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
History of Rwanda dominated by the majority Hutu under President Grégoire Kayibanda. Unsettled ethnic and political tensions were worsened when Juvénal Habyarimana, who was also Hutu, seized power in 1973. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed of 10,000 Tutsi refugees from previous decades of unrest, invaded the country, starting the Rwandan Civil War. The war ground on, worsening ethnic tensions, as the Hutu feared losing their gains. The assassination of Habyarimana was the catalyst for the eruption of the 1994 genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were killed. The Tutsi RPF conquered