President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has canceled his trip to the United Kingdom following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Museveni, together with the First Lady, Janet K Museveni, were on Friday, September 9, supposed to depart by air to the UK to take part in the 50 years commemoration of the expulsion of the Indians by Idi Amin in 1972.
However, Museveni noted that it was not appropriate to continue with the trip given the loss to the UK.
“I did not think it appropriate to continue with the trip given this loss to the UK and the Commonwealth. Fortunately, when I consulted more people including our Asian organizers in the UK, everybody agreed with my instinctive initial reaction,” he said.
The function has been postponed to a future date to be agreed on.
Instead, the celebratory meeting on Sunday by the Indians in their Temple in London, will be a prayer meeting where the Ugandan High Commissioner to UK, will represent the President.
“Athough Her Majesty was 96 years of age, her death was a shock to Maama Janet, the other Ugandans and myself. After all, only a few days ago, we had seen her receiving the new UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss (Rt. Hon.) and had defeated corona some months ago.”
He added: “In her long reign of 70 years on the throne, she has witnessed the huge metamorphosis of the political land-scape in the world such as the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the Independence of the former colonies of Britain, starting with Sudan in 1955 and Ghana in 1957, the Independence of the other colonies formerly controlled by France, Portugal, etc. the rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba, etc.”