Rwanda is ready to host a face-to-face Commonwealth Meeting. But the UK has banned travel from Rwanda and 12 other Commonwealth countries. What is going on?
General Paul Kagame’s government is pulling all the stops to impress the Commonwealth that it is ready to host a face-to-face Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in the week of June 21, 2021. To sway the Commonwealth to avoid a virtual CHOGM, the Kagame government even announced that it has prioritized the vaccination of the staff of the top Kigali hotels. As Rwanda health ministry explained, the 9,000 people who got a COVID19 shot on March 10, 2021, included “staff from key CHOGM hotels.” Here is the irony of ironies. Travellers from the 13 Commonwealth countries, including Rwanda, are banned from entering the UK. The 13 Commonwealth countries on the UK Covid19 Red List are as follows:
- Botswana
- Eswatini
- Lesotho
- Malawi
- Mauritius
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Rwanda
- Seychelles
- South Africa
- Tanzania
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
As the UK travel ban notice says, “if you you have been in or through any of the countries in the previous 10 days, you will be refused entry to the UK.”
So, how will the UK delegates participate in a week-long CHOGM conference in a country that is on the UK Red List? Stay tuned.
By David Himbara