Briefly before the genocide in Rwanda, in January and February 1994, Riza played a controversial role as he and Kofi Annan (who directed the UN peacekeeping operations) rejected or ignored continuous requests of the Canadian commander of UNAMIR, Roméo Dallaire, for a more active role of the UN peacekeeping troops UNAMIR in order to prevent a bloodshed. In Rwanda, approximately 800,000 people have been killed within 100 days.