Flower in the Gun Barrel Tutsi was defined as a Tutsi if he owned more than ten cows. A Hutu owned less than ten cows and usually worked in the fields. Creating an ethnic class and empowering the Tutsi as "upper class" created hatred and jealousy between these newly imposed "tribes". In 1959, the Belgians left Rwanda and Hutus quickly took over the government. There was a series of battles between the Hutu and the Tutsi between 1959 and 1994, during which Tutsis would often take sanctuary in churches in order to survive. Knowing this, the Hutu government in 1994 forged partnerships with several Catholic
Islam in Rwanda against the soldiers and militia of the "Interahamwe". Only once the soldiers attacked with machine gun fire were the "Interahamwe" able to enter the mosque and kill the refugees. The number of Rwandan Muslims increased after the 1994 genocide due to large numbers of conversions. Many Muslims had sheltered refugees, both Hutu and Tutsi. Some converts state that they converted to Islam because of the role that some Catholic and Protestant leaders played in the genocide. Human-rights groups have documented both incidents in which Christian clerics permitted Tutsis to seek refuge in churches, then surrendered them to Hutu death-squads, as