Queen's Sri Lanka visit for Commonwealth meeting 'grotesque'

[mark at tlio.org.uk]

this email contains:
1). Queen signs equal rights charter
2). Queen's Sri Lanka visit for Commonwealth meeting 'grotesque', 
Jonathan Miller, Channel 4 News
3). Sri Lanka's war-crimes, UN duplicity & the Commonwealth’s 
tarnished zeal from Sri Lanka’s hosting of CHOGM 2013, (written by me)
4). Petition to call upon the UK Prime Minister to boycott the 
Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Sri 
Lanka in 2013.
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1).
Queen signs equal rights charter/Commonwealth’s tarnished zeal from 
Sri Lanka’s hosting of CHOGM 2013

Queen signs equal rights charter

On Monday evening in London, Commonwealth Day (11th March 2013), the 
Queen officially signed a new Commonwealth Charter encompassing the 
core values - from human rights to the rule of law that leaders have 
committed to upholding, including backing equal rights for women, 
ethnic and religious minorities and gay people, after it received the 
support of every Commonwealth nation.

The document declares: "We are implacably opposed to all forms of 
discrimination, whether rooted in gender, race, colour, creed, 
political belief or other grounds."

The Queen signed the document at London's Marlborough House, the Pall 
Mall headquarters of the Commonwealth Secretariat.

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2).
Queen's Sri Lanka visit for Commonwealth meeting 'grotesque'
By Jonathan Miller, Channel 4 News
Monday 11th March 2013
Ref: 
http://www.channel4.com/news/sri-lanka-commonwealth-queen-meeting-grotesque

David Miliband and Sir Malcolm Rifkind call on the Commonwealth 
Secretariat to stop Sri Lanka from hosting its heads of government 
meeting because of the country's poor human rights record.

David Miliband, Labour's former foreign secretary, described as 
"grotesque" the notion of the Queen attending the meeting as head of 
the Commonwealth, if it is to be hosted by what he called a repressive 
regime, fast "moving towards pariah status".

Speaking exclusively to Channel 4 News, former Conservative foreign 
secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind likened it to Pretoria hostingthis 
November's heads of government meeting (CHOGM) while South Africa was 
under apartheid.

Sri Lanka, some of whose leaders face allegations of war crimes and 
whose increasingly authoritarian government is accused of persistent 
and serious human rights abuse, would assume chairmanship of the 
Commonwealth during the CHOGM.

Channel 4 News twice requested an interview with Commonwealth 
Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma, a former Indian diplomat, to 
respond to the growing disquiet. A spokesman said he did not want to 
let "the Sri Lanka issue" overshadow events in Commonwealth week, 
which started on Monday.

The secretary general pointedly ignored a question on Sri Lanka when 
approached in person by Channel 4 News at a Royal Commonwealth Society 
banquet on Sunday night.
'Mistake' for Sri Lanka to host

"I think it's a mistake for Sri Lanka to be invited to host the heads 
of government meeting," Sir Malcolm told Channel 4 News. "The present 
Sri Lankan government has done very little to address the human rights 
issues; tens of thousands are still displaced; there has been no 
political reform, the rule of law has been traduced – the chief 
justice was recently sacked – and there's not been any independent 
investigation into what was probably the mass murder of Sri Lankan 
Tamils."

This "Sri Lanka issue" is known to be an area of concern to the 
foreign and commonwealth office, which, in a statement to Channel 4 
News, said it was yet to decide whether it would boycott the CHOGM in 
November.

     Sri Lanka has breached the most fundamental aspect of democracy, 
namely the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary. 
Geoffrey Robertson QC

"The host for each Commonwealth summit should embody our shared 
values, including respect for human rights and democracy," the 
statement read, adding that human rights in Sri Lanka were a matter of 
concern.

The Queen will on Monday night sign a new Commonwealth charter which 
commits member states to respect for democracy and the protection of 
human rights.

The charter lists democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, 
judicial independence, rule of law and good governance among the 
"shared values" it seeks to promote. Sri Lanka's record in all of 
these areas has been questioned at the highest level.

The crescendo of international disquiet surrounding the CHOGM includes 
Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the former UN Human 
Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson. They have co-authored an article in 
Monday's The Times newspaper urging the Commonwealth to reconsider 
appointing Sri Lanka as its chair.

UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillai last month re-stated her 
"long-standing call for an independent and credible international 
investigation" into alleged human rights violations and war crimes in 
Sri Lanka.

A 27-year-long civil war in Sri Lanka ended just under four years ago 
with the deaths of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians. Ms Pillai 
added that "extra-judicial killings, abductions and enforced 
disappearance" have since shown no signs of abating.

The eminent human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson QC, has also said 
the Commonwealth risked becoming "a laughing stock". He branded the 
organisation "leaderless and rudderless" and said "if it goes to (Sri 
Lankan capital) Colombo, we need never bother with it again. It will 
be a mockery".

Mr Robertson last month published a damning report commissioned by the 
Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales which investigated the 
impeachment in January of Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice. It accused the 
government there of subverting the independence of judges.
Queen visit 'obscene'

"Sri Lanka has breached the most fundamental aspect of democracy, 
namely the separation of powers and the independence of the 
judiciary," he told Channel 4 News.

He said it would be "obscene" if the Queen were to shake hands with 
President [Mahinda] Rajapakse as it would deliver what he called 
"exactly the propaganda coup that these people want."

     At issue is the commitment of governments and the leaders of 
civil society to the principles of human rights. Peter Kellner, Royal 
Commonwealth Society chairman

Peter Kellner, chairman of the cultural and educational charity, the 
Royal Commonwealth Society, also said that the Commonwealth risked 
becoming irrelevant if the meeting in Colombo goes ahead. "At issue is 
the commitment of governments and the leaders of civil society to the 
principles of human rights," he said.

Mr Kellner also drew attention to the strong criticism of Sri Lanka's 
human rights record voiced by the United Nations, the European Union, 
Amnesty International and Human rights watch.
'It is only you who disagree'

Dr Chris Nonis, Sri Lanka's high commissioner to London was approached 
by Channel 4 News at the Royal Commonwealth Society banquet on Sunday 
evening. He said he thought it was entirely appropriate that Sri Lanka 
should host CHOGM, describing Sri Lanka as a democracy which abided by 
Commonwealth values.

Challenged on this, Dr Nonis said: "It is only you who disagree with 
us… The tragedy for you, Mr Miller, is that you are so out of touch 
with the reality of contemporary Sri Lanka. I invite you to come. We’d 
be delighted to have you."

A meeting of the Commonwealth's ministerial action group will meet 
next month to discuss a possible change of venue, with Mauritius 
proposed as an alternative.
[end]
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3).
Sri Lanka's war-crimes, UN duplicity & the Commonwealth’s tarnished 
zeal from Sri Lanka’s hosting of CHOGM 2013

Sri Lanka is poised to host the 2012 Commonwealth Summit, despite 
public exposure of a litany of war-crimes and crimes against humanity 
(commonwealth subjects) committed by Sri Lankan government forces 
during the last few months of the civil-war between the Sri Lankan 
government and Tamil Tiger (LTTE) separatists in 2009. Crimes included 
indiscriminate bombing of so-called "no-fire zones" by the Sri Lankan 
Army, evidence of the use of chemical weapons, and the large-scale 
loss of life on Tuesday 18th May 2009 - the last day of the conflict - 
on a thin strip of coastland at Mullivaaikkal in Vanni where the SLA 
used its maximum fire power on the remaining civilians and LTTE 
fighters estimated to have numbered as many as 40,000, incredibly 
densely boxed into a total area of beach estimated to be no more than 
a 400-metres by 600-metres, killing an unverified number of civilians 
(30,000 to 80,000 people were estimated to have still been there on 
Sunday 16th May). After promising safety and protection to the 
innocent inhabitants of Mullivaikal the governmental forces are said 
to have used disproportionate force indiscriminately attacking the 
assigned “no fire zone” it was announced as. [1]

In terms of total casualty figures for the last 4 and a half months of 
the conflict (Jan to mid-May 2009), a US State Department report has 
suggested that the actual casualty figures were probably much higher 
than the UN's estimates of 15,000 to 20,000, and that significant 
numbers of casualties weren't recorded.

A detailed Channel 4 investigation broadcast in June 2011 contained 
disturbing and extensive new footage showing alleged atrocities by Sri 
Lankan forces, including evidence of extra-judicial killings.

The international community's reaction to the civil war in 2009 
amounted to an abrogation of international law in terms of neglect of 
the international community’s duty to protect. The Government of Sri 
Lanka had evicted the UN from NW Sri Lanka in the months leading up to 
the war, as well as having removed all International Volunteer 
Organisations out of the northern region where the conflict took 
place. As the Government did not allow any International Media into 
the area, there were no overseas witnesses of the ongoing Genocide and 
the unfolding Humanitarian crisis as it occured. One of the Generals 
responsible for the carnage, Shavendra Silva, was accepted by the UN 
as a "Senior Adviser on Peacekeeping Operations" to the UN. 
Controversy also surrounds Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff and Special 
Envoy for the UN Secretary General - Vijay Nambiar - who was sent to 
Sri Lanka to organise a cease fire during the conflict. He failed to 
secure a ceasefire and returned back after meeting the Sri Lankan and 
Indian officials. There is a potential conflict of interest in that 
Vijay Nambiar's brother Satish Nambiar, a retired Lieutenant General 
of the Indian Army, was a defense advisor to Colombo during the period 
when the adversaries were involved in the early phases of negotiating 
a ceasefire. Observers say that Vijay Nambiar's mind reflected a 
tendency to assume a passive posture, and to hide behind the authority 
of the Security Council, in his reckless disregard to the lives of 
Tamil civilians, even while admitting that "in between those [U.N.'s] 
mandates there is a lot the UN Secretariat can do pro-actively, and 
that is the biggest challenge." [2]    Nambiar's role has been brought 
into question, with his "silent diplomacy" undertaking a visit to Sri 
Lanka during the fateful last months of the war, his refusal to brief 
the UN Security Council nor to provide a media briefing during and in 
the months after the conflict, and his alleged complicity in the 
involvement of the whiteflag incident (reports of how Nambiar conveyed 
to two Tamil Tiger leaders that if they came out, they would be 
treated in compliance with international humanitarian law, and yet 
after this assurance, they came out and were immediately killed).

Nine days after the end of the conflict, on Wed 27th May 2009, the 
United Nations Human Rights Council refused calls to investigate 
allegations of war crimes by both sides, even though evidence from 
satellite images of aeriel bombardment of the so-called 'no-fire zone' 
by the SLA is said to have been already obtained by the UN. Instead it 
supported Sri Lanka in handling the humanitarian crisis under it's own 
initiative.

Since then, the UN finally acknowledged what had happened in a report 
in March 2011 by a special UN panel. The report confirmed that tens of 
thousands had been killed by government shelling, which had targeted 
no-fire zones, UN food distribution lines and hospitals. The report 
also detailed appalling behaviour by the LTTE, the "Tamil Tigers", 
alleging that civilians were prevented from escaping and used as 
hostages. However, it's outcome fell substantially short of already 
low expectations, with the UN recommending that the Sri Lankan 
government carry out it's own internal review into the conduct of the 
war.  The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) was 
appointed by President Rajapaksa in May 2010. The LLRC is criticised 
by human rights organisations for not fully nor adequately addressing 
allegations outlined by the UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on 
Accountability in Sri Lanka, most notably the non-inclusion of alleged 
breaches of international humanitarian law and human rights.

Thankfully then in March last year, the United States submitted a 
draft resolution against Sri-Lanka to the United Nations Human Rights 
Council (UNHRC) at its 19th session in Geneva. The resolution noted 
that Sri Lanka had failed to even implement the reconciliation 
measures recommended by the country's own Lessons Learnt and 
Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and called for Sri Lanka to take more 
concrete actions towards reconciliation and especially, addressing the 
accountability issue and implementing the recommendations put forward 
by the LLRC, including addressing violations of international law 
during the civil war. Though the resolution addressed alleged 
violations of international law, critics point to the fact that the 
resolution, in giving credibility to the LLRC, legitimises 
ethnic-Sinhalese dominated state rule over Tamil territories.
Ref: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LegacyofColonialism/message/2414

  
Then, last November, an internal UN review leaked by diplomat Charles 
Petrie reported that the government had obstructed the provision of 
aid and assistance to civilians, did not protect humanitarian workers, 
and was largely to blame for the shelling of heavily populated areas 
and the deaths of civilians. The UN report also documents the UN's 
former humanitarian chief John Holmes and Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff 
and Special Envoy for the UN Secretary General - Vijay Nambiar - 
 jointly pressuring Navi Pillay of UNHCR to desist from publishing 
estimated casualty figures that would put UN in to a “difficult 
terrain." [3]  The report was leaked after the UN Human Rights Council 
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on 1 November reviewed Sri Lanka's 
lack of progress on commitments made during its first UPR in 2008.

In the words of Former UK Foreign-Secretary David Milliband: 'And a 
further report last month, by the United Nations High Commissioner for 
human rights, criticises the progress made on accountability and 
reconciliation and, significantly, the commissioner, Navi Pillay, 
reaffirmed her "long-standing call for an independent and credible 
international investigation" into alleged human rights violations 
"which could also monitor any domestic accountability process".' [4]

The post-war situation in Sri Lanka sees the oppressive undertow still 
firmly in place. Human Rights Watch says that several thousand people 
are locked up without charge, and that state-sponsored abuse of Tamil 
activists is widespread. Other UN investigations record over 5,000 
outstanding cases of enforced and involuntary disappearances; and 
nearly 100,000 internally displaced people remain without proper 
protection.

On 12th February 2013, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) 
sent an open letter to the Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh 
Sharma asking to change the venue of the Commonwealth Heads of 
Government Meeting in November 2013, in reaction to the Sri Lankan 
government's recent removal of the country's Chief Justice through a 
process declared unconstitutional by the apex court and in 
contravention of international standards on the independence of the 
judiciary.
Ref: 
http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/sri-lanka-should-not-host-the-2013-chogm-icj-to-sharma/

With this blood-soaked backdrop and a discreditable litany of 
international governmental shortcomings that reeks of a modus-operandi 
on the part of the leading economic powers in the world which may be 
characterised as nothing more than something between moral 
hand-wringing and diplomatic leapfrog, Sri Lanka’s planned hosting of 
CHOGM 2013 appears as a masquerade of staggering effrontery to the 
adherence to any notion of justice and goodly moral principle on the 
world stage. It conveys the impression of an unspoken international 
settlement brokered between commonwealth countries that, whilst 
ignoring the elephant in the room that is whispered allegations of war 
crimes and repression, nonchalantly negotiates a waltz with 
unflinching assurance on a public stage hitherto seemingly bereft of 
any widespread scrutiny by media observance to a degree that almost 
suggests culpability (the BBC's television output with regard to 
post-war analysis of what happened in Sri Lanka has been solely 
lacking - the writer has two complaints lodged with BBC complaints one 
of which is being considered by the BBC Trust).

A US draft resolution at the 2013 UN Human Rights Council in Geneva 
criticising the Sri Lanka government on not adhering to it’s own LLRC 
recommendations neither welcomes international investigation nor 
initiates any meaningful new action on Sri Lanka. The resolution also 
does not specifically address the issue of Sri Lanka hosting the 
Commonwealth, although the implication diplomatically will be that the 
passing of resolution will put pressure on commonwealth nations to 
boycott the Summit being hosted in Sri Lanka.

Britain, as mother country as the home to the head of the Commonwealth 
– HM Queen Elizabeth II – is under more pressure than any other 
country to take the necessary lead in reacting to the potential 
passing of the UN resolution in the UNHRC. Further pressure comes from 
the recommendations of the fourth report of the UK’s Foreign Affairs 
Committee on The role and future of the Commonwealth, such as where it 
says that “continuing evidence of serious human rights abuses in Sri 
Lanka shows that the Commonwealth's decision to hold the 2013 
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo was wrong. We are 
impressed by the clear and forthright stance taken by the Canadian 
Prime Minister, who has said he would attend the Meeting only if human 
rights were improved. The UK Prime Minister should publicly state his 
unwillingness to attend the meeting unless he receives convincing and 
independently-verified evidence of substantial and sustainable 
improvements in human and political rights in Sri Lanka”.


References:

1). Sri Lanka: Last Phase Of Civil War At Mullivaikal And What Really 
Happened – Analysis, by Sivanendran (April 29, 2011)
Ref: 
http://www.eurasiareview.com/29042011-sri-lanka-last-phase-of-civil-war-at-mullivaikal-and-what-really-happened-analysis/

2). Nambiar, India's proxy in UN, complicit in white flag killings?
TamilNet, Saturday, 12 January 2013
Ref: http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=35889

3). Nambiar, India's proxy in UN, complicit in white flag killings?
TamilNet, Saturday, 12 January 2013 – Ref: 
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=35889

4). Britain must stand up for human rights in Sri Lanka
by David Miliband, The Guardian, Monday 11 March 2013	
Ref: 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/11/britain-human-rights-sri-lanka

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4).
Petition to call upon the UK Prime Minister to boycott the 
Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Sri 
Lanka in 2013.

https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43027/