Kayibanda, Grégoire

Kayibanda, Grégoire (grāgwär` kīēbän`dā), 1924–76, political leader in Rwanda. A Hutu, he worked as a journalist and later founded the Ruanda (now Rwanda) Cooperative Movement (1952), the Hutu Social Movement (1957), and the Democratic Republican Movement (1959). In 1961 he became president of Rwanda. He was overthrown in an army coup just before the 1973 elections.

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Kayibanda, Grégoire 

Born May 1, 1924, in the commune of Musambira, Gitarama Province. Rwandan political figure and statesman.

Kayibanda was educated in Catholic seminaries in the cities of Kabgaye and Nyakibanda. In the second half of the 1950’s he was editor in chief of the newspaper Kinyamateka, which was founded by a group from the intelligentsia advocating Rwanda’s independence. In 1959 he was one of the chief organizers of the party known as PARMEHUTU (Hutu Emancipation Movement; since 1960 it has been called the Republican Democratic Movement). From July 1962 to July 1973 he was president of the Republic of Rwanda. Kayibanda was deposed on July 5, 1973, after a coup d’etat.

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