In a toughly-worded comment to a luncheon audience Thursday that seemed aimed at the agricultural policies of the United States and Europe, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said there are "powerful members of the WTO (World Trade Organization) who would like to continue crippling our agriculture and subsidizing our famines with aid."

Speaking about the current international trade negotiations that were begun at a November 2001 WTO ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar, he also spoke of unnamed governments that "would be happy to see the Doha round stall" over patent rights and access to medicine. "That would not be in Africa's interest at all," he said.

The trade talks are currently stalled, with the United States refusing to accept a mechanism that would give developing nations easier access to medicines and European Union members resisting reform of their agricultural subsidies programs.