The Commonwealth Summit has ended here in Kampala, Uganda and this morning — its around 10 pm eastern on Nov. 25 or 6 am on Nov. 26 Kampala time as I write this — we head to Tanzania for a quick visit.
In Tanzania, Prime Minister Harper will meet with Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete. The two men will tour a school in Dar Es Salaam and we are expecting an aid announcement. We will also visit with some Canadian High Commission officials.
That’s about it, though, for Tanzania. No chance to visit Mount Kiliminjaro or anything. We are in the country at about 10 am local time and out of the country at 6 pm local time.
Then it’s back to Canada on a flight that’s expected to take about 18 hours with another stop to refuel in Nice.
Yesterday, the leaders had a last meeting behind closed doors at the Munyonyo Conference Centre — a beautiful resort on the shores of Lake Victoria. The 48 leaders who attended this year’s summit each had their own suite in a new building at this resort constructed specifically for the conference. (middle right) This building was leaders-only, no staff were allowed to stay there. Prime Minister Harper’s staff, such as his assistant Ray Novak and director of communications Sandra Buckler, were put up in older building on the grounds, called the Speke Resort.
Needless to say, with all the leaders here, there was a heavy security presence although not as heavy and omnipresent, I should add, as I found the security setup for the Montebello Summit earlier this year or other international meetings of heads of state that I’ve attended at the G8 or at NATO in Brussels. While we were out at the conference centre, we stopped to chat with some of the police officers there, many of who had received brand new Honda or BMW patrol bikes. The Toronto Star’s Richard Brennan (he’s wearing the shades and green ball cap)is a Harley Davidson owner. Both Brennan and the Uganda police officers are pretty proud of their bikes.
While the leaders were finishing up their meetings, I went for a quick walkabout of the the neighbourhood around our hotel. The hotel is just a block away from the Parliament of Uganda (top left). The tight security — spiked fences, guards with automatic weapons, and so on — always jumps out at someone whose office looks out over the relatively wide-open ‘security-lite’ space on Canada’s Parliament Hill.