Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is among sev­er­al Com­mon­wealth lead­ers who are not at­tend­ing this week's Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in Sri Lan­ka but staff at her of­fice in­sist she was not boy­cotting the meet­ing.Orig­i­nal­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had planned to lead the T&T del­e­ga­tion to the meet­ing af­ter an of­fi­cial vis­it to Chi­na, dur­ing which she would have presided over the of­fi­cial open­ing of T&T's em­bassy in Bei­jing.

The trip to Chi­na last week was can­celled by mu­tu­al agree­ment of T&T and Chi­na be­cause it co­in­cid­ed with the No­vem­ber 4 by-elec­tion in St Joseph, said the Prime Min­is­ter's spokesman, Fran­cis Joseph.Joseph said: "There were two trips on for No­vem­ber. The dates pro­posed for the of­fi­cial vis­it to Chi­na clashed with the by-elec­tion in St Joseph and there­fore she could not go at that time."As a re­sult both coun­tries will now look for new dates in 2014.

"The rea­son for not go­ing to CHOGM is be­cause of mat­ters she has to deal with in Trinidad. As a re­sult, Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Win­ston Dook­er­an will be at­tend­ing the meet­ing and the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Reynold Coop­er, who is al­so head of the pub­lic ser­vice, is al­ready there at­tend­ing the Com­mon­wealth Busi­ness Fo­rum."

The Prime Min­is­ter's spokesman did not spec­i­fy the mat­ters that Per­sad-Bisses­sar had to deal with that pre­vent­ed her at­ten­dance at CHOGM but oth­er sources re­ferred to the back-to-back lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions and by-elec­tion.Asked di­rect­ly whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar was boy­cotting CHOGM to draw at­ten­tion to Sri Lan­ka's hu­man rights record, Joseph said:

"I have not been told of any boy­cott by the PM. I am aware that oth­er coun­tries are do­ing that but that is not the case with Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar."

In an e-mailed re­sponse to ques­tions sub­mit­ted by the T&T Guardian, the Prime Min­is­ter's spe­cial ad­vis­er Shem Baldeosingh said there could be no in­fer­ence of a boy­cott be­cause T&T was be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by its For­eign Min­is­ter.He said the Pres­i­dent of Sri Lan­ka and the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al were in­formed of the Prime Min­is­ter's in­abil­i­ty to trav­el to Colom­bo, the cap­i­tal of Sri Lan­ka, where CHOGM is be­ing held.

The Prime Min­is­ters of In­dia and Cana­da–Man­mo­han Singh and Stephen Harp­er–have both de­cid­ed against at­tend­ing the Com­mon­wealth sum­mit, which is be­ing held from Fri­day to Sun­day, to draw at­ten­tion to the host na­tion's hu­man rights record, ac­cord­ing to an AP re­port last Sun­day.Singh wrote to Sri Lankan Pres­i­dent Mahin­da Ra­japak­sa ex­press­ing his in­abil­i­ty to at­tend the sum­mit, ac­cord­ing to the AP re­port.

Baldeosingh said the T&T em­bassy in Chi­na is "open for busi­ness" and the gov­ern­ments of the two coun­tries were ex­chang­ing let­ters on the se­lec­tion of an am­bas­sador.