Dear Editor,
How is it that two foreign ministers from two English-speaking countries can take almost diametrically opposed positions regarding Sri Lanka's selection to host the CHOGM in November?
Shouldn't they be speaking with one voice on what the Commonwealth Charter says about upholding democratic values and ideals and the norms of good governance?
Why then is it that the Canadian foreign minister maintains the decision to allow Sri Lanka to host despite its appalling human rights record being tantamount to "accommodating evil"?
He said Canada is therefore likely to boycott it, because Canada has not joined the Commonwealth to accommodate evil, but to combat it. However, the Australian foreign minister, on the other hand, is adamant that boycotting is "counterproductive"; maintaining that "our challenge is to keep the pressure on to see further improvements" made by Sri Lanka.
We have witnessed how the pressure Senator Bob Carr talks about has not moved the Fiji military government one inch away from its Machiavellian plan to hang on to power via its bogus "roadmap to democracy"— which intelligent foreign state officials like Mr Carr have gullibly accepted as genuine.
Now the Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamlesh Sharma wants us to believe that Sri Lanka is sincere about reforming its human rights regime.
Even the former Australian PM Malcolm Fraser and over a dozen prominent Australians have not bought that, and are calling on Canberra to boycott unless there was significant progress on Sri Lanka's human rights record.
All this tells us one thing: something is clearly not right in the castle of the Commonwealth.
Rajen Naidu
Sydney
Australia
Where's the common in Commonwealth?
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How is it that two foreign ministers from two English-speaking countries can take almost diametrically opposed positions regarding Sri Lanka's selection to host the CHOGM in November?
Shouldn't they be speaking with one voice on what the Commonwealth Charter says about upholding democratic values and ideals and the norms of good governance?
Why then is it that the Canadian foreign minister maintains the decision to allow Sri Lanka to host despite its appalling human rights record being tantamount to "accommodating evil"?
He said Canada is therefore likely to boycott it, because Canada has not joined the Commonwealth to accommodate evil, but to combat it. However, the Australian foreign minister, on the other hand, is adamant that boycotting is "counterproductive"; maintaining that "our challenge is to keep the pressure on to see further improvements" made by Sri Lanka.
We have witnessed how the pressure Senator Bob Carr talks about has not moved the Fiji military government one inch away from its Machiavellian plan to hang on to power via its bogus "roadmap to democracy"— which intelligent foreign state officials like Mr Carr have gullibly accepted as genuine.
Now the Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamlesh Sharma wants us to believe that Sri Lanka is sincere about reforming its human rights regime.
Even the former Australian PM Malcolm Fraser and over a dozen prominent Australians have not bought that, and are calling on Canberra to boycott unless there was significant progress on Sri Lanka's human rights record.
All this tells us one thing: something is clearly not right in the castle of the Commonwealth.
Rajen Naidu
Sydney
Australia
Where's the common in Commonwealth?
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