Role of the international community in the Rwandan genocide was a Hutu revolution in which the Tutsi elite was overthrown and a Hutu government was put in place in 1961 with the support of European powers. President Habyarimana, who came to power in 1973, increased divisions between the Tutsi and Hutus in the year of 1992. In the year of 1994, President Habyarimana, a moderate Hutu, was shot down in a plane on April 6 and this was the spark that began the 100 days of genocidal violence against Tutsis and moderate Hutu. It is estimated that about 800,000 - three-quarters of the Tutsi population in Rwanda - were
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