MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Earl of Wessex to skip Grenada stop during Caribbean tour

The royal couple will still visit Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda

The trip to Grenada the Earl and Countess of Wessex were planning to make this year marking the Queen's Jubilee has been called off as a precautionary measure, it was announced in London on Thursday.

The couple will still travel to the other Commonwealth nations -Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda- as previously scheduled, from April 22 to April 28.

Prince Edward and Sophie will skip their Grenada stop following consultations with the local Government.

A recent tour of other Caribbean Commonwealth nations by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge encountered some resistance in local groups pushing for republicanism following Barbados' example, and also for slavery reparations.

“This exhibit at the Bank of England’s museum in London brings home to us now — if we were not aware of it before — the exploitation of Grenada as a colony of Great Britain and its institutions, and should intensify our urgent call-to-action to every Grenadian to join the fight for reparations and reparatory justice for the descendants of enslaved people here in Grenada,“ said Ambassador Arley Gill, Chairman of the Grenada National Reparations Committee, according to the Daily Mail, in the wake of the Cambridges' tour of Belize, Jamaica, and the Bahamas.

”The time has come for the British government and the descendants of British elites who benefitted from the enslavement of our ancestors to own up to this heinous crime against humanity - and do the right thing,“ he added.

The Earl and Countess of Wessex's journey is part of an effort to shore up support for the monarchy in the region. It will, however, encounter an open letter from the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission along the same line ”as far as the issue of reparation is concerned and the inability of the absence of an apology from the Crown both as family and as an institution for their role in the enslavement of African people in the slave trade and in the slavery of African people,“ according to Commission Chairman Dorbrene O'Marde.

William and Kate's trip brought on mixed reactions - from celebrity treatment to criticism over a series of appearances that recreated ”colonial style” scenes from previous decades. The opening event in Belize had to be postponed because of protests.

In November, Prince Charles visited Barbados for a ceremony to mark its historic decision to remove the Queen as head of state. Other Commonwealth countries in the region, including Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Dominica, already have their own heads of state.