having been killed or fled. Many who remained were traumatised; most had lost relatives, witnessed killings, or participated in the genocide. Kagame controlled the national army and was responsible for maintaining the government's power, while other officials began rebuilding the country.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Non-governmental organisations began to move back into the country, and the international community spent US$1.5 billion on humanitarian aid between July and December 1994, but Prunier described this as "largely unconnected with the real economic needs of the community". Kagame strove to portray the government as inclusive and not Tutsi-dominated. He directed removal of ethnicity from citizens' national identity cards, and the government began a policy of downplaying the distinctions between Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa.


title: Paul Kagame

text: The unity government suffered a partial collapse in 1995. The continuing violence, along with appointing of local government officials who were almost exclusively RPF Tutsi, caused serious disagreement between Kagame and senior Hutu government members, including prime minister Faustin Twagiramungu and interior minister Seth Sendashonga. Twagiramungu resigned in August, and Kagame fired Sendashonga and three others the next day. Pasteur Bizimungu remained president but the makeup of the new government was predominantly RPF Tutsi loyal to Kagame. Twagiramungu and Sendashonga moved abroad to form a new opposition party shortly after leaving the government. Sendashonga, who had also spoken out about the need for punishing killings by rogue RPF soldiers, moved to Kenya. Having survived an attempt on his life in 1996, he was assassinated in Nairobi in May 1998, when a UN vehicle in which he was travelling was fired upon. Many observers believe Kagame ordered the killing; as Caplan noted: "the RPF denied any responsibility, which no one other than RPF partisans believed".


title: Paul Kagame

text: Following the RPF victory, approximately two million Hutu fled to refugee camps in neighboring countries, particularly Zaire, fearing RPF reprisals for the Rwandan genocide. The camps were set up by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), but were effectively controlled by the army and government of the former Hutu regime, including many leaders of the genocide. This regime was determined to return to power in Rwanda and began rearming, killing Tutsi residing in Zaire, and launching cross-border incursions in conjunction with the "Interahamwe" paramilitary group. By late 1996, the Hutu militants represented a serious threat to the new Rwandan regime, and Kagame launched a counteroffensive.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame first provided troops and military training to aid a rebellion against Zaire by the Banyamulenge, a Tutsi group living near Bukavu in the Zairian South Kivu province. With Rwandan army support, the Banyamulenge defeated local security forces and began attacking the Hutu refugee camps in the area. At the same time, Kagame's forces joined with Zairian Tutsi around Goma to attack two of the camps there. Most refugees from the attacked camps moved to the large Mugunga camp. In November 1996 the Rwandan army attacked Mugunga, causing an estimated 800,000 refugees to flee. Many returned to Rwanda despite the presence of the RPF; others ventured further west into Zaire.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Despite the disbanding of the camps, the defeated forces of the former regime continued a cross-border insurgency campaign into Rwanda from North Kivu. The insurgents maintained a presence in Rwanda's north western provinces and were supported by the predominantly Hutu population, many of whom had lived in the refugee camps before they were attacked. In addition to supporting the wars in the Congo, Kagame began a propaganda campaign to bring the Hutu to his side. He integrated former soldiers of the deposed genocidal regime's military into the RPF-dominated national army and appointed senior Hutu to key local government positions in the areas hit by insurgency. These tactics were eventually successful; by 1999, the population in the north west had stopped supporting the insurgency and the insurgents were mostly defeated.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Although his primary reason for military action in Zaire was the dismantling of the refugee camps, Kagame also began planning a war to remove long-time dictator President Mobutu Sese Seko from power. Mobutu had supported the "genocidaires" based in the camps, and was also accused of allowing attacks on Tutsi people within Zaire. Together with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Kagame supported the newly created Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL), an alliance of four rebel groups headed by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, which began waging the First Congo War. The ADFL, helped by Rwandan and Ugandan troops, took control of North and South Kivu provinces in November 1996 and then advanced west, gaining territory from the poorly organised and demotivated Zairian army with little fighting. By May 1997, they controlled almost the whole of Zaire except for the capital Kinshasa; Mobutu fled and the ADFL took the capital without fighting. The country was renamed as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Kabila became the new president. The Rwandan Defence Forces and the ADFL were accused of carrying out mass atrocities during the First Congo War, with as many as 222,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees declared missing.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame and the Rwandan government retained strong influence over Kabila following his inauguration, and the RPA maintained a heavy presence in Kinshasa. Congolese in the capital resented this, as did many in the eastern Kivu provinces, where ethnic clashes increased sharply. In July 1998, Kabila fired his Rwandan chief-of-staff, James Kabarebe, and ordered all RPA troops to leave the country. Kagame accused Kabila of supporting the ongoing insurgency against Rwanda from North Kivu, the same accusation he had made about Mobutu. He responded to the expulsion of his soldiers by backing a new rebel group, the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), and launching the Second Congo War. The first action of the war was a blitzkrieg by the RCD and RPA, led by Kabarebe. These forces made quick gains, advancing in twelve days from the Kivu provinces west to within of Kinshasa. The capital was saved by the intervention of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe on Kabila's side. Following the failure of the blitzkrieg, the conflict developed into a long-term conventional war, which lasted until 2003 and caused millions of deaths and massive damage. According to a report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), this conflict led to the loss of between 3 million and 7.6 million lives, many through starvation and disease accompanying the social disruption of the war.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Although Kagame's primary reason for the two wars in the Congo was Rwanda's security, he was alleged to gain economic benefit by exploiting the mineral wealth of the eastern Congo. The 2001 United Nations "Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo" alleged that Kagame, along with Ugandan President Museveni, were "on the verge of becoming the godfathers of the illegal exploitation of natural resources and the continuation of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo". The report also claimed that the Rwandan Ministry of Defence contained a "Congo Desk" dedicated to collecting taxes from companies licensed to mine minerals around Kisangani, and that substantial quantities of coltan and diamonds passed through Kigali before being resold on the international market by staff on the Congo Desk. International NGO Global Witness also conducted field studies in early 2013. It concluded that minerals from North and South Kivu are exported illegally to Rwanda and then marketed as Rwandan. Kagame dismissed these allegations as unsubstantiated and politically motivated; in a 2002 interview with newsletter "Africa Confidential," Kagame said that if solid evidence against Rwandan officers was presented, it would be dealt with very seriously. In 2010, the United Nations released a report accusing the Rwandan army of committing wide scale human rights violations and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the First and Second Congo Wars, charges denied by the Rwandan government.


title: Paul Kagame

text: In the late 1990s, Kagame began to disagree publicly with Bizimungu and the Hutu-led government in Rwanda. Kagame accused Bizimungu of corruption and poor management, while Bizimungu felt that he had no power over appointments to the cabinet and that the Transitional National Assembly was acting purely as a puppet for Kagame. Bizimungu resigned from the presidency in March 2000. Historians generally believe that Bizimungu was forced into resigning by Kagame after denouncing the National Assembly and attempting to sow discord within the RPF. However, Kagame told Kinzer that he was surprised by the development saying that he had received the "startling news" in a phone call from a friend. Following Bizimungu's resignation, the Supreme Court ruled that Kagame should become acting president until a permanent successor was chosen.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame had been de facto leader since 1994, but focused more on military, foreign affairs and the country's security than day-to-day governance. By 2000, the threat posed by cross-border rebels was reduced and when Bizimungu resigned, Kagame decided to seek the presidency himself. The transitional constitution was still in effect, which meant the president was elected by government ministers and the Transitional National Assembly rather than by a direct election.


title: Paul Kagame

text: The RPF selected two candidates, Kagame and RPF secretary general Charles Murigande; the ministers and parliament elected Kagame by eighty-one votes to three. Kagame was sworn in as president in April 2000. Several Hutu politicians, including the prime minister Pierre-Célestin Rwigema, left the government at around the same time as Bizimungu, leaving a cabinet dominated by those close to Kagame. Bizimungu started his own party in 2001, but Kagame's government banned it on the grounds that political campaigning was not permitted under the transitional constitution. The following year, Kagame issued a public statement to Bizimungu, warning him that the government's patience with his continued involvement in party politics was "not infinite", and Bizimungu was arrested two weeks later and convicted of corruption and inciting ethnic violence, charges which human rights groups said were politically motivated. He was imprisoned until 2007, when he was pardoned by Kagame.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Between 1994 and 2003, Rwanda was governed by a set of documents combining President Habyarimana's 1991 constitution, the Arusha Accords, and some additional protocols introduced by the transitional government. As required by the accords, Kagame set up a constitutional commission to draft a new permanent constitution. The constitution was required to adhere to a set of fundamental principles including equitable power sharing and democracy. The commission sought to ensure that the draft constitution was "home-grown", relevant to Rwanda's specific needs, and reflected the views of the entire population; they sent questionnaires to civil groups across the country and rejected offers of help from the international community, except for financial assistance.


title: Paul Kagame

text: The draft constitution was released in 2003; it was approved by the parliament, and was then put to a referendum in May of that year. The referendum was widely promoted by the government; ultimately, of eligible adults registered to vote and the turnout on voting day was . The constitution was overwhelmingly accepted, with voting in favour. The constitution provided for a two-house parliament, an elected president serving seven-year terms, and multi-party politics. The constitution also sought to prevent Hutu or Tutsi hegemony over political power. Article 54 states that "political organizations are prohibited from basing themselves on race, ethnic group, tribe, clan, region, sex, religion or any other division which may give rise to discrimination". According to Human Rights Watch, this clause, along with later laws enacted by the parliament, effectively make Rwanda a one-party state, as "under the guise of preventing another genocide, the government displays a marked intolerance of the most basic forms of dissent".


title: Paul Kagame

text: Since ascending to the presidency in 2000, Kagame has faced three presidential elections, in 2003, 2010 and 2017. On each occasion, he was re-elected in a landslide, winning more than 90 percent of the vote. A constitutional amendment referendum in 2015, which gave Kagame the ability to stand for additional terms, also passed by similar margins. International election monitors, human rights organisations and journalists generally regard these elections as lacking freedom and fairness, with interventions by the Rwandan state to ensure Kagame's victory. According to Ida Sawyer, Central Africa director for Human Rights Watch, "Rwandans who have dared raise their voices or challenge the status quo have been arrested, forcibly disappeared, or killed, independent media have been muzzled, and intimidation has silenced groups working on civil rights or free speech". Following the 2017 poll, Human Rights Watch released evidence of irregularities by election officials including forcing voters to write their votes in full view and casting votes for electors who had not appeared. The United States department of state said it was "disturbed by irregularities observed during voting" as well as "long-standing concerns over the integrity of the vote-tabulation process".


title: Paul Kagame

text: In their 2018 book "How to Rig an Election", political scientists Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas said they were asked by journalists why Kagame went "through the motions of organizing a national poll that he was predestined to win". The book gave likely reasons for the continuation of the polls, including the fact that elections are "important to secure a base level of international legitimacy" and that "not even pretending to hold elections will get a country kicked out of the African Union". Law professor and human rights researcher Lars Waldorf wrote that the RPF's manipulation of polls could be designed to make itself appear stronger. Waldorf said that the party's margins of victory "are not meant to be convincing; rather, they are meant to signal to potential opponents and the populace that Kagame and the RPF are in full control." Scholars are divided on whether Kagame would have won the elections had he not used manipulative tactics. Writing about RPF intimidation of opposition candidates in the run-up to elections, Caplan said "what was most infuriating was that none of this was necessary for the RPF to hold on to power". Belgian academic Filip Reyntjens disagrees, however, stating that "the RPF is fully aware that opening up the political system would eventually lead to a loss of power".


title: Paul Kagame

text: The first post-genocide election was held in August 2003, following the adoption of the new constitution. In May, the parliament voted to ban the Republican Democratic Movement (MDR), following a parliamentary commission report accusing the MDR of "divisive" ideology. The MDR had been one of the coalition parties in the transitional government of national unity, and was the second-largest party in the country after the RPF. Amnesty International criticised this move, claiming that "the unfounded allegations against the individuals mentioned in the report appear to be part of a government-orchestrated crackdown on the political opposition". Kagame was the RPF candidate, while former prime minister Twagiramungu was his main challenger. Twagiramungu had intended to run as the candidate for the MDR, but instead sought the presidency as an independent following the party's banishment. He returned to the country from Europe in June 2003 and began campaigning in August.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame declared victory in the election one day after the poll, and his win was later confirmed by the National Electoral Commission. The final results showed that Kagame received of the vote, Twagiramungu , and the third candidate, Jean Nepomuscene Nayinzira, ; the voter turnout was . The campaign, election day, and aftermath were largely peaceful, although an observer from the European Union (EU) raised concerns about intimidation of opposition supporters by the RPF. Twagiramungu rejected the result of the election and also questioned the margin of victory, saying "Almost 100 per cent? That's not possible". He filed a petition at the Supreme Court to nullify the result, but was unsuccessful and he left Rwanda shortly afterwards, fearing that he would be arrested. The EU observer also questioned the result, citing "numerous irregularities", but also describing the poll as a "positive step" in the country's history.


title: Paul Kagame

text: Kagame ran for re-election in 2010, at the end of his first elected term. He was endorsed by the RPF national congress as their candidate in May 2010, and was accepted as a candidate in July. His highest-profile opponent was Victoire Ingabire, a Hutu who had been living abroad for some years, and returned to Rwanda in January 2010 to run for the presidency. After a series of criticisms of Kagame's policies, she was arrested in April and prohibited from running in the election, as part of what Amnesty International's Tawanda Hondora described as "pre-electoral repression". Kagame began his campaign with a rally at Kigali's Amahoro Stadium on 20 July, and held rallies across the country during the subsequent campaign period. The rallies attracted tens of thousands, shouting enthusiastically for Kagame, although reporters for "The New York Times" interviewed a number of Rwandans who said that they were "not free to vote against him and that government officials down to the village level had put enormous pressure on them to register to vote; contribute some of their meager earnings to Mr. Kagame’s campaign; and attend rallies".


title: Paul Kagame

text: The election went ahead in August 2010 without Ingabire and two other banned candidates, Kagame facing three opponents described by Human Rights Watch as "broadly supportive of the RPF". Kagame went on to receive of the vote in the election. Opposition and human rights groups said that the election was tainted by repression, murder, and lack of credible competition. Kagame responded by saying "I see no problems, but there are some people who choose to see problems where there are not."


title: Paul Kagame

text: As Kagame's second term progressed, he began to hint that he might seek to rewrite the term-limit clause of the Rwandan constitution, to allow him to run for a third term in the 2017 elections. Earlier in his presidency he had ruled it out, but in a 2014 speech at Tufts University in the United States, Kagame said that he did not know when he would leave office, and that it was up to the Rwandan people to decide. He told delegates "...let's wait and see what happens as we go. Whatever will happen, we'll have an explanation." The following year a protest occurred outside parliament, and a petition signed by 3.7 million people—more than half of the electorate—was presented to lawmakers asking for Kagame to be allowed to stay in office. The parliament responded by passing an amendment to the constitution in November 2015, with both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate voting unanimously in favour. The motion passed kept the two-term limit in place, and also reduced the length of terms from 7 years to 5 years, but it made an explicit exception for Kagame, who would be permitted to run for a third 7-year term followed by two further 5-year terms, if he so desired. After the amendment was passed in parliament, a referendum was required for it to come into effect.