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
Hutu of Rwandan national unity, but has been criticized as an attempt at historical revisionism. Still others suggest that the two groups are related but not identical, and that differences between them were exacerbated by Europeans, or by a gradual, natural split, as those who owned cattle became known as Tutsi and those who did not became Hutu. Mahmood Mamdani states that the Belgian colonial power designated people as Tutsi or Hutu on the basis of cattle ownership, physical measurements and church records. There is an ongoing debate as to whether the Hutu and Tutsi are really separate groups or not;