Retired Canadian general Roméo Dallaire told a United Nations tribunal Thursday that world leaders let the 1994 Rwandan genocide happen by feigning ignorance of what was taking place.

France, Belgium and the United States in particular were "unco-operative," he said during his fourth day of testimony at the tribunal in Tanzania.

"I did not get intelligence information from them," said Dallaire. Those three countries also rejected his appeals for reinforcements and a tougher mandate to shore up his UN peacekeeping mission and prevent the massacres he could see coming.

Human remains from the 1994 massacre of Tutsis in Rwanda.
Human remains from the 1994 massacre of Tutsis in Rwanda.

Belgium ordered the withdrawal of its peacekeepers, who were the backbone of the operation, shortly after Rwandan troops killed 10 Belgian soldiers.

In the end, the Hutu-dominated military government and its supporters killed as many as 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus who tried to prevent the murders.

Dallaire was traumatized by the bloodshed he could not prevent and eventually tried to commit suicide.

He went on to write a book about his experiences, called Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.

Dallaire has been testifying against Col. Theoneste Bagosora, who took control of Rwanda after the president's plane was shot down April 6, 1994.

Bagosora is accused of being the mastermind behind the genocide.

Also Thursday, the UN tribunal sentenced its 17th person for complicity in the genocides. Former Rwandan education minister Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda will serve life in prison for his role.

The 51-year-old politician was found guilty of genocide and extermination but acquitted of eight other charges of crimes against humanity.