Toronto Star: Harper wise to shun Commonwealth hug-a-thon, Rosie DiManno says Commonwealth heads of government have moved from silence to tacit endorsement of Sri Lanka’s oppressive regime, making their November meeting in Colombo a PR coup for its president. Prime Minister Stephen Harper talks with United States Secretary of State John Kerry as they arrive to the Family Photo and Gala Dinner during the APEC summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia on Monday, Oct. 7, 2013. By: Rosie DiManno Columnist, Published on Mon Oct 07 2013 Newspapers in Sri Lanka, most of which are controlled by the ruling regime of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, have been for months breathlessly reporting on preparations for the Commonwealth heads of state meeting. While in the country recently, I read daily front page dispatches about the number of buses that will be required, the fleet of VIP vehicles, the security arrangements, the “forging of new friendships”, the goodwill opportunities, the boastful economic news that will be delivered and, crucially, the chance for Colombo to “correct” all those nasty stories that have been accumulating about Sri Lanka’s descent into oppressive state tyranny. Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday confirmed what he’d long been warning—he will boycott the summit of the Commonwealth’s 54-member nations. The usefulness of the Commonwealth, as a multilateral organization, is questionable in 2013. Since the collapse of the British Empire, this institution has been most ardently promoted by no less a devotee than Queen Elizabeth II. For six decades, Her Majesty had made its continuing relevance a cornerstone of sovereign diplomacy, as a kind of Empire Lite boys’ club, usually the only female present. For the first time since 1971, the 87-year-old Queen won’t be going, sending Prince Charles as her representative instead, with palace officials citing the long distance to travel as the reason for Elizabeth’s absence. I suspect the Queen, who’s used her influence in the past to censure hugely misbehaving Commonwealth countries—the suspension of South Africa for three decades in protest over apartheid, the similar booting of Zimbabwe under deranged autocrat Robert Mugabe—would not have been thrilled about investing the event with her glittery presence, and being played for a patsy. Pity that no other head of state has the courage of conviction that Harper is showing by giving CHOMG—Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting—a great big raspberry pass. Too many pay only lip service to the concept of human rights, all too willing to ignore gross violations and clear evidence of crimes, merely to sustain some nostalgic principle of the fellowship of nations that once bowed to Britain. This might be OK when it comes to the Commonwealth Games, an enduring spectacle of sports that brings together athletes from English-speaking countries where Britannia once ruled. But the game afoot in Colombo is all about stamping a seal of international approval on a corrupt regime that has become increasingly authoritarian, contemptuous of rule of law, and utterly quashing of internal criticism, from the impeachment of a thorn-in-the-side chief justice to extrajudicial killings, disappearances, the imprisonment of political opponents and the execution, allegedly by government death squads, of journalists. Harper got it right: “In the past two years we have not only seen no improvement in these areas, in almost all of these areas we’ve seen a considerable rolling back, a considering worsening of the situation,” he said during a media scrum at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering in Indonesia. He may have some regrets about his no-show at CHOMG next month. “But this is a decision the Commonwealth has made and the Commonwealth will have to live with it.” There has never been any decent explanation for why CHOMG awarded the summit to Colombo two years ago. It’s obvious however that Commonwealth presidents and prime ministers want a piece of the investment pie which, thus far, has been mostly ingested by China and India. Bilateral trade between China and Sri Lanka totalled $2.6 billion in 2012. Beijing has paid for all the new roads paved in Northern Province since the end of the civil war in 2009 and has constructed two massive deep water ports to secure footholds for its container ships on the world’s busiest shipping lane. The likes of Australia and New Zealand want a piece of that carpetbagger action. They’ll put up with grievous human rights violations in the trade-off. “You do not make new friends by rubbishing your old friends or abandoning your old friends,” sniffed Australian PM Tony Abbott. The Commonwealth muckers can hardly pretend they don’t know better. Just two weeks ago, following her fact-finding mission to Sri Lanka, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights delivered a scathing oral summary in Geneva. While commending Colombo for massive resettlement and redevelopment in the war-ravaged north over the past four years, Navi Pillay was dismayed by evidence of vast militarization in the province and the seizure of private land for installing military camps; surveillance and intimidation of political opponents, activists and lawyers; a surge in “incitement of hatred and violence against religious minorities, including attacks on churches and synagogues” and mosques, Muslims and Hindus in the majority-Buddhist country; a high-handed disregard for the judiciary’s independence; failure to establish a much-need credible inquiry into war crimes against civilians and the shelling of humanitarian convoys. Indeed, much of the ills that coalesced to create the terrorist Tamil Tigers—so roundly defeated by the Sri Lankan Army in 2009 -- not only still exist but are being exacerbated by anti-Tamil government policies. The island nation, after all the blood spilled over three decades of violence and spectacular suicide attacks, had the opportunity—squandered—to unite Tamil north and Sinhalese south, with everyone exhausted by conflict and eager to embrace a new path of reconciliation for the future. That hasn’t happened; quite the opposite, despite provincial council elections finally permitted in the Tamil northern province. Colombo continues propagating its no-harm version of recent history, even as the outside assessments pile up. The International Crisis Group, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have all condemned Sri Lanka’s mounting assault on human rights, and had urged that CHOGM be relocated to another country. Amnesty International said the Commonwealth “has been shamefully silent so far about Sri Lanka’s human rights crisis.” Now they’ve moved from silence to tacit endorsement, making their November hug-a-thon in Colombo a PR coup for the regime. Best that Canada has given it a thumb-down and digit-finger-up. Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 03:51:34 +0000