Friday, 18 October 2013 00:00
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More and more doubts are emerging about the attendance of key Commonwealth members at the organisation’s Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled in Sri Lanka. As the days tick down, more concerns are being raised about the island’s human rights record, with Colombo having few adequate responses.
The decision, somewhat expected, of the Canadian Prime Minister’s decision not to attend and cut funding to the Commonwealth Secretariat, has pushed doubts from other nations into the limelight. Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has come in for major criticism by members of the UK’s House of Commons, who have called the Government’s position on allowing Sri Lanka to host CHOGM 2013 ‘timid and inconsistent’.
In a new report on Sri Lanka’s human rights situation released on Wednesday, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons said there was “scant evidence” of progress in political and human rights in Sri Lanka.
The damning report also includes a critical analysis of the UK Foreign Office’s role in allowing Sri Lanka’s bid for 2013 CHOGM host to go through. Britain should have taken a more principled and robust stand, the FAC report says, and goes on to censure the Government for not making improvement on human rights conditional to hosting the event. The UK has already cut funding for the Commonwealth Secretariat as well.
The report has reopened the question of the UK attending CHOGM even though Prince Charles and Premier David Cameron have already announced travel plans. More importantly, India is still on the fence about attending – caught between needing Tamil Nadu in next year’s elections and increasing protests, the pressure is on for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take a tough stance on Sri Lanka’s rights record. Yet analysts are hoping that Dr. Singh will attempt the middle path, which will be centred on giving Colombo a “to do” list before arriving for the all-important political hobnobbing session.
One point of saving face might be the fact that Dr. Singh did not attend the previous edition of CHOGM in Australia, preferring to send a delegation headed by Vice-President Hamid Ansari. News reports have speculated that Ansari and External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid may end up taking up the mantle for India in Colombo as well.
Making the India factor more sensitive is the support for a boycott given by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Despite its previous statements that it wants to appeal to the moderate Sinhalese population, the TNA has maintained that Dr. Singh should not attend as a sign of protest on human rights and the failure to fulfil power devolution promises. However, it is more likely that the TNA will be censured by the Sinhalese for attempting to “humiliate” the Sri Lankan Government by undermining its attempts to host CHOGM competently.
The Sri Lankan Government, which has been consistently maintaining that its rights record has improved since the war, has rejected the criticism as unsubstantiated and biased. The Government has also accused the West and their allies of waging a vendetta.
Nevertheless, Colombo is still frantically cleaning house and ostensibly getting ready to show the world the new and improved post-war country. Large-scale construction is flowing ahead with feverish speed and the President is expected to declare open a Colombo-Katunayake highway next week, just in time for the CHOGM VIP traffic. So far Colombo has followed a “wait-and-see” policy, but on 10 November it may find that the show has fewer viewers than expected.
