The Commonwealth Conversation

Hugh Craft, a senior Australian diplomat and former Director of the Political Affairs Division at the Commonwealth Secretariat, assesses the success and value of the Commonwealth

In an article published on Tuesday 20th October 2009, in Caribbean Net News, Maja Daruwala, Executive Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative has called for CMAG reform to be top of the agenda at the Trinidad CHOGM. CMAG is the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group – the Commonwealth watchdog on human rights abuses.

A number of member countries are not measuring up to the Commonwealth principles. The regime in The Gambia, for instance, is extremely harsh with little attention paid to human rights and no freedom of expression.

Considerable rumours circulated worldwide this week about the imminence of Fiji’s full suspension from the Commonwealth at the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) held today, Friday 31st July, in London. However at the meeting, CMAG’s 9 Foreign Ministers agreed to give the Fijian regime 1 more month to reactivate the President?s Political Dialogue Forum process, facilitated by the Commonwealth and the United Nations.

Amitav Banerji, Director of Political Affairs at the Commonwealth Secretariat, says ‘promoting democracy is a powerful raison d’etre for the Commonwealth in the 21st century’.