Harper a lone voice against Sri Lanka

Prime minister vows to pull out of planned summit unless allegations of civilian massacres, abuses are addressed

By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun May 3, 2013

There is as yet no traction under the wheels of Canada's efforts to have this year's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting moved from Sri Lanka because of the human rights abuses of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his administration.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he will boycott the summit scheduled for November unless Colombo abides by United Nations demands that it properly investigate allegations of massacres of civilians and other abuses by its armed forces in the closing weeks of the war against Tamil separatists in May 2009.
REPORT CASTS DIM LIGHT
But unless the mood changes among the 54 members of the Commonwealth, an association of mostly former British colonies, Harper's is likely to be the only empty chair.
Countries which on their past record might have been expected to share the Harper government's disgust, such as Australia, Britain and New Zealand, have shown no enthusiasm to follow Canada's lead.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and New Zealand's John Key say isolating Sri Lanka would be counter-productive, and they will attend.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has so far remained silent on the topic, although he is facing mounting demands that he join Harper in boycotting the summit.
The boycott campaign in Britain has been turning up the volume since the publication earlier this week of a new report on human rights in Sri Lanka by Amnesty International.
The report paints a grim picture of the Rajapaksa government intensifying its crackdown on its critics through violence, threats and imprisonment since the end of the 26-year war against the Tamil minority.
The attitude of the Rajapaksa government, Amnesty says, is that anyone who criticizes its actions is a traitor to the country.
Amnesty also accuses Rajapaksa of consolidating his own power and undermining democracy by putting key government departments under the direct control of the president's office and by attacking the independence of the judiciary.
The report points particularly to threats aimed at judges who have ruled in favour of victims of human rights violations and the impeachment in January of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake.
The impeachment on charges of misconduct have gone ahead even though the Supreme Court ruled the procedure is unconstitutional.
There has also been a systematic campaign of violence against journalists working for Sri Lanka's few remaining independent media outlets. Since Rajapaksa came to power at the end of 2005, Amnesty says 15 journalists have been murdered and many more forced to flee the country.
Others targeted by the government, according to Amnesty, are human rights activists, humanitarian aid workers, trade unionists and opposition politicians, especially those operating in the Tamil-majority north of the country.
Not covered in the Amnesty report is an ongoing campaign of violence against Muslims by a group of militant Buddhists called the Buddhist Power Force, which is supported by the president's brother, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

SEVERAL MUSLIMS KILLED
Muslims make up nearly 10 per cent of Sri Lanka's population of 20 million. Some are the descendants of Arab traders who settled in Sri Lanka, but many others are Tamils.
In recent months, several Muslims have been killed and many injured in the attacks by the militant Buddhists.
The Amnesty report concludes: "The (Commonwealth) meeting must not be allowed to go ahead in Colombo unless the government has demonstrated beforehand that it has stopped systematic violations of human rights."
That call was echoed this week by Yasmin Sooka, who investigated allegations of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka on behalf of UN secretary-general Ban Kimoon.
"Sri Lanka is quite frankly descending into a state where the rule of law no longer applies," she said.
But also earlier this week the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, meeting in London to prepare the agenda for the November heads of government meeting, did not address the question of Sri Lanka's suitability as host for the summit.
A Commonwealth official said the heads of government had chosen Sri Lanka as this year's host, and only they can change the venue.
An irony is that the Queen, the head of the Commonwealth, in March signed the new Charter of the Commonwealth which draws together and expands the organization's previous resolutions setting out democracy, equality, respect for human rights and the rule of law as core tenets.
On several occasions, countries have been suspended from Commonwealth membership or thrown out of the organization for violations of these principles.
MILITARY COUPS
Pakistan and Fiji have been thrown out twice, and Nigeria once. In all those cases, the action followed military coups, and in the case of Nigeria, the execution of political dissidents.
Zimbabwe has been suspended once after President Robert Mugabe's regime ran a blatantly fraudulent election. Mugabe has now withdrawn Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth.
The situation in Sri Lanka mirrors several of those past examples when countries were suspended or expelled from Commonwealth membership.
Yet not only is Sri Lanka not being censured, it is being honoured as the host of the meeting.
Such an absurdity does not bode well for the Commonwealth's usefulness or longevity.
jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com