Courtesy Lakbimanews

As the days pass and it gets closer to the Commonwealth Summit or CHOGM as it is known in bureaucratic shorthand, due to be held in Sri Lanka next year it is inevitable that the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-White CommonwealthƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ will employ every ruse possible to provide the excuse for its leaders to keep away from the meeting.
The ABC countries – Australia, Britain and Canada – as they are known to observers of Commonwealth affairs are the last white relics of an empire that went down with the sun.
There is another member of the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-white CommonwealthƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, New Zealand which is not quite in the same league. And since the last Commonwealth Secretary-General, Don McKinnon, a former foreign minister, upset the staid old striped pants brigade of the British FO, the poor cousins from New Zealand have been rather suspect.
Any student of Commonwealth history knows that the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-whiteƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ Commonwealth, heavily outnumbered in the 53-nation organisation once dominated by them, has not given up trying to control it and move it in a direction that will continue to serve the purpose of a resurgent imperialism.
They have this leeway because the white Commonwealth is the main donor to Commonwealth coffers, India perhaps being an exception to this. These white relics of a by-gone colonialism still hanker after the day their diktats were obeyed with the kind of obeisance that was expected from the Indians in the days of the British Raj.
So, assertive nations in Asia, Africa and elsewhere which continue to be members of the Commonwealth, are seen as undermining the supremacy of the white nations which they once enjoyed and used to their distinct advantage.
We know that the Canadian prime minister, a chap called Stephen Harper who as leader of the opposition was harping on why Canada should send troops to invade Iraq alongside the neo-colonialist America, has already threatened to boycott the Sri Lanka summit if he was not satisfied with ColomboƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s performance in the field of human rights.Reading some of the comments this fellow who is basically a mediocrity who ended up in the seats of power -and as we know this is nothing new except that he is a bigger mediocrity than most – it would be clear enough that he is preparing the way for some free publicity and a great show of sanctimony when the time comes for him to make a great show of standing by human rights principles and all that.

ABC gangs up
One could already see clear signs of the ABC countries ganging up to embarrass Sri Lanka ahead of the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting )which they could not stop from being held in this country.
The intention is very clear. By raising a multiplicity of issues such as war crimes, and human rights violations whether there is concrete evidence to back such allegations or mere conjecture and speculation serves their purpose, the white Commonwealth is preparing the grounds for a boycott of the summit by one or more leaders of those countries.
The recent move by the Australians to embarrass Sri Lanka with media publicity over the alleged abduction and deportation of an Australian citizen is one step in this direction.
The fact is that this man Premakumar Gunaratnam who seems to have more names than Mata Hari, had been provided with an Australian passport under the assumed name of Noel Mudalige.
That was the name under which he had entered Sri Lanka. The government was technically correct when it told the Australian High Commission that nobody by the name of Premakumara Gunaratnam had entered the country when the Australians inquired about his disappearance.
Two questions, at least, arise. Why did the Australians inquire about Gunaratnam when they knew he was now masquerading as Mudalige? It shows that the Australians were privy to the deception.
Moreover it is reported that Gunaratnam had left his passport in the name of Noel Mudalige at the Australian High Commission in Colombo. Is it because he feared that if he was questioned for his past involvement in criminal activities and this passport was found on him, the cat would be well and truly out of the bag.
The Australians were surely aware of his past including, it now transpires according to Indian media, that he was somehow involved in the deaths of 14 Indian peace-keeping soldiers.

Hiding a person
So the Australians were in fact hiding a person who had been responsible for terrorist activities and had jumped jail by providing him with a new name and a passport that would enable Gunaratnam to enter Sri Lanka under a false name.
All these shenanigans naturally generated a media frenzy in Australia where this fellowƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s background and previous activities did not appear to be known or the media there had no intention of revealing in print.
Even before this drama came on stage, another was being played out in New York where a Canadian woman who chairs Ban Ki moonƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s advisory panel on peace keeping operations tried to shut out Sri LankaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s deputy permanent representative to the UN Major-General Shavendra de Silva from participating in the panel meetings.
This woman Louise Frechette of Canada who has an unsavoury past in the UN having had to resign because of some involvement in the Iraq oilƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  for- food scandal was probably acting under orders from her government or was in cahoots with other western countries such as the US and UK to deny de Silva his place on the panel.It appears from news reports that the Asian Group at the UN which nominated Shavendra de Silva as its representative has castigated Louise Frechette for exceeding her powers and responsibilities as the chair of the advisory panel and virtually told her to mind her own bloody business.

The Asian Group
It is the Asian Group that selected de Silva and it is the Asian Group that can withdraw his nomination. Some silly Canadian woman who should be better advised to keep a low profile given her past record at the UN cannot and should not be allowed to dictate terms from a position which does not give her such powers.
The fact that several Asian countries had stood up against her on this issue is proof that they will not allow their rights and privileges be trampled on byƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  a woman who reportedly had to resign from her earlier position in the UN.
All these incidents really are not only an attempt to embarrass Sri Lanka but to clear the ground for further shenanigans as the Commonwealth summit moves inexorably closer.