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The 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when nearly one million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were macheted to death, caused the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to round up nearly 120,000 Hutu suspects and pile them into prisons built to hold only 40,000 detainees. To help process an enormous backlog of cases the government announced that it would provisionally release selected suspects who had already confessed to their crimes to the same community where they committed their crimes.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is an attempt by an increasingly autocratic and unpopular regime to hold on to state power. The genocide occurred under the approval of the state and is not the result of spontaneous clashes between the ethnic group of Batutsi minority and Bahutu majority. The mechanism used to implement the genocide also bears resemblance to those employed during the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews.

Political will is the crucial factor in reintegrating the Hutu into Rwandan society. The Hutu refugees return as a vanquished group charged with the crime of genocide. Legal mechanisms that could promote social reconstruction are considered. The case has broader implications for the process of group identity formation and the role played by social memory, place and power.

The 1972 genocide of Hutu by Tutsi in Burundi, now almost forgotten, provides background to the subsequent developments in the Great Lakes region, including the 1994 killings of Tutsi and Hutu by Hutu in Rwanda and the 1996-97 genocide of Hutu by Tutsi in Congo. Each group has its own mythology of the conflict, concerning who are the victims and who the perpetrators. In addition, facts are distorted by the notion of collective guilt as a substitute for individual responsibility.

The solutions of international humanitarian organizations to the Rwandan Hutu refugee problem in Rwanda and Burundi are unsatisfactory. The status of the refugees living in the camps is unclear. Photographs of the refugees appearing in the media dehumanize them, although they make people aware of the refugees' plight. More over, administrators in charge of the refugees look on them as ungrateful recipients of international aid. However, Hutu refugees constantly refer to their history, and consider their refugee status important in their personal evolution.

Linguistic, social and phenotypical differences, between the two ethnic groups Hutu and Tutsi are few. Intermarriages occurs between the two groups, but social differences that have been 'constructed' are responsible for murders between the groups. Separating the two groups aggravates the differences between them. As the ethnic identities can be 'reconstructed. Importance should be given to policies to reunite the two groups, rather than try to separate them as the people can switch groups at will. The reconstruction of Burundi and Rwanda must take these points under consideration.