Britain’s presence at the Commonwealth summit will achieve more than an empty chair would

Next week, the Prime Minister and I will travel to Sri Lanka for the latest Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The 53 Commonwealth countries together represent two billion people – nearly a third of our world’s population – and some of its fastest-growing economies. Despite its significance, most discussion of the summit has centred on its location. In particular, because of Sri Lanka’s poor record on human rights, some people are calling for a British boycott.

"This Thursday, one of the key officials implicated in the White Flag incident will be speaking at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Sri Lankan Ambassador Palitha Kohona is Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the United Nations in N.Y., and is the subject of an investigation by the Australian Federal Police. There have also been requests from NGOs to the International Criminal Court that Kohona’s involvement in these extrajudicial killings be investigated."

"Kohona is the official representative of an authoritarian and oppressive regime. Yale is disturbingly granting him a platform to whitewash Sri Lanka’s genocide against Tamils on the island and normalize Sri Lanka’s role within the international community."

Writing in The Independent, author and practising English barrister, Sadakat Kadri outlined the need to condemn Sri Lanka.

Full opinion reproduced below.

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As political heroes go, few rank higher that Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Most people know her as a modern-day saint – the diminutive democrat who defied Burma’s ruthless military leaders. Yet an increasing number are beginning to question Ms Suu Kyi’s judgement.

In a preview of a report analysing media violence in Sri Lanka, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) has determined that the Sri Lankan “state repression of the media mirrors the state’s wider ethno-chauvinist policies”, placing Tamil journalists at a greater risk of violence than their Sinhalese counterparts.
 
Examining data from, Journalists for Democracy (JDS), TAG found that of all the reported murdered or disappeared journalists listed by JDS since 2004, 37 are media workers of ethnic Tamil origin while 4 are ethnic Sinhalese and 2 Sri Lankan Muslims.

The advocacy group went on to observe that approximately 75 per cent have taken place in the majority Tamil-speaking regions of the island.

Extracts of their piece have been reproduced below. See the full piece here.

"Sri Lanka has gained a reputation as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists alongside Afghanistan, Somalia, Eritrea and North Korea."
 
"Yet considering that much of Sri Lanka’s post-independence period has been entrenched in ethnic violence, the central question of race has been absent in the analysis of media attacks."

"Indeed, often ethnicities of attacked media workers remain unspecified in the reporting of human rights and news organisations. With the erosion of ethnic labels in the reporting of violence against media personnel, some core reasons for the Sri Lankan states repression of media personnel elude us."