Uganda president vows revenge against rebels

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni vowed revenge for one of the country's worst massacres in years on Saturday, saying he would…

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni vowed revenge for one of the country's worst massacres in years on Saturday, saying he would hunt down the rebels behind the attack.

"I don't believe in turning the other cheek," said Mr Museveni, speaking at a funeral service at the scene of the February 21st massacre of more than 100 people.

"If you kill someone intentionally, you die yourself. We are killing them," he said, referring to the Lord's Resistance Army rebels behind the attack.

Mr Museveni was speaking to about 400 mourners gathered at the Barlonyo camp in northern Uganda where a mass grave containing 121 bodies of people has already been covered over with concrete and a marble monument erected.

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Conflicting death tolls have emerged since the attack. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) quoted local officials as saying that 337 people were killed. The government initially put the toll at 84.

Mr Museveni has faced criticism in northern Uganda for failing to protect civilians from the LRA, which has abducted thousands of children as fighters and maimed numerous civilians during its 18-year-revolt.

Mr Museveni, himself a former guerrilla leader, said the army had killed 152 LRA fighters since the attack on the camp, when rebels overran militia guards to hack, shoot and burn their victims to death.

Many in the north feel the government has provided scant services for a region where more than a million people have been forced to flee fighting between the army and the LRA.

"I refute lies to the effect that the government has neglected the north," Museveni told the memorial service.

"If you fly over northern Uganda you will see schools built by this government but abandoned because of LRA terrorism -- which we are fighting."

The LRA says it is fighting to end southern oppression of the northern Acholi tribe, although Acholis form the bulk of its victims and its precise aims remain unclear.