Kampala  - Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday said that the massacre of up to 900 civilians by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo was a sacrifice for future peace in their country.

"Sacrifices are paid by people in bad situations," Museveni told a press conference. "You can talk of 900 people who died but how about those who died due to the high infant mortality rate in the area when the LRA was there?"

Museveni admitted there was no protection for civilians when Ugandan, Congolese and southern Sudanese forces launched an offensive against the LRA in DR Congo.

However, he criticized the UN and humanitarian agencies for calling the attack and subsequent massacres a disaster.

The UN head of Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, who visited the area this week, criticized the ongoing joint ground and aerial battles against the rebels, saying the "humanitarian consequences of the operations against the LRA have been catastrophic."

The joint forces began the attack on the rebel positions mid- December around Congo's Garamba National park where the guerrillas fled to in late 2004 after being flushed out of their former bases in southern Sudan.

The LRA went on a rampage following the attack, hacking and clubbing up to 900 people to death, abducting hundreds and displacing tens of thousands in the area, according to UN and charity groups.

The Ugandan rebels last year refused to sign a final peace treaty with the government after nearly three years of talks, saying the International Criminal Court (ICC) should first remove arrest warrants issued against five of their leaders for war crimes.

The Hague-based court in 2005 indicted the rebel leaders on charges of killings, torture, rape, abductions and conscription of children in war. They have never been arrested and two have since died in the bush.

The LRA fought a rebellion over two decades in northern Uganda, where they killed thousands and displaced close to two million others. dpa