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
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;