Former Prime Minister Kambanda: Convicted for genocide by the ICTR

Mr Boucher said the international community must continue to do all it can to help achieve justice for the genocide which ocurred in Rwanda in 1994, when over 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists.

The tribunal, which meets in the Tanzanian town of Arusha, holds in custody 44 of the 53 publicly indicted individuals for alleged war crimes.

'Useful means'

"We applaud those successful efforts and we're launching this programme in order to support the tribunal further," said Mr Boucher.

"We believe that the rewards will provide a potentially useful means to achieve the apprehension or voluntary surrender of the remaining indicted fugitives of the ICTR."

Washington already has similar reward programmes for information on those accused of war crimes in the Balkans and those accused of the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa.

The size of the rewards depends on the quality of the information - the largest amount ever paid so far was $2m.