Reflections on CHOGM: one week on

 Monday, November 25th, 2013 

A week has passed since the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) concluded in Sri Lanka. Arguably the most controversial summit in the Commonwealth’s history, it has been a public relations disaster for both the Commonwealth and the Sri Lankan state.

If the Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had hoped the world’s media would descend on the island and blithely praise its gleaming new roads and recommend tourists to its beautiful beaches and wildlife, he must be sorely disappointed. Instead, journalists saw with their own eyes the sad legacy of the Mullivaikal Massacre of 2009 and the atrocious abuses that continue to be committed today. As a result, they duly lambasted Sri Lanka.

Furthermore, to give credit where it is due, the British Prime Minister David Cameron stayed true to his promise to ensure that the focus remained on Sri Lanka’s abuses throughout the meeting. David Cameron’s actions – visiting Jaffna on the first day of the summit with the media in tow, insisting on confronting the President on human rights, and leaving early on the final day – entirely upstaged the meeting itself.

Nevertheless, many concerns remain in the summit’s aftermath.

Although the Prime Minister stuck to his promise to shine a spotlight on Sri Lanka, this by itself changes nothing for the Tamil people who continue to suffer on that island. UK news channels showed pictures of desperate Tamil women in Jaffna, holding up photos of their missing loved ones and pleading with journalists to pass on to the Prime Minister their petitions for help. The Prime Minister is said to have been moved by what he saw, although he did not step into the crowd to speak to these people; he must understand the desperation of their situation and the high hopes his visit has given them. David Cameron also saw first-hand the determination of the Sri Lankan state to suppress those who seek to speak out about its crimes.

Nevertheless, the Prime Minister worryingly continues to think the problem in Sri Lanka can be solved through engagement and encouragement – despite the angry rebukes this approach earned him at CHOGM. He seems not to grasp that the Sri Lankan state is not an unruly child in search of a good nanny. Sri Lanka’s persecution of the Tamil people is deliberate and planned; it is rooted in the state’s very conception.

For his part, the Foreign Secretary William Hague spent much of his visit touring and commending various “peace” and “reconciliation” initiatives that have recently been set up by the Sri Lankan government. However, it is clear there cannot be real peace, let alone reconciliation, while there remains complete impunity for past crimes and while the persecution continues unabated today.

David Cameron’s strong words are further undermined by his government’s dearth of credible action on Sri Lanka. Indeed, to many British Tamils, the government’s insistence on “engaging” with the Sri Lankan state – and, even worse, its approval of the sale of British arms, marketing know-how and other services to Sri Lanka – is tantamount to collaborating with Sri Lanka’s genocide of the Tamils.

Turning to the Commonwealth we must not forget that, although CHOGM is over, the organisation remains a propaganda tool of Sri Lanka – for as long as Mahinda Rajapaksa remains its chairman. Sri Lanka will use the Commonwealth, and the toothless “capacity building” and “reconciliation” mechanisms it promotes, to undermine calls for a robust international inquiry into Sri Lanka’s past and present crimes. Despite being widely discredited in the press for his bungling and cover-ups in the run-up to the summit, the Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma seems hell-bent on helping Sri Lanka to achieve this.

Looking ahead, our attention now turns to the next UN Human Rights Council session in March 2014. The UN Human Rights High Commissioner’s call for an credible (and hence necessarily international) independent inquiry – now backed by David Cameron – has given Tamils much hope that the international community will finally grant justice for the victims of Sri Lanka’s genocide.

If David Cameron truly wishes to alleviate the suffering of those he saw in No Fire Zone and during his visit, he must back his words up with action. He must ensure that a credible inquiry takes place. He must stop UK firms delivering arms and other assistance to Sri Lanka’s genocide. As state-sponsored reprisals against those who spoke out during CHOGM begin in earnest, the Prime Minister must ensure that all who turned out to speak and plead with him during his visit did not risk their lives in vain.

Only when the British government’s strong and welcome rhetoric on Sri Lanka is backed up with meaningful and robust action, will the British Tamil community applaud this government’s commitment to human rights, justice and freedom.