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Africa Subsaharan
Uganda: Museveni Was Never Interested in Juba Talks, Says Ex-UN Chief
2008-05-28
Jan Egeland, the foolish former UN humanitarian chief who famously described the war in northern Uganda as the world's biggest forgotten crisis, has claimed in a new book that President Yoweri Museveni told him within months of the South Sudan mediated Juba peace process that only a "military solution" could end the conflict.

In "A Billion Lives: An Eye Witness Report From the Frontlines of Humanity", Mr Egeland recalls a November 2006 meeting during which Mr Museveni rebuked him for going into the jungle to visit rebel leader Joseph Kony. According to excerpts from Mr Egeland's book that were published on May 12, 2008 in The Black Star News, a New York newspaper with special interest in African-American affairs, Mr Museveni seemed to suggest that the peace talks were a waste of time.

Mr Egeland's recollections of his confrontation with Mr Museveni seem to suggest that the Ugandan leader was always cynical about the peace process. "You were just wasting your time in the bush with them (LRA). I told you so," Mr Museveni reportedly said when the two met, Mr Egeland recalls in the book.

And when Mr Egeland responded that the President's assessment was wrong, Mr Museveni reportedly said: "No, those talks were not to our benefit. Let me be categorical-there will only be a military solution to this problem."
Museveni, for all his problems, is at least clear-eyed on the issue. Egeland is an imperialistic fool thinking that the great white man from the great white continent can solve all the problems of the black and brown peoples ...
With the peace talks now in disarray, and especially since Kony has sent out a new message in which he says he will die fighting, Mr Museveni's views now appear prescient. Yet they could also be taken to reflect his own lack of commitment to negotiating peace with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

During celebrations to mark International Labour Day at Kololo Independence Grounds on May 1, 2008, Mr Museveni said that he never sent the team that had been negotiating peace with the LRA. Mr Museveni also said that Internal Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda, who led the delegation, was simply doing his job. "I have never and will never send a delegation of the [ruling] NRM party to talk with Kony. I hear some people begging Kony to come outÂ…I cannot [beg Kony]," he said.

Information Minister Kirunda Kivejinja said yesterday that Mr Museveni's early skepticism about the outcome of the peace talks was proof of his vision. "He saw fartherÂ…What's the use of a leader who sees behind?" Mr Kivejinja told Daily Monitor by telephone.

Mr Egeland's book, which was not yet available to Daily Monitor, is a memoir of his work when he headed the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for three and a half years. The book, which details Mr Egeland's trips to some of the world's conflict zones, has a chapter that is titled "Uganda's Twenty Thousand Kidnapped Children".
Not that Mr. Egeland ever solved any of those problems while at the OCHA.
Posted by:Steve White

#1  Dear Mr. Egeland:

The best way to look at Joseph Kony is to regard him as a power hungry, egotistical, selfish piece of shit just like you are.

Hope this is of use.

But I doubt it.

Sincerely Yours,
Ptah A.

Posted by: Ptah   2008-05-28 08:46  

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