Clock ticking for SL at Commonwealth

By Ranga Jayasuriya-2013-01-26   Sri Lanka appears to have avoided the prospects of an emergency meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group(CMAG), but the country would feature in the regular CMAG meeting scheduled for March and the forthcoming visit by the Commonwealth Secretary General would set the tone for the CMAG response, well-placed government sources said. Sources suggested the delay in the emergency meeting was to facilitate the visit by Commonwealth Secretary General, Kamalesh Sharma, who is expected to be here, next month. The visit would set the tone for the CMAG response to the sacking of Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake, the source added. “Canada is pushing hard for an emergency meeting. They even want to get us expelled (from the Commonwealth),” the source said citing communications with the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper led the charge in the global condemnation against the impeachment of Chief Justice Dr. Bandaranayake, who was removed through a process deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. “The government would be happy that the regular ministerial meeting is two months away,” the source said. However, the deck is stacked against the regime in Colombo. The government has contended that the composition of the CMAG would be unfavourable to Sri Lanka. The current membership of the CMAG is: Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Jamaica, the Maldives, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago and Vanuatu. The Maldives, one of the two South Asian members in the CMAG, has been suspended from the CMAG after the disputed ouster of former President Mohamed Nasheed. “Of course, there is Bangladesh, we can rely on. The rest of the others, Caribbean and African countries, would toe the Western line. Canada is powerful in terms of its soft power projection,” the source pointed out. CMAG has the authority to suspend member States deemed to have violated core principles of the 54 member nation association. Fiji, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Pakistan have earlier been suspended. While the Fiji remains suspended, Zimbabwe pulled out from the organization. Earlier, soon after the removal of Chief Justice Bandaranayake, the Commonwealth Secretary General said in a statement: "The dismissal of the Chief Justice will be widely seen, against the background of the divergence between the Judiciary and the Legislature, as running counter to the independence of the Judiciary, which is a core Commonwealth value.”