C’wealth Spokesman, Presidential Media In Joint Twitter Q&A – Uku Fails To Answer Tough Questions On CJ Impeachment Reports And Others
August 17, 2013
Adding to speculation that the Commonwealth Secretariat is engaging in a public relations campaign on behalf of the Sri Lankan Government ahead of CHOGM 2013 scheduled for November in Colombo, Commonwealth Spokesman Richard Uku engaged in a Twitter Q&A Session together with the Government’s official Commonwealth Spokesperson Anuradha Herath today
Herath is also the President’s International Director of Media.
Sharma and Uku
Uku, who was in Colombo along with advance country teams from Commonwealth Member States to review CHOGM 2013 preparations, avoided most of the tough questions from users.
The exclusive story published by Colombo Telegraph about Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma’s decision to bury two major legal opinions the Secretariat had sought about the Sri Lankan impeachment of Chief JusticeShirani Bandaranayake and withhold it even from the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) – a powerful decision making body, went unanswered. Both Journalist Frances Harrison and the citizen journalism website Groundviews posed the questions to Uku at different times during the session that he ignored.
Responding to a question also posed by Harrison about reports that the Commonwealth Peoples’ Forum was being organised by the Sri Lanka Army, Uku responded “People’s Forum being organised by Commonwealth Foundation; not Sri Lankan army.”
He later followed that up with a clarification a long time after the Q&A session ended saying,
“@SLcampaign To be clear, our joint Twitter session with @CHOGMSriLankathis pm was part of our constructive engagement with Sri Lanka.”
Asked by another user about the call for a boycott of CHOGM and whether the Secretariat believed they should, Uku reiterated Sharma’s call some weeks ago.
