Commonwealth panel trying to placate protestors

By Garimella Subramaniam

CHENNAI, AUG. 11. After the World Trade Organisation negotiations in Seattle in 1999, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund meeting in Prague in 2000, the World Economic Forum meeting in Geneva earlier this year and more recently the G8 summit in Genoa, the biannual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Brisbane, Australia in October appears to be the next venue where anti-globalisation protests are once again going to be registered in a big way.

The factors behind this build-up to what could be the biggest blockade of the CHOGM are much the familiar ones such as third- world debt, violations of freedom of speech, abuse of workers and anti-women and anti-environment policies of many Commonwealth Governments, including the host country.

But as the ``stop CHOGM'' protests gather momentum, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) is striving to reason with dissenting voices that the CHOGM should, in fact, be the forum where they should raise their ire on such contentious issues. The CHRI has built up a case on the basis of some of the critical interventions made by the Commonwealth in recent years.

It cites, for instance, the pronouncements of the Commonwealth Heads of State on the urgency to address basic issues of development such as the alleviation of poverty and channelling the forces of globalisation to reduce social inequalities and empowering people to lead fulfilling lives.

Among its other significant initiatives have been the appeal of the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Mr. Don MacKinnon, to each of the G8 heads of State to view those countries steeped in debt from a more humane standpoint.

This, the CHRI claims, is due to the fact that the Commonwealth is, in relative terms, not an organisation of the world's most affluent nations. After all, nearly one third of the Commonwealth member States count amongst the world's least developed countries and 60 per cent of its population lives on less than $2 a day and 270 million people lack access to improved water supplies and almost 60 per cent of Commonwealth citizens lack access to essential drugs and adequate sanitation facilities.

Thus, the Commonwealth predominantly represents the very interests and concerns that the protestors propose to voice outside the CHOGM in October.

Appropriately therefore, their ire should be targeted not at the Commonwealth, but instead they should use the October meet to evolve strategies and mechanisms for these interests to be articulated at the world trade negotiations in Qatar later this year.

For the Commonwealth Secretariat was empowered in 1995 as the mechanism to facilitate consensus-building among member nations at other international fora.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Previous : U.P. tops in atrocities against SCs/STs
Next     : MPs urged to review Contempt of Courts Act