British Foreign Secretary against boycotting CHOGM in Sri Lanka

Friday, 8 November 2013 06:50 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary of UK, is firmly against a boycott of the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka and says attending the summit is the right thing to do to address the issues that concern the UK. Writing to the UK’s The Telegraph, Hague points out that by boycotting the summit the opportunity to pressure the Sri Lankan Government to improve its record on human rights and other issues will be lost. “We do no good for the situation in Sri Lanka by sitting on the sidelines.....By visiting, we can see the situation on the ground first-hand, meet people on all sides of the conflict, and raise our concerns frankly and directly with the Government,” the British Foreign Secretary says. Meet people directly affected by conflict Hague confirmed that the UK Prime Minister David Cameron will visit the North and meet people directly affected by the conflict. For

his part, Hague will meet journalists and human rights activists who might not otherwise ever meet a British minister or travel to the UK. The British delegation, according to Hague, will urge Sri Lanka’s leaders to guarantee freedom of expression, ensure justice for war crimes and reach a sustainable political settlement that benefits all the country’s communities. “We will raise the cases of people who have disappeared and call for thorough, open investigations into their fate,” the Foreign Secretary wrote in his piece to The Telegraph. “We will have more impact doing these things than we could by leaving our chair empty,” Hague said. International spotlight Hague said hosting the Commonwealth has put Sri Lanka under the international spotlight and has contributed to some improvements. He acknowledged that Sri Lanka, since 2009 has taken ‘positive steps’ on resettling displaced people, rebuilding infrastructure, removing land mines and reintegrating former Tamil combatants into society. The Government held provincial elections in the north and announced a commission on the disappeared, he noted. “We welcome these steps and want to see more, and that is what we will be calling for during our visit,” he wrote. Dynamic and positive force He noted that the Commonwealth meeting is not about just one country but it is about the future of the Commonwealth as a whole. “We want it to be a dynamic and positive force in the world, promoting democracy and human rights and creating new opportunities for trade,” Hague wrote. “If we boycotted the summit because Sri Lanka is hosting, we would, unfortunately, be turning our back on the Commonwealth itself,” the Foreign Secretary stressed. “If we are not at the table, we have no way of encouraging the Commonwealth to take a strong stand on issues that we care about deeply in Britain.” “Attending the summit is not a betrayal of Britain’s values – it is the way we advance them,” the UK Foreign Secretary emphasised.