Fifty-three heads of state representing one-third of the world’s population will assemble in Trinidad and Tobago from November 27 to 29 to discuss wide-ranging issues concerning the Commonwealth. The agenda of the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is decided by the Committee of the Whole (CoW) which meets in London this week. The meeting is being attended by representatives from Commonwealth countries.

An issue for the CoW-flagged several times by many NGOs in the Commonwealth and repeatedly by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative-has been the need to strengthen the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) which consists of rotating foreign ministers of Ghana, Malaysia, Namibia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, St Lucia, Uganda and the United Kingdom.

The importance of the CMAG and its mandate (if fully implemented), for the very reasons it came into existence, cannot be undermined or ignored. For the CMAG came into existence in the backdrop of the execution of human rights activist Ken Sara Wiwa in 1995 by the military-backed Nigerian government. CMAG is the watchdog body of the Commonwealth. It is mandated to deal with ’serious and persistent violations’ of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values, including human rights.

Today, it must be able to deal quickly and unequivocally with situations of constant threats to human rights values by Commonwealth states and open challenges encapsulated in statements like the latest one by President Jammeh of the Gambia where he is unequivocal in his opposition to the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values when he declared on the eve of his departure to New York for the UN General Assembly meeting:

’I will kill anyone who wants to destabilise this country. If you think that you can collaborate with so-called human rights defenders, and get away with it, you must be living in a dreamworld. I will kill you, and nothing will come out of it. We are not going to condone people posing as human rights defenders to the detriment of the country. If you are affiliated with any human rights group, be rest assured that your security and personal safety would not be guaranteed by my government. We are ready to kill saboteurs.’

(The Gambia, incidentally, hosts the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights which might like to relocate its headquarters in light of this clear averment.)

But 14 years on from CMAG’s birth, it is yet to go beyond scrutinising cases where there have been unconstitutional overthrows of governments and fully operationalise its mandate to include situations where there are persistent human rights violations.

It has not been able to bring Cameroon which, on joining the Commonwealth, had made promises of improving its human rights situation up to the mark, nor been inclined to overtly come to the rescue of human rights defenders imperilled in their own countries. Nor insist on benchmarks for the whole Commonwealth by which year-on-year improvements in governance and human rights can be clearly evidenced.

While CMAG has its share of successes, lately there have been instances where it has not lived up to expectations. For example, in the case of Sri Lanka, reports of large-scale civilian deaths, impunity and stifling of human rights in Sri Lanka continued to emerge throughout 2008 and 2009 but CMAG has refused to put Sri Lanka in its agenda. The additional irony is that Sri Lanka itself continues to serve as a member of CMAG during this period for a third consecutive (two-year) term, contrary to the 1999 Durban Communiqué that limits a country to a maximum of two consecutive terms.

While no one knows for certain why CMAG has been silent on the human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, it is unsurprising conjecture that its overstayed presence in CMAG may have stymied any efforts to put itself on CMAG’s agenda.

Even as we write, Sri Lanka continues to serve as a CMAG member while hundreds of thousands of ethnic minorities remain confined indefinitely in ill-maintained internment camps amidst uninvestigated claims of war crimes and reports of widespread danger to human rights defenders and dissenters.

Whatever the reasons for its failings, and despite the successes it has had, it is obvious that if the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth are to become a genuine guiding light for the association and the signature value added the Commonwealth brings to the international community, there must be an honest review of CMAG’s mandate, powers, composition and functioning in order to strengthen it further.

The association is now mature enough to impose on itself a proactive monitoring body. Serious initiatives to make this happen must be taken up by CoW when they meet in London this week to set the agenda of CHOGM 2009.

* Maja Daruwala is executive

director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi, India.

-Courtesy Jamaica Observer