Namibia rejects Ugandan king's visa extension

The Namibian Government has declined a visa extension request for Buganda King (Kabaka) Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II from Uganda, Namibia’s public broadcaster said, citing a top government official. The 69-year-old monarch has since May been recuperating at a health facility in Kunene Province, Namibia, The Monitor reports. Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) reported that the country's Ministry of International Relations & Co-operation had rejected a request to extend the king's visa, even as Okonguari Psychotherapeutic Centre director Dr Daleen de Lange sought the king’sfurther stay at the health facility. Rejecting the request, the Ministry of International Relations & Co-operation Executive Director Penda Naanda stated that the country’s law on immigration provides for a maximum stay of 90 days for non-Namibians. This comes after Windhoek said the conduct of five independently visiting Buganda clan chiefs, who had been preventively arrested in Namibia, put Kampala's diplomatic ties with the country on the brink. Uganda’s envoy to neighbouring Pretoria, Paul Amoru, said Namibia had in June expressed displeasure with the inundation of its missions abroad, and the harassment of its diplomatic agents by some Ugandan nationals over the king's stay in the country. ‘These individuals alleged that their king had been kidnapped and exiled in Namibia, even though the Namibian Government only became aware of the king’s presence through the media and our diplomatic note on 31 May,’ the diplomat wrote on 10 July. Uganda's state Minister for Foreign Affairs Henry Oryem Okello said: ‘ ... we should respect the Namibian position ... Since Kabaka (the king) went to Namibia, many people have turned the country ... into a market where they enter as they wish.’

Full report in The Monitor