KAMPALA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Sunday met with several UN officials led by Secretary General Antonio Guterres and discussed regional security on the sidelines of the ongoing African Union (AU) summit in Ethiopia.
According to a State House statement issued here, Guterres said he was committed to mobilizing resources to support the UN missions and, where possible, strengthen their mandates from peacekeeping to enforcement.
Museveni told the UN officials that it is important for African countries to build armies with the right ideological grounding in order to avoid some of the on-going conflicts on the continent.
"Some African countries inherited mercenary colonial armies and did not reform them. This is part of the problem," Museveni said, adding that the international community must also be responsive in situations of cross-border conflicts and threats, like the Allied Democratic Forces rebels who threaten Uganda yet are situated in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
African leaders are in Ethiopia attending an AU summit under the main theme "Refugees, Returnees and IDPs: Towards Durable Solutions to Forced Displacement in Africa."
