Role of the international community in the Rwandan genocide Role of the international community in the Rwandan genocide This article details the role of the international community in the Rwandan genocide. The genocide in Rwanda was based on two groups, believed to be based on ethnicity, the Hutu and the Tutsi. The population in the year 1994 was approximately seven million people. Rwanda's population was 85% Hutu, 14% Tutsi, and 1% Twa (a Pygmy tribe). Historically, the Tutsis had been the ruling class, which was enforced by Belgian colonialism, so centuries of Hutu hatred toward the elitist minority had made politics a tense arena in Rwanda. In 1959, there
Tutsi after mid-1600. Beginning in about 1880, Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in the Great Lakes region. Later, when German forces occupied the area during World War I, the conflict and efforts for Catholic conversion became more pronounced. As the Tutsi resisted conversion, missionaries found success only among the Hutu. In an effort to reward conversion, the colonial government confiscated traditionally Tutsi land and reassigned it to Hutu tribes. In Burundi, meanwhile, Tutsi domination was even more entrenched. A ruling faction, the Ganwa, soon emerged from amongst the Tutsi and assumed effective control of the country's administration. The area was ruled as