David Cameron was urged today to conduct an investigation into why the Conservative party received over £420000 from a telecoms company that has close links to Sri Lanka’s president, Lycamobile.

Speaking to the Huffington Post UK, Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop, said,

"Does anyone specifically have a question that's not on Sri Lanka or human rights?" the media spokesman for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting implored journalists at a press conference held by host president Mahinda Rajapaksa.

 

The normally diplomatic Richard Uku had just unwittingly summed up a CHOGM that can only be described as extraordinary for all the wrong reasons

 

Most CHOGM attendees have refrained as far as possible from embarrassing Mr Rajapaksa over questions about his regime's human rights record. Much of the talk at CHOGM focussed on Sri Lanka's positives, especially its promising post-conflict economic prospects.

 

But British prime minister David Cameron broke ranks. ...

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has defended giving military hardware to a country the United Nations has accused of war crimes, saying the gift of two ships to stop people smuggling will "preserve lives at sea".

But critics say this is ‘collaboration’ with a regime that has come under fierce criticism for its human rights record.

"The Prime Minister's silence on human rights abuses in Sri Lanka was inexcusable complicity, but this is nothing less than collaboration and it is abhorrent," Greens leader Christine Milne said.

See the Sydney Morning Herald’s reports here and here.

Mr. Abbot defended the donation of warships as a ‘humanitarian measure,” The Australian newspaper said.

But the deal was immediately slammed by the Refugee Council of Australia, which said it was the first time Australia had directly co-operated with a refugee ''source'' country.

''This is an arrangement between Australia and a country where people are fleeing, in situations where many people believe that they have a well-founded fear of persecution,'' chief executive Paul Power said.

 ''So, Australia is co-operating with a state with a very poor human rights record from which quite a number of people have fled and have been found to be in need of refugee protection.''

Mr Abbott's laudatory assessment of Sri Lanka's human rights progress since the end of its civil war was in stark contrast to British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The Channel 4 news team pulled out of Sri Lanka before the close of the Common Wealth Heads of government meeting after facing extensive intimidation and harassment, today.

Writing on  the Channel 4 News website, the editor, Ben de Pear explained the reasoning behind his decision to leave Sri Lanka.

Extracts produced below.

“Tonight there will be no report from Channel 4 news on this important summit form Colombo, as despite having been invited to Sri Lank, granted visas and even accredited for the event, after a difficult week it became impossible for Channel 4 News to operate as journalists in this country.”

“After being invited to visit any part of the country - as were all CHOGM journalists publicly by the president – when we took a train to the north of the country, even the train was met and stopped by another organised protest.”

“We were then forced into a van by police and driven back to Colombo.”

“The government has tried to exclude us from CHOGM press conferences.”

Amnesty International has urged the international comunity to set up an international investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka at the next session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in March 2014, as the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting drew to a close in Colombo.

Speaking from Colombo, Steve Crawshaw, Director of the Office of the Secretary General at Amnesty International, said,

UNP MP Sajith Premadasa said earlier today that his party is against foreign intervention in Sri Lanka’s domestic affairs.

Premadasa said the soldiers who had sacrificied their lives for the country deserved the respect of the entire country, including the opposition.

The Canadian government has hit out at claims by Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma that Sri Lanka had done enough to address human rights concerns.

Canadian Foreign Minister Deepak Obhrai said to the Colombo Gazette that there was a clear deterioration in democracy, rule of law, freedom of the press and the freedom of religion.

“I went to the local newspaper there (Uthayan – Jaffna) and saw horrific pictures of journalists being killed and the press being attacked. What is very disturbing to us, aside from the attacks on the journalists, is that nothing has been done to catch the culprits; nothing has been done to provide security to the people. This is the lack to what we are saying is tangible results to achieving the Commonwealth principles,” he said.

The International Crisis Group, in a report released this week, highlighted the ongoing rights abuses in Sri Lanka and reiterated the need for provisions of self rule in the North-East and a possible international independent investigation into war crimes.

See extracts from the executive summary below. Full report can be found here.

“Sri Lanka’s ethnically-exclusive regime continues to close political space and consolidate its power.  The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) won a landslide victory in September’s long-awaited northern provincial council elections. Yet, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration is reluctant to allow devolution to begin, preferring to maintain de-facto military rule in the north.”