From Agence France Presse

KAMPALA, Jan 23 (AFP)- Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has urged the
international donor community to refrain from interfering with his
country's military budget.
 In a declaration published here on sunday by the independent Monitor
newspaper, Museveni said: "They tell us to spend a very small percentage of
gross domestic product (GDP) on the army and to please them I sometimes say
we shall try.  But I have again told them that when people die, it is not
them they ask questions, it is me."
 "Donors should not interfere with our budget for the army.  You see, where
I could use three battalions I find myself using one because of their
terms," Museveni added.
 Museveni also accused the donors of tak
ing a patronising stance.
 "They think I am a child and I don't know what I am doing.  They give me
lectures about democracy, about how to maintain the army, but they don't
know I have been in the business for 30 years and could even give a lecture
in their academies," Museveni said.
 Uganda currebtly backs Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rebels fighting
to overthrow the government of President Laurent Kabila, and at least
10,000 Ugandan soldiers are thought to be deployed inside the vast DRC.
 Uganda is also fighting two insurgencies on its own territory--the Lord's
Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda, which operates from rear bases in
southern Sudan, and the Allied Democratic Forces (RDF), with bases in the
Ruwenzori Mountains straddling the common Uganda-DRC border.
 Donor aid constitute 55 percent of Uganda's budget, and donors have
frequently expressed concern that funds which coul
d be spent on alleviating
poverty were being spent on fighting wars.

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