Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni
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Uganda has accused UN peacekeepers of inaction during a brutal offensive in Congo that resulted in the deaths of over 900 civilians.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Tuesday that the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) had done little to protect civilians from reprisal attacks by rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northeastern Congo.
His comments came after UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, lashed out on Ugandan troops for initiating an attack which he says has brought "catastrophic" consequences for civilians in the area.
Museveni shrugged off the criticism and blamed the United Nations instead.
"The disaster is that the UN force was sitting for three years in Congo living side-by-side with the (LRA) terrorists," he said during a news conference.
The Ugandan president also described the civilian deaths as a necessary sacrifice for future peace in northeastern Congo, while vowing to finish off the rebels that have waged a two-decade war against his government.
"Sacrifices are paid by people in bad situations…What the UN man said was a lot of nonsense, we can not accept blackmail," Museveni stressed.
On December 14, Uganda-led forces consisting of Congolese and South Sudanese soldiers launched an attack against LRA leader and self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony, after he refused to sign a final peace deal.
The military offensive resulted in a bloody rampage of Congolese towns, the massacre of some 900 people and the displacement of over 130,000 people from the war-wracked region.
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http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=85348§ionid=351020506
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