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By Tim Cocks
Kampala - Shaken by days of violent protests and criticised over his environmental credentials, Uganda's president pleaded on Friday for concerns over rainforest conservation not to derail industrialisation.
"We... need to balance the needs of preserving the ecosystem with the needs for changing the society from peasant to middle (and) skilled working class," President Yoweri Museveni said.
Museveni is embroiled in controversy over state plans to convert a large chunk of a rainforest into sugarcane.
Last week, a protest against the plan - to destroy 7 100 hectares or nearly a third of Mabira Forest nature reserve for the Mehta Group's sugar estate - turned violent.
Three people were killed including a young ethnic Indian man stoned to death by rioters.
Mehta is owned by a Ugandan family of Indian descent.
Police seized two opposition politicians on Friday who were attempting to hold another demonstration. They carried them towards Kampala's main police station, a Reuters witness saw.
That followed the arrest of two other opposition parliamentarians on Tuesday, charged with participating in last week's riot. Tuesday's arrests sparked further violence as police and pro-government vigilantes beat protesters.
Critics say razing part of Mabira could have disastrous ecological consequences, from soil erosion and silting to a drying climate, and the loss of a buffer against polluting nearby Lake Victoria.
Museveni, in a double-page statement in state-owned daily New Vision, said he would ensure some forest near the lake would be left.
"Some 50-200 metres of forest belt next to the lake should never be touched because it helps to filter the water flowing into the lake so that it does not carry soil silt," he said.
He said the government would plant forests in heavily eroded areas elsewhere to compensate, especially on bare hilltops marginal for agriculture.
But Uganda would never be able to protect the environment unless it tackles poverty, he said.
"It is more difficult for a backward country to guard against environmental degradation ... Government has no money to police the environment. Too many people (are) in primitive agriculture, who in the process destroy (it)," he said.
An expanded sugar estate would create jobs, export earnings from surplus sugar and revenue for the government, he added.
Additional reporting by Justin Dralaze in Kampala
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