London (Commonwealth Union)_ Buckingham Palace says that King Charles III will travel to Kenya later this month.
Britain’s King Charles III will meet with William Ruto, Kenyan President in Nairobi in about three weeks. Buckingham Palace said on Wednesday that King Charles will address “painful aspects” of Britain’s colonial past.
The four-day visit, scheduled for 31st October to 3rd November, will be the third foreign trip taken by the royals to a Commonwealth nation since he succeeded his mother Queen Elizabeth in September last year, underscoring the King’s commitment to an organization that has been central to Britain’s global power and prestige since World War II.
King Charles will be greeted by Kenyan President William Ruto when he arrives in the capital, Nairobi and they will tour the Nairobi National Park and attend a state banquet. The King plans to visit Nairobi National Park and meet with environmental activist Wanjira Mathai, the daughter of late Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, as he underscores his commitment to environmental protection.
Chris Fitzgerald, deputy private secretary to the King said that His majesty will be taking time during the visit to deepen his understanding of the wrongs suffered in this period by the people of Kenya, during a briefing on the state visit.
The two are expected to discuss the importance of conservation efforts, the climate crisis, and working together on national security, Chris Fitzgerald, said in a press conference.
The two nations have enjoyed a close relationship since independence, despite the prolonged struggle against colonial rule, a sensitive issue after Britain paid reparations a decade ago and expressed regret for the horrors of the Mau Mau uprising of the 1950s, the conflict in which thousands of Kenyans were slain by British authorities during the so-called Kenyan Emergency of 1952-1961.
The rebellion commenced in the early 1950s, when groups of armed Kenyans attacked British officials and white farmers who occupied fertile lands. The Kenya Human Rights Commission estimates that 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the counterinsurgency campaign of the United Kingdom.
The U.K. government expressed its regret in 2013, over the “torture and other forms of ill-treatment” that were perpetrated by the colonial administration, and paid out 19.9 million pounds for human rights abuses.
The U.K. royal family has long ties to Africa and Nairobi in particular is significant for the royal family. The future queen pledged lifelong service to Britain and the Commonwealth in 1947, during a speech from South Africa on her 21st birthday. Then Princess Elizabeth, King Charles’s mother, and her late husband Prince Philip were visiting Aberdare National Park in Kenya in 1952, when they learned that she had become queen upon the death of her father, King George VI. King Charles himself visited the East African nation in 1971, and attended the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in 2022 in Rwanda.
The meeting comes at a time when Kenya celebrates 60 years of independence from Britain. Nairobi is King Charles’s latest destination for diplomacy after successful royal tours in Germany in the month of March and France last month. King Charles will also acknowledge the “painful aspects” of the fraught history on the former British colony’s past, his nation’s shared history with Kenya.
This is the latest effort of King Charles who attended a meeting in 2022, for the heads of Commonwealth governments, to bolster ties with former British colonies.
The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 56 independent countries, including Kenya, the majority of which have historical ties to the United Kingdom and its former empire. King Charles became the symbolic head of the organization after the demise of the Queen last year, but the honor is not hereditary.
