CHOGM CLASHES SHOW THAT DEMOCRACY CANNOT BE SCRIPTED BY GOVERNMENT

The government expended every effort and took every precaution to ensure that the various events associated with the Commonwealth Summit would go according to script. To the extent that making the trains run on time went, the government succeeded more rather than less. Participants at both the Commonwealth Business Forum and at the Commonwealth People’s Forum that took place in the run-up to the Heads of Government Meeting expressed their appreciation at the manner in which their programmes had been arranged. They felt that they had been hosted very well and no effort or expense had been spared to do the very best by them.

However, there was also another less elevating aspect to the government’s attempt to script the Commonwealth events to its benefit. Participants were carefully screened, especially those taking part in the People’s Forum who were from NGOs and civil society organizations. They had to go through a rigorous security clearance procedure that took several weeks for some applicants. There were also many who did not receive their accreditation, presumably because of the failure to clear security. At least one eminent civil society leader failed the test and did not receive accreditation.

The tight security arrangements were also evident at the venue at which the People’s Forum took place. The gates of the hotel were kept closed and there were uniformed police placed there to ensure that no one who was not authorized could get into the hotel. Those who entered had to show their accreditation card. Even within the hotel, at the entrance to each of the conference halls where discussions were taking place, there were security personnel on duty. They were there even on the beach.

Despite all these efforts at ensuring security and keeping out unwanted interventions, an unscripted occurrence took place. This was the entry of British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Hugo Swire, who delivered a speech at the closing session of the Commonwealth People’s Forum. There was no indication on the agenda that such a speech was to be delivered nor had his presence been advertised in advance. He came without having to display the accreditation card that other participants were subjected to.

In his unscheduled speech, the British government representative urged the Sri Lankan government to implement all recommendations of its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) as part of demonstrating that it was complying with values laid out in the Commonwealth Charter. As part of this process, Sri Lanka should investigate disappearances, ensure judicial independence, strengthen freedom of expression, protect the rights of the media and bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice. He also acknowledged Sri Lanka's progress in areas such as infrastructure regeneration and said that resettlement of internally displaced people should be given priority.

The British Minister’s unscheduled presence at this civil society event, and his specific references to Sri Lanka, earned the ire of the government. As he spoke at the closing session, no rebuttal of his views or amplification of the complexity of the issues he raised was possible. There was a breach of protocol. At a hastily convened media conference the head of the Commonwealth Foundation took responsibility for the decision to invite the Minister Swire. This was a gracious admission that did much to assuage any breakdown of trust between itself and the Sri Lankan organizers. It is unfortunate that a planned meeting between Sri Lankan civil society representatives present at the People’s Forum and Sri Lankan government ministers was cancelled due to this unscripted occurrence.

It was not only in relation to the Commonwealth People’s Forum that the government had to face unexpected challenges. The incident in which Canadian Parliamentary Secretary Deepak Obharai laid a wreath of flowers at Elephant Pass was interpreted by the Sri Lankan government to rub its nose on account of loss of life in the last phase of the war in which there are allegations of war crimes. However, the Canadian government clarified that the flowers had been in commemoration of all victims of the war. Indeed Elephant Pass was the site of one of the major debacles of the war, when the LTTE overran one of the army’s largest bases.

The government also faced adverse international media attention on account of controversial Channel 4 journalist Callum McCrae whose train journey to the North was blocked by demonstrators in Anuradhapura and who was sent back to Colombo by the police, for his own safety according to the government. The protestors carried placards accusing Channel 4 of tarnishing the country’s image with its allegations of war crimes. Interestingly, Anuradhapura was one of the locations of the LTTE’s worst atrocities, or war crimes, against which there was hardly any international attention in comparison to the last phase of the war. In that incident over one hundred Buddhist pilgrims were gunned down near sacred Buddhist sites.

The problem for the government is that despite its best efforts to control the flow of events related to CHOGM there have been many things which it could not anticipate or protect itself against. It could not anticipate the symbolic significance of the Canadian laying of flowers in Elephant Pass and the memories it would stir. It could not anticipate the unscheduled speech of the British Minister at the People’s Summit. Nor has it been able to prevent the flood of foreign journalists who applied for visas to cover CHOGM from covering other events and travelling to all parts of the country in search of other stories.

All things cannot be controlled in a free and liberal society, nor hidden away from the international community, especially when the Sri Lankan President is to be Chairman of the Commonwealth for the next two years. The plight of the war-affected people is being commented upon by journalists who delve for the story behind the big new buildings that have appeared alongside the newly carpeted highways of the North and East. The way forward is to resolve these problems in a genuine manner by addressing them at their root, while upholding the Commonwealth Values, including those of free association and expression. It appears that the Sri Lankan government is learning the hard way that democracy cannot be scripted.