Rwanda 'threats' for peace chief

General Dallaire says his warnings were ignored

The former head of UN troops in Rwanda was threatened with death for trying to evacuate orphaned children during the genocide, he told a war crimes court.

Retired General Romeo Dallaire, a witness at the tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, said Colonel Theoneste Bagosora threatened him twice.

Colonel Bagosora and three others are being tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Some 800,000 people were killed during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

'Genocide architect'

"I had a very tense meeting with him and he threatened me with a pistol, saying that next time we met he would shoot me," General Dallaire told the court.

Mr Bagosora, previously a top defence ministry official, has been described as the architect of the massacre of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

General Dallaire has accused the UN security council and western powers of ignoring his warnings of the impending genocide.

General Dallaire led 2,500 UN peacekeeping troops from October 1993 until August 1994, with a mandate to monitor a peace accord signed by the then government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), now in power.

After eight years, the Arusha tribunal has convicted 16 people of genocide.

The Rwandan Government has in the past accused the tribunal of being inefficient, corrupt and failing to protect some witnesses.