Hutu Power was a supremacist ideology propounded by Hutu extremists in Rwanda. It contributed to the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi. Hutu Power political parties and movements included the Akazu, the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic and its Impuzamugambi paramilitary militia, and the governing National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development and its Interahamwe paramilitary militia.

Hassan Ngeze in 1990 created the Hutu Ten Commandments that served as the basis of Hutu Power ideology.[1] The Commandments called for the supremacy of Hutus in Rwanda, calling for exclusive Hutu leadership over Rwandas public institutions and public life, complete segregation of Hutus from Tutsis, and complete exclusion of Tutsis from public institutions and public life.[2] Hutu Power ideology reviled Tutsis as outsiders bent on restoring a Tutsi-dominated monarchy, and idealized all things Hutu.

The Commandments declared that any form of relationship between Hutus and Tutsi women was forbidden; and that any Hutu who marries a Tutsi woman, befriends a Tutsi woman, or employs a Tutsi woman as a secretary or a concubine was a traitor to the Hutu people.[2] It denounced Tutsis as dishonest in business whose only aim is the supremacy of his ethnic group; and declared that any Hutu who did business with a Tutsi was a traitor to the Hutu people.[2] The Commandments declared that The Hutu should stop having mercy on the Tutsi and referred to the Tutsis as common Tutsi enemy.[2]

The Rwandan kingdom was traditionally ruled by a Tutsi mwami, or king; Historical evidence suggests that Hutu and Twa were included in government, although the Twa significantly less so than Hutu, who were more numerous. The Tutsi/Hutu divide has been referred to as a caste system. A Hutu could gain Tutsi status through marriage or through success. Tutsis, being primarily pastoralists, had a more valuable place in Rwandan society than the agriculturalist Hutu, and the hunter-gatherer and potter Twa.

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