Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma’s CHOGM diary

This is a CHOGM of hotel-hopping. Journeying from one to another invariably involves another circuit of the beautiful Savannah, which has earned a reputation as the world’s largest roundabout. Having done three circuits on Sunday in an attempt to find the CNMG TV studio, I am getting to know every bench on its periphery. So, from the Hyatt Hotel, today we adjourned to the Hilton for two days of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers Meetings.

The morning saw a meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Advisory Group, the body of nine rotating Foreign Ministers charged with responding to ‘serious or persistent violations’ of our most treasured values. CMAG itself was the product of a CHOGM – the day after it was created in Auckland in 1995, Ken Saro Wiwa was executed in Ogoniland, and General Sani Abacha received a message that afternoon to say that Heads had suspended Nigeria, forthwith. Nelson Mandela said that the General was "sitting on a volcano, and I am going to explode it under him".

CMAG has been bubbling – if not always exploding – ever since. Six more countries have been on its agenda: Fiji, Pakistan, Solomon Islands, Zimbabwe, The Gambia, Sierra Leone. Four of those were returned to us: whenever we have censured, we have offered the helping hand to return a country not merely to our fold, but to the ways of democracy. Zimbabwe was suspended in the wake of damning Commonwealth reports on the elections of 2000 and 2002, and chose to walk away – a disappointment for diplomacy, undoubtedly, but a vindication of values: the country was unable to espouse the Commonwealth values to which it had agreed in 1991 in … Harare.

Fiji was suspended in September (see yesterday’s entry), and part of our debate today focused on whether it should be allowed to participate in the Commonwealth Games. There is precedent that it shouldn’t: Nigeria itself was barred from the Kuala Lumpur Games of 1998. This is no matter of politics intruding into sport – it is about the values we espouse not intruding into, but actively informing, everything that we do, including sport. CMAG is central to our work in upholding our values. But that quest is ongoing, and it is my hope and belief that Heads will look again at the issue of values this week, and give us ways and means of looking further – not just into the unconstitutional overthrow of governments, but into other transgressions, of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

From the CMAG of nine, to a plenary session representing our full membership of Foreign Ministers. This meeting is in only its third incarnation, having been introduced in Malta in 2005. It is a chance for Foreign Ministers to remove some of the loads from Heads at CHOGM, and also to pave the way for them, by pre-negotiating as much of the Communique as they can. As an executive plenary, there is an unholy procession of officials in and out of the meeting – and much passing of slips of paper, whisperings into ears, and now – even for someone of my generation – the scrolling of Blackberrys.

But good debate was had. Ministers steered curiously clear of my summary of political affairs in the Commonwealth (that, perhaps, can wait for Heads tomorrow), but they leapt at the chance to discuss the economic state of the world. Whatever talk we hear of ‘green shoots’ of recovery, the paddocks are still parched in most of the developing Commonwealth, where no green shoots appear. Sitting in my office in London, many are the times when a fax has whirred into our consciousness from the other side of the world, with a strong plea for Commonwealth help. Small states naturally turn to us in their hour of need, and even if we can ‘only’ provide technical advice, we do so. Some of that advice can be transformative – this year, we have helped fourteen of our members claim another two million square miles of seabed, and with it, all the economic potential of fishing revenues and their attendant benefits.

So we heard heated debate in today’s meeting. We received presentations, too. The Commonwealth Business, Youth and People’s Forums presented their findings, and their communiqués. And I could only admire the Commonwealth of Learning – one of our three inter-governmental bodies, based in Vancouver, running distance learning educational and vocational programmes – which gave each individual member state updated information on its work in their own country. There is a powerful message here, that fine words and global concepts have their limits. We are an organization which brings benefits ‘on the ground’ – our challenge is to communicate that much better.

This was one of the findings of a report by the Royal Commonwealth Society, announced this afternoon at a press conference, called Common What? In its authors’ words, it is unashamedly provocative, and makes difficult reading. One of its arguments is that not nearly enough people know us, beyond the emblematic Commonwealth Games, and The Queen. To which I say that not nearly enough people know the work of any international organisation. But to which I also say that, as an organization of peoples and of representative democracies, we should be known, and understood. For there is much to appreciate. The report also questioned our willingness to take action when our values are violated: I refer again to this morning’s CMAG meeting, and the prospect of what might come out of the CHOGM, in strengthening the way we react. It also asked whether we spread ourselves too thinly, and with so small a budget (‘barely enough to fund a Premiership footballer’, I enjoyed reading in the press today….), the point is well made. But it ignores the fact that whenever we do address a subject, the size of our network means that we can bring together like minds, and that they will happily share each others’ best ideas. So I welcome the report, which says that it wants the Commonwealth to ‘be bold, and capture peoples’ imagination’. The proof of the pudding on this report might be in two years time, when we see how we have reacted. But there is enough of urgency on the table here in Port of Spain, right now, for us to be bold this very week. I hope we will be so.