The Guardian reports:
Commonwealth leaders have been accused of behaving disgracefullly after they declined to publish an "Eminent Persons Group" (EPG) reportcalling for the 54-nation body to improve its handling of human rights.
The atmosphere at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) soured on Saturday when leaders were warned that this year's summit would be remembered as a failure.
Tempers rose after Commonwealth leaders bowed to pressure from South Africa and Namibia and declined to publish the EPG report, which proposes the creation of a new commissioner on the rule of law, democracy and human rights.
The southern African nations, whose concerns were shared by India, feared what one Commonwealth source described as the "imperial overtones" in the report's 106 recommendations. The commissioner would be given a mandate to speak out on human rights, unlike the secretary general of the Commonwealth who can only condemn abuses with the approval of foreign ministers.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the British member of the group, described the refusal of the leaders to publish the report as a "disgrace". The former foreign secretary, whose group decided to publish the report on its own, told a press conference in Perth: "The Commonwealth faces a very significant problem. It's not a problem of hostility or antagonism, it's more of a problem of indifference. Its purpose is being questioned, its relevance is being questioned and part of that is because its commitment to enforce the values for which it stands is becoming ambiguous in the eyes of many member states.
"The Commonwealth is not a private club of the governments or the secretariat. It belongs to the people of the Commonwealth..."
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