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Commonwealth, chemistry, and cojones
Michael Holman
November 23, 2005

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-1885448,00.html

Michael Holman argues that by omitting Zimbabwe from the agenda of this weekend's summit the Commonwealth has made itself irrelevant

If anyone doubts that the Commonwealth is in trouble, let them come to Malta, where the association's biennial summit is about to begin.

It is not that the event is getting shorter, cut from five to three days. After all, the world is a busier place.

It is not the fact that Commonwealth leaders are less accessible, escaping the press and assorted lobbyists by going into "retreat" for most of the time.

It is not the proliferation of non-government organizations in attendance, kidding themselves that they influence the proceedings, such as the Commonwealth Peoples Forum - "underlining the relevance of civil society as an instrument of democracy"; or the Commonwealth Youth Forum -"discussing issues and coming up with action plans".

Nor is it the prospect of Friday's opening ceremony, to be attended by 53 presidents, prime ministers and a sultan, expected to have all the dignity of a Miss World competition and the pomp of a Eurovision song contest.

All this is disturbing enough.

But the real indicator of the club's distress is revealed in the latest report of Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth secretary general. An extraordinary omission in the document suggests that members have allowed themselves to become little more than a eunuch at a brothel: avid voyeurs but unable to participate. It should have been a celebration of an association whose time has come. For years the Commonwealth has played the role of the international community's canary in the coal pit; or to change metaphor, a trip wire that warns of distress that lies ahead. You name it, and the Commonwealth has produced a report on it, usually produced long before the subject became fashionable.

From global warming to the global economy, world trade and drug trafficking, micro states and money laundering, from the plight of minorities to the crippling impact of external debt on weak economies, the Commonwealth has produced an informed view. It was informed because all these concerns had been experienced by its own members, who could confide their worries to their peers at meetings of Commonwealth foreign ministers and finance ministers, and aired at summits such as the one taking place in Malta.

The members embrace some of the world's richest states and the poorest; the fastest growing economies and the slowest; the world's biggest democracy and one of the tiniest. The world's main religions and every colour under the sun are represented. Indeed it is hard to think of a problem this association has not faced or endures. United by common values - a commitment to democracy and good governance and human rights, and enjoying a common language of English - meetings like this have generated that mysterious thing called the Commonwealth chemistry.

We saw it at work in Lusaka in 1979, when delegates to the summit arrived split over how to handle minority rule in Rhodesia. They left in consensus. The ground was laid for talks in London which produced the constitution that led in turn to 1980 elections. Rebel Rhodesia became independent Zimbabwe.

So it is all the more extraordinary that there is not a single reference to Zimbabwe in the Commonwealth's secretary general's 50-page report to members, covering the two years since the last summit.

The country has been airbrushed out of Commonwealth history.

So much for Mr McKinnon's pledge this week to "make human rights one of the Commonwealth's cornerstones". Not a mention of the plight of Zimbabwe's people on behalf of an organization which, ironically, drew up its commitment to decency in Harare itself in 1991.

The reason for the omission? Since Zimbabwe withdrew from membership two years ago, it is, Mr McKinnon told us, no longer a Commonwealth concern - an evasion which, by the way, was never applied to apartheid South Africa, which also left the club. The result is that a human rights crisis as serious as any Africa has faced is not on the official agenda in Malta. So it is victory for Robert Mugabe. And ignominious defeat for the leaders of two billion people.

Like the eunuch in the brothel, the Commonwealth seems to have lost its cojones.incorporating an online directory for the non-profit sector

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