UK Foreign Secretary and RCS Director launch Commonwealth Conversation
Posted by ZoeWare - 20/07/09 at 06:07 pm
UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband and RCS Director Danny Sriskandarajah launch the Commonwealth Conversation at the RCS, 20 July 2009, London The Foreign Secretary said that in a crowded field of international organisations, “clear direction, identity and purpose is at a premium. And the search for greater focus in all three domains is at the heart of this Conversation – to engage not just governments but other opinion formers, media and civil society – and of course a wide range of citizens – across all 53 members, on the role of the Commonwealth for the future…”
“My theme for this Conversation is simple: more common, more wealth. With more common action and common effort, greater unity of focus and collective effort, we can and will create more wealth, not just in the narrow, material sense but in terms of our cultural and social diversity, in terms of the rich tapestry of our lives. Even at sixty, demographics makes the Commonwealth one of the youngest international organisations. So let this Conversation show that sixty is the new forty, and set this organisation on the road to an active and effective middle age.”
Read the full text of the Foreign Secretary’s speech here:
MORE COMMON, MORE WEALTH: NEXT STEPS FOR THE COMMONWEALTH (RCS, 20 JULY 2009)
Watch highlights of the Foreign Secretary’s speech here:
The Foreign Secretary used the event to launch an FCO policy paper on the Commonwealth:
TWO BILLION VOICES: Shaping the Future of the Commonwealth
In his presentation to a packed auditorium, RCS Director Danny Sriskandarajah said that opinion polls about the Commonwealth in seven countries, unveiled today to mark the launch, showed “worrying levels of indifference, ignorance and imbalance.” Indifference because while people do not feel animosity towards the Commonwealth, they don’t tend to get passionate about it. Ignorance because most people know little about the work of the association. And imbalance because the Commonwealth is far more popular in developing than developed members.
“This makes the vision of the Conversation – to engage as widely as possible with the Commonwealth’s peoples about the future of their association – both crucial and timely”, said Dr Sriskandarajah.
DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE ABOUT POLL FINDINGS
DOWNLOAD A BROCHURE ABOUT THE COMMONWEALTH CONVERSATION
Audio Recordings
LISTEN TO DR DANNY SRISKANDARAJAH’S SPEECH
LISTEN TO RT. HON. DAVID MILIBAND’S SPEECH
Category : The Commonwealth's Relevance
Tags: Commonwealth Conversation, Miliband, rcs
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July 21st, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Congratulations on the launch, I do hope that you get the conversation started that you want.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 am
The Commonwealth has been ignoring the sixty-year carnage of Tamils in Sri Lanka. You speak of the ‘ability to censure members who seriously or persistently violate basic norms’ as a tool at the disposal of the Commonwealth. Then will you kindly look at the recommendations to the international community(the Commonwealth is a part of it) in the numerous reports of IBA, ICJ, ICG, AI, HRW, …. some of which are:
1. Sri Lanka: Twenty years of make-believe. Sri Lanka?s Commissions of Inquiry, Amnesty International, June 2009
2. Justice in retreat: A report on the independence of the legal profession and the rule of law in Sri Lanka, International Bar Association Human Rights Institute, 26 May 2009
Sri Lanka: Failing to Protect the Rule of Law and the Independence of the Judiciary, November 2001
3. Sri Lanka?s Judiciary: Politicised Courts, Compromised Rights, International Crisis Group, 30 June 2009
Development Assistance and Conflict in Sri Lanka: Lessons from the Eastern Province, 16 April 2009
4. Sri Lanka: Briefing Paper – Emergency Laws and International Standards, International Commission of Jurists, March 2009
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:43 am
You speak of REFORM of the institution. It cannot come soon enough for the Sri Lankan Tamils. R2P must be included in an updated version of Harare Declaration.
The Commonwealth has been silent in spite of the fact that Tamils have been oppressed from the time of independence(1948. The Tamil Federal Party’s appeals to the Commonwealth have been thwarted by the ‘sovereign’ Sri Lankan government. In 1974 the Party’s appeal was blocked from being taken up in its conference agenda – the Constitution adopted in 1972 removed the protective clause in the constitution handed over by the British at the time of independence:
B H Farmer, CEYLON : A DIVIDED NATION(1963)
Since those saddening days of 1958 Ceylon has had its share of trouble…..The truth, though unpalatable may be to some, is simply that nobody unacceptable to the present Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism has any chance of constitutional power in contemporary Ceylon.
But need it have been as violent as in fact it(Racial riots 1958) was? Constitutional safeguards might considerably have done something to control the violence of the communal dispute; though, since the Senanayake Government found a way of disenfranchising the Indian Tamils one is left to wonder what value other safeguards might have had in the event and in the Ceylon setting.
Foreward by Viscount Soulbury in Ceylon: A Divided Nation by B.H.Farmer(1963):
Nevertheless in the light of later happenings I now think it is a pity that the Commission did not also recommend the entrenchment in the constitution of guarantees of fundamental rights, on the lines enacted in the constitutions of India, Pakistan, Malaya , Nigeria and elsewhere.
It should be noted that some Commonwealth countries thwarted the effort, of some EU countries at the Special session of UNHRC two months back, to bring international inquiry into human rights violations in Sri Lanka.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:15 am
You speak of how the Commonwealth helped South Africa end the apartheid.
Please note:
Ethnic Conflict and Violence in Sri Lanka – Report of International Commission of Jurists 1981:
“The South African Terrorism Act has been called ‘a piece of legislation which must shock the conscience of a lawyer.’ Many of the provisions of the Sri Lankan Act are equally contrary to accepted principles of the Rule of Law. …. The fate of the Tamils in Sri Lanka remains a matter of international concern”.
Your reply to the question on Sri Lanka towards the end of the meeting was: it’s about a 26-year terrorist activity.
Please don’t mislead the Commonwealth.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Even the UN has been unable to define ”terrorism”.
A rough guide on terrorism:
World Federation of Scientists: PERMANENT MONITORING PANEL ON TERRORISM on ??war-on-terror??, May 2006:
”We discussed at some length the relationship between terror intentionally inflicted by state actors and terrorism espoused by weaker players as a tactic in asymmetric struggles, and noted that one could scarcely be fully understood without reference to the other.”
Assessing Damage, Urging Action: Report of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights, An initiative of the International Commission of Jurists, February 2009:
”….. The war paradigm as applied by the United States has however had a detrimental impact around the globe. In many Hearings, the Panel learnt that governments elsewhere appear to relativise or justify their own wrong-doing by comparisons with the US. Some countries have sought opportunistically to re-define long-standing internal armed conflicts as part of the worldwide ?war on terror? . The Panel recommends that the incoming US administration, repeal all laws, policies and practices associated with the war paradigm where they are inconsistent with the country?s obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law. Other countries that have been complicit in human rights violations arising from the war paradigm should similarly repudiate such behaviour and review legislation, policies and practices to prevent any such repetition in future. ….”
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Commonwealth have much more to do. First commonwealth should see the real need for an Independent homeland for Eelam Tamils.
“Your reply to the question on Sri Lanka towards the end of the meeting was: it?s about a 26-year terrorist activity.”
It was a Freedom Fighting it wasn’t a Terrorist Activity. Or else are you indirectly pointing out the State Terrorism of the Government of Srilanka.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:40 am
TWO BILLION VOICES:Shaping the Future of Commonwealth: ”….the values shared by members despite these differences: democracy, freedom, peace, the rule of law and opportunity for all.”
Sir, none of these values have been shared by my country Sri Lanka for 61 years of independence(1948):
Democracy and Violence in India and Sri Lanka(1995), Dennis Austin, Emeritus Professor of Government, University of Manchester: The phrase, A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS is a good description of the train of events in Sri Lanka from the mid-1950s, although one might question whether ‘errors’ is too forgiving a description of policies deliberately persued.
And the Commonwealth has been tightly shutting its eyes.
July 24th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Sir, what has the Commonwealth to say now when nearly 300,000 IDPs are kept behind barbed wire and heavily guarded by the Army and aid agencies who have been given restricted access (including NO camera, NO phone and NO conversation with IDPs) have been now asked to scale down their work when reports of severe shortage of water, food, medical and sanitation facilities and abductions and rape and malnutrition and outbreaks of diseases and deaths and suicides have been coming out. Free access to reporters has been denied from the beginning.
BUT, BUT, BUT, post offices and banks have been installed in these right from the beginning.
Five decades ago former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan wrote Riding the Storm 1956-1959: ”In a curious way, the political life of Ceylon is more like that of Whig politics in the eighteenth century than one would suppose?. ”
Sir, it’s much truer today.
Sir, it is not JUST ”about a 26-year terrorist activity.”
July 24th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Thank you all for your passionate comments about Sri Lanka. We have set up a separate discussion thread about this here: http://www.thecommonwealthconversation.org/2009/07/what-should-the-commonwealth-be-doing-on-sri-lanka/. Please kick off the debate there.
July 24th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband has posted a blog about the future of the Commonwealth. He talks about the soft power potential of the Commonwealth. Well worth a read:
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/miliband/entry/the_commonwealth_conversation
July 24th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Sorry one more post I came across this blog as well. This is from Stuart Jack who Governor of the Cayman Islands. He asks the question in his blog What does the Commonwealth mean to you?’ he gives a very good answer from the perspective of the Cayman Islands if you read his blog:
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/jack/entry/what_does_the_commonwealth_mean
July 25th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Mr. david, you are doing a great job. I see you always welcome & want to hear what the people say. Me as Muslim Pakistani lady living on a land where females have very lesser chances to get educated even priority given to boys instead of girls(daughters), it creates discrimination in culture. Very small segment in urban areas are have awareness to provide education to girls also, thanks to God, i m few of them, i am a business graduate lady & working in a well reputed organization. Beside social problems, we are having financial crunch resulted expensive education which is now hard to get it. Mr. Miliband i would advise you to please call any youth(s) from Pakistan to address problems in getting education
July 27th, 2009 at 8:00 am
Sir, thank you for emphasising ”closer cooperation.”
Too much of cllusion has been failing the purpose of international organisations resulting in ”NEVER AGAIN” being repeated again and again.