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. END ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------