Uganda Museveni blames UK for Darfur conflict

By Emma Mutaizibwa

KAMPALA, Oct 12, 2004 (The Monitor) — President Yoweri Museveni has blamed British imperialists for the Darfur crisis in Sudan.

“The Darfur crisis was a time bomb in the past because the British drew boundaries where they mixed the Arabs and the Africans,” he said.

He was speaking at a seminar on the challenge of small arms and light weapons proliferation in Africa at Speke Resort Munyonyo on Friday.

Museveni also blamed the Khartoum government and religious fanatic, Hassan Tourabi, for exacerbating the conflict in Darfur. “Tourabi added ingredients. He mixed matters of the state and the religion,” he said.

Museveni also blamed the Belgian government for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in which about a million Tutsis, moderate Hutus and Twas were killed by Hutu extremists. “When the Belgians came, they manipulated the two
symbiotic societies, the Hutus and Tutsis,” he said.

Museveni highlighted the murder of former elected Democratic Republic of Congo President Patrice Lumumba, who was replaced by Mobutu Sese Seko , as another crisis caused by the imperialists.

He expressed optimism on the control of small arms saying the international community had now moved in to action against illegal arms trade.