Uganda’s military is back in the 2027 Invictus Games, the competition founded by Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, after King Charles III’s household quietly untangled an improbable diplomatic dispute. The army had walked out, then reversed itself, saying assurances had reached it that the monarch raised no objection. The turnaround was announced in a post on Monday, September 14, 2026, by Col. Chris Magezi, acting director of defence public information for the Uganda People’s Defence Force.
A telephone call did it. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Uganda’s chief of defence forces, reinstated the country’s place at the Games in Birmingham after speaking with Sir Clive Alderton, principal private secretary to the king and queen, Magezi wrote. Charles, he added, “has no problem with Uganda’s participation in the Invictus Games, and encouraged the [Chief of Defence Forces] CDF to proceed with preparations.”
The king was “moved by General Kainerugaba’s sensitive consideration of the King’s opinion on the upcoming Invictus Games organised by Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex,” Magezi wrote in the post. The general welcomed both the message and the clarity Buckingham Palace had provided, and said the force would restart its preparations — less than a week after announcing that it was pulling out.
Why Uganda Walked Away
Kainerugaba had announced the withdrawal in a post on X on September 9, saying he did not want his country’s involvement to be construed as opposition to Charles, a monarch he described as deeply revered in Uganda. “We shall not participate in anything that does not have His Majesty’s approval,” he wrote on X.
Asked by the Times what had motivated the move, Kainerugaba said: “I have factions in the Ministry of Defence that support that Harry-Meghan nonsense. I had to quash it straight away. I support the monarch. Period.”
An official letter went out on Charles’ behalf to government departments, military bodies and Lord Lieutenants, restating that Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are not working royals and would not use their HRH styles; commentators tied the pullout to that document. The Office of the Lord Chamberlain issued that letter, which called the couple’s charitable work “a personal matter for them both and undertaken in their private capacity,” and their position “akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests.”
Harry’s team tied the withdrawal to that guidance. Buckingham Palace, for its part, described the letter as nothing more than a clarification of the couple’s status for military and government departments. A different account came from the force’s own September 14 post: it traced the pullout to palace wording that cast the Invictus Games as a private charity rather than an official initiative of the royal family.
Harry’s 26th Invictus Nation
Uganda is a newcomer to all of this. A partnership between the defence force and the Invictus Games Foundation, meant to expand rehabilitation and adaptive sports work for wounded service members, brought the country into the Invictus community on July 7. It signed on as the 26th participating nation, the second African country and the first from East Africa.
“We are delighted to welcome Uganda into the Invictus Community as our 26th member,” Rob Owen, the foundation’s chief executive, said at the time. Kiryowa Kiwanuka, Uganda’s defence minister, was at the London event and said his country was honored to enter a network built on a recognition that sport can transform lives. At that event, according to the force’s own account, Harry stood alongside him; the foundation’s announcement makes no reference to him.
The September reversal drew a welcome from Owen, who said Uganda would stay in the Invictus community and compete in Birmingham, then less than 300 days away. The multisport competition was launched by Harry in 2014 for military personnel and veterans who are wounded, injured or sick. Twenty-three sports fill the program at the Birmingham Games, which run July 10 to 17, 2027, among them three new ones: e-sport, pickleball and laser run.
The General Behind the U-Turn
President Yoweri Museveni, who turned 82 on September 15, is Kainerugaba’s father; the general, his eldest son, took the post of chief of defence forces by appointment in March 2024. Most observers see him as his father’s likely successor, and a 2031 presidential bid came from him in August, after he had earlier set his sights on 2026 and then switched. The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst counts him, like Harry, among its graduates.
Social media is another arena where he cuts a provocative figure, having used his posts on X to threaten an invasion of neighboring Kenya and to menace Bobi Wine, Museveni’s main political rival.
Observers far outside royal circles seized on the episode as a gauge of how far royal soft power still reaches: one phone call redirected an African military’s public stance, with no pressure and no economic leverage applied. Barely two months into its standing as the foundation’s newest member, Uganda walked out — and was back inside a week.
None of the guidance that set this off has changed. The Lord Chamberlain’s letter stands. The palace has not revised its description of the couple’s work, and it has not said whether the king will travel to Birmingham. He attended the opening ceremony of the first Invictus Games in London in September 2014, with both of his sons, Prince William and Harry.