It seems the Commonwealth too works in mysterious ways. Though it has not (yet?) assumed the infallibility of Providence it appears to have adopted some of its characteristics. How else can one explain the peculiar conduct of the Commonwealth foreign ministers who seem to be questioning the wisdom of their heads of government who appointed them to these positions in the first place.
Last November in Kampala the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting(CHOGM) “welcomed” a proposal by Sri Lanka to hold a ministerial meeting to map out further plans to combat terrorism and offered to host it in Colombo. One does not need to be a genius to understand that today terrorism is as globalised as trade. It has crossed national frontiers and become a transnational menace. That should be obvious even to Commonwealth officials and the member states of this 53 nation organization. In fact it was the former Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon who set up the 10-member Commonwealth Committee on Terrorism (CCT) following the 9/11 terrorist attack in the US. Since November 2003 this committee chaired by Australia and including Sri Lanka had not met until last September in New York.
In fact I remember asking McKinnon at a press conference shortly after 9/11 why his report to the Brisbane CHOGM (which was later postponed) had no reference to terrorism at all, a matter that was later rectified in the updated report. Unfortunately for Sri Lanka which should have taken an active interest in this committee it did not, largely because of the ceasefire between the then government and the LTTE and the subsequent peace negotiations. As a member of that committee Sri Lanka had the right to call for meetings of the committee which it did not. Now matters have got curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said in Wonderland. Though the heads of government welcomed holding a ministerial conference, the Commonwealth foreign ministers at their meeting in New York decided that this be referred to the Committee on Terrorism which should meet at officials’ level to discuss whether the conference should be held and if so its agenda.
The new Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma alluded to this when he told me this over a month ago. “If a conference is to be held we must have an idea of what it is going to discuss and this is what the CCT will be meeting about.” Note the opening words which imply that a conference welcomed by the heads of governments is not certain. The Commonwealth will then find itself in a very peculiar and surely embarrassing, situation.
The CCT is due to meet in London on January 12 at the level of working officials. It seems that the Commonwealth is now standing decision making on its head. How could mere officials decide on a proposal already welcomed by the leaders, unless of course the Commonwealth and those member states that want to knock the idea down are engaging in an exercise in semantics where welcome does not mean acceptance? This is even more ridiculous because the decision to put it to the committee of officials was taken at the Commonwealth foreign ministers’ meeting held in the wings on the UN General Assembly sessions. Such a meeting surely does not have the authenticity and authority of a formal foreign ministers’ meeting and therefore does not and should not carry the same weight.
Moreover, if I remember correctly, there was no official communiqué issued after that New York meeting which is perhaps an indication of the level of that meeting. Even if it was otherwise, could ministers overturn the acceptance of such a conference by their leaders? Surely this raises fundamental questions of propriety and where decision-making really lies. Why was this possible? Because despite all the rhetoric and sloganising about every Commonwealth member, big or small, having an equal voice the truth is that in Orwell’s words some are more equal than others.
It seems very much like the ‘white’ Commonwealth that is either opposed to the idea or is lukewarm to it.
In New York it was Canada that led the charge against holding a conference on the tendentious argument that the Commonwealth is duplicating the work of the UN. That is surely a spacious argument given the several areas in which Commonwealth programmes tend to traverse ground covered by the UN but Canada does not appear to have minded such duplication. Take the work being done on the environment and climate change for instance. Are we to understand that Canada would rather see the UN alone doing this leaving the Commonwealth to undertake work in areas not covered by the UN?
The environment is just one area. There are other fields in which parallel work has been undertaken and these can be easily pointed to. Australia, the chair of the CCT, which has let the committee hibernate for five years, seems to be lukewarm too. Over a year ago in London the then Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told me that the Howard government was to decide very shortly on banning the LTTE. If the then government did not do so, it seems a long shot that a Labour government would do so unless Foreign Minister Bogollagama has managed to persuade a rethink by his Australian counterpart during his recent visit to Australia.
Unlike Canada and Australia which have vocal Tamil populations and are therefore rather reluctant to create new situations unless their organisations have been involved in criminal activity that hurts these countries, others like Malaysia, also a member of CCT, have strongly supported a terrorism conference. The increased criminal activity by those said to be sympathetic to the LTTE-such as credit card scams- and the rise of protests in support of Sri Lanka Tamils by Indian groups said to be linked to the LTTE, is causing serious concern in Kuala Lumpur.
The UK, another member of the committee, would be critical in winning support for the conference. But how effectively and successfully the UK has been lobbied in recent months by Sri Lankan representatives, is in serious doubt. This is all the more reason why a strong Sri Lanka delegation at the highest official level should attend the London meeting. What is necessary is a well prepared, articulate delegation able to present a cogent case on why this conference must be held. Those who doubt the need for such a conference should read the report of the Commonwealth Commission headed by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen titled “Civil Paths to Peace.”The Sri Lankan delegation that comes to London must come with a well argued rationale for holding the conference. The justification is already there for those who are not deliberately blind, to see. It must also have a well- argued plan of action for the future that legitimizes the rationale.
Our highest level official delegations can match anything that other members could throw. The one thing to keep in mind is that the Commonwealth cannot be the exclusive preserve of its ‘white’ members to decide how it should be run. Because they are the major contributors to the Commonwealth they cannot call the tune. Sri Lanka must mobilize the support of other committee members such as India and Malaysia and make certain that it cannot be browbeaten when the cause is just.
Equally the Secretary-General must take a strong position on this without merely watching from the sidelines. The Commonwealth took a lead in this regard seven years ago. It cannot relent now.
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