Richard Lord

?Di­rec­tor at the Com­mon­wealth Hu­man Rights Ini­tia­tive Ma­ja Daruwala says the is­sue over the re­pu­di­a­tion of an­ti-hu­man rights re­marks by Gam­bian Pres­i­dent Dr Yahya Ajj Jam­meh is not over. Daruwala said this in prepa­ra­tion for his trip to Port-of-Spain for next week's Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM). But T&T For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon has tak­en a hands-off ap­proach to the is­sue. "We are not go­ing to make a pro­nounce­ment on it. If it comes up at all (at CHOGM) it will be a mat­ter for the heads (of gov­ern­ment) and by con­sen­sus, it will then be re­ferred to the Com­mon­wealth Min­is­ters Ac­tion Group whose re­spon­si­bil­i­ty it is to as­sess vi­o­la­tions of the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the Com­mon­wealth."

Last week, Daruwala wrote to the in­com­ing chair of the Com­mon­wealth, T&T Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, de­mand­ing that he call on the Gam­bian leader to re­pu­di­ate his state­ments, fail­ing which his in­vi­ta­tion to the meet­ing should be with­drawn. On Wednes­day, the T&T For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry is­sued a state­ment say­ing that Jam­meh would not be at­tend­ing the CHOGM and his coun­try's del­e­ga­tion would be led by its for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter, Ous­man Jam­meh. Daruwala, re­spond­ing to an e-mail, said yes­ter­day: "This does not end the mat­ter, there is still a wel­come for the del­e­ga­tion from the coun­try whose head of state has done noth­ing to re­pu­di­ate his wide­ly- pub­li­cised state­ment or de­ny it or try to ex­plain it.

"The state­ment is a clear re­jec­tion of the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples the Com­mon­wealth holds dear," he added. The hu­man rights ac­tivist said this was so de­spite "the urg­ings of civ­il so­ci­ety and se­ri­ous con­cerns voiced by very se­ri­ous peo­ple like the spe­cial rap­por­teurs of the UN and the African Com­mis­sion for Hu­man Rights, which made a joint state­ment against the re­marks." Daruwala said there con­tin­ued to be "si­lence from the Com­mon­wealth, its sec­re­tari­at, its out­go­ing and in­com­ing chairs." The hu­man rights ac­tivist, based in In­dia said: "This would lead many to be­lieve that the Com­mon­wealth does not feel it­self strong enough to de­fend its own dear­est prin­ci­ples."