CHOGM: Come or get lost

WSUNDAY, MARCH 17,2013

ith its focus on the fallout from the ongoing Geneva meeting of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the Government, which is straining every sinew to hold the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) here later this year, amidst all odds, appears to have forgotten to put up a show last Monday on Commonwealth Day.

Sri Lanka was not alone. Not many others marked the day. In London, the heart of a once mighty empire, the 54 member-nation grouping’s head, Queen Elizabeth II, launched the new Commonwealth Charter of Core Values and Principles – democracy, development, human rights, freedom of expression, protecting the environment and gender equality. That was about it, other than for an editorial displaying one-upmanship by the otherwise prestigious Guardian newspaper which pompously suggested the “unwisdom” of choosing Sri Lanka as host for this year’s CHOGM and the “ludicrous situation” of sending the Queen or the Prince of Wales to a country that has “very serious unresolved human rights charges hanging over it”.

There seems to be a little too much on Sri Lanka’s plate to handle right now, especially given its incoherent foreign policy and sketchy domestic policy. The British-based Financial Times pressed the point this week saying that the British Prime Minister is facing “growing calls to cancel or boycott” the CHOGM in Sri Lanka. This echoes the recommendations of the British Parliamentary Affairs Select Committee which last year called on David Cameron not to travel to Sri Lanka.

Last week, senior members of the British Government and the Opposition attended an anti-Sri Lanka meeting at Westminster. It was organised by a group that had once backed the Eelam cause. Despite the rhetoric at home, there is a groundswell developing to torpedo the CHOGM and embarrass the Government and Sri Lanka in the process.

In the aftermath of the UNHRC sessions comes a meeting of the CMAG (Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group) that will almost certainly discuss the CHOGM. In the event the UNHRC passes an anti-Sri Lanka resolution (which now seems inevitable), the CMAG is bound to take judicial notice of it.

Then, it would be a case of Sri Lanka trying desperately to justify itself in the eyes of an organisation that is increasingly being seen as a ‘white man’s club’ to browbeat nations that don’t play ball with it, and little else. Modern India is more than happy to play the role of the Brown Sahib in this club.

Even on the sidelines of the CHOGM are some questionable events, like the Commonwealth Business Forum, that bring little tangible results to the stakeholders. Ask any participant at the last CHOGMs in Kampala and Perth and he or she will tell you what benefits accrue to them from the Commonwealth Business Council that runs the show. In London last week, the head of the Royal Commonwealth Society attended the anti-Sri Lanka meeting.

So, is it not time that the Government took a very serious step on the CHOGM right now? Should it not write to all 54 Heads of Government due to attend and seek confirmation of their participation. The event is anyway penciled in their diaries. There is no need to write to the Canadian Prime Minister because he has already announced that he would not be attending.

That way, Sri Lanka will not be kept guessing and dangling on a tight rope until the last minute, only to be humiliated on the world stage even further. It is as if the country is begging for mercy right now with its ministers and envoys arguing a bad brief and urging folks to come to a country otherwise well known for its hospitality.

The summit is going to cost the hard-pressed citizens of this country a ‘bomb’ while the Government continues to bend backwards to hold a useless meeting that will have no impact on world affairs.

Ask the Heads of Government to make a commitment now – or get lost. Enough of this diplomatic torture.