The issue of Sri Lanka hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) later this year was not taken up at the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) meeting in London yesterday contrary to widespread speculation by various commentators and interested parties that the CMAG will move for a change of venue.

The meeting was chaired by Dr Dipu Moni, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh. It was also attended by Senator t Bob Carr, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia; John Baird, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Canada; AJ Nicholson, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Jamaica; Dr Abdul Samad Abdullah, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Maldives; Dr Samura Kamara, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sierra Leone; Bernard K Membe, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Tanzania; Winston Dookeran, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Trinidad and Tobago; and Nipake Edward Natapei, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade of Vanuatu.

Although local NGO lobbyists and TNA MPs along with other ‘activists’ campaigned furiously in the last few weeks to get CMAG to challenge Sri Lanka’s CHOGM host status with charges of Human Rights abuses and war crimes, their move was not successful as the CMAG rejected their positions out of hand.

According to the CMAG concluding statement issued by the Commonwealth Secretariat yesterday evening, the Group reviewed developments in relation to the country currently on its formal agenda, Fiji.

Source: www.news.lk