The Commonwealth

Unlike UN bodies, the Commonwealth and its Secretariat do not have the same high profile in Sri Lanka or in any other country. That should not mean that the Commonwealth is an unimportant organization. The Commonwealth has its value in many fields, specially in promoting informal negotiations and contacts and in technical assistance. There are many similarities and connections among Commonwealth countries, largely in the fields of administration and governance and in education, and therefore important opportunities for closer interaction.

I have always thought of the Commonwealth as a useful institution and that Sri Lanka has the opportunity to make use of it more. Until the early 1970s, Commonwealth affairs were largely dealt with by the Foreign Ministry, and its technical assistance work was handled by the External Resources Division of the Planning Ministry. In the 1970s, however, there was an increasingly economic dimension to the work of the Commonwealth Secretariat and as a result I was drawn to it as Director of Economic Affairs of the Ministry of Planning.

My main engagement with the Commonwealth came through my participation at two Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGMs), the first one at Kingston Jamaica in May 1975 and the next one in London in June 1977. The CHOGM is a very unusual inter-governmental meeting. There were about 40 members of the Commonwealth at the time, and unlike other international gatherings, it is largely informal. The meeting is conducted in one language, English, and there are no translations and interpretations. That alone leads to a sense of informality.

The host country chairs the meeting, and although the meetings can be tense, there is no acrimony. The Heads of Governments meet round a table (at least those days), and only two officials were allowed at any one time to sit behind each Head of Government. There was opportunity for frank exchanges and across the table interventions and set piece speeches were rare. At the two CHOGMs I attended there were crowded agendas.

The Kingston meeting I attended with the Prime Minister Mrs. Bandaranaike, was fascinating. The Sri Lankan delegation consisted of, apart from the Prime Minister, Tissa Wijayaratna, Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, N. Balasubramaniam, a Director at the Foreign Office, Dhanapala Samarasekara of the Foreign Ministry, Sunethra Bandaranaike, the PM’s Coordinating Secretary, Dr. Mackie Ratwatte, the PM’s Private Secretary and myself We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in Kingston.

When we got to the hotel, we found that only four members, apart from the Prime Minister could stay as guests of the Jamaican Government. Other members of the delegation had to pay. Mrs. Bandaranaike was particular about the expenses of her visits abroad. She had a great sense of financial rectitude and accountability to Parliament. She told me and Balasubramaniam to share a room at the Sheraton so that the expenses will be low. I told the PM that I would prefer to go to another hotel close by which was cheaper. She said that it was not satisfactory as we have to be close to her. So I had to share a room with Balasubramaniam. I relate this story to illustrate Mrs. Bandaranaike’s frugality with public money. This is unimaginable nowadays.

As I said before, only two members of the delegation could sit behind the Prime Minister at any one time. I was the only one dealing with economic affairs, and as economic issues took up a lot of the time, I was inside the meeting room for most of the time. We were there for ten days, and during that time, the informality was such that you get to know other heads of government, during tea breaks and at other times. Talking of informality let me relate a few stories.

Pierre Trudeau Prime Minister of Canada was at the meeting, and he was in his prime. He had married a beauty, and they had come with their little child, and they were the great attraction in Kingston. That little child was Justin, now the Prime Minister of Canada. I met Trudeau many times during the Conference and became a nodding acquaintance. He was one of the most charming of Prime Ministers. He was friendly with Mrs. Bandaranaike, as he had visited Sri Lanka in 1973 and had been her guest.

I remember him in Colombo on that visit as I had to be present when Prime Minister Trudeau addressed a press conference at Temple Trees. Trudeau had told Mrs. Bandaranaike that he wished to meet a Sri Lankan astrologer and Mrs. Bandaranaike recommended one of them. Trudeau at that time was aged 49 and was not married. The astrologer told Trudeau that he will be married within the year and that prediction had come true. So when Trudeau met Mrs. Bandaranaike in Kingston, this matter of Sri Lankan astrology was referred to.

There was Mrs. Indira Gandhi, staying at the same Hotel Sheraton and we met many times informally. She left the Conference early, as her friend, Sarojini Naidu’s daughter had passed away. The others who were there were Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, General Gowon of Nigeria, Gough Whitlam of Australia, Wallace Rowling of New Zealand, and others.

There was also Mujibur Rahman from newly created Bangladesh. He was nurturing a strong grievance against Sri Lanka and Mrs. Bandaranaike, and he was not at all friendly. Sri Lanka had provided landing facilities to Pakistani aircraft on their way to East Bengal during the uprising and breakup from Pakistan. He was there with his young son of ten years, both to be assassinated within the next three or four months in a Bangladeshi coup.

The Foreign Minister, Kamal Hossain, whom we knew was also unfriendly, although he was to be friendly with me later on when he ran a development institute at Oxford. He and his wife visited us in Geneva years later. Michael Manley, the Prime Minister of Jamaica chaired the Conference with great panache and skill.

At the meeting itself, the main agenda item was the proposal for a new scheme for stabilization of primary commodity prices submitted by Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister. This was at the time of North South tensions, and Harold Wilson was offering an alternative scheme to that of UNCTAD. In presenting this proposal, Harold Wilson took some time over it.

The CHOGM was meeting just the same week that the Vietnam war was ending and US forces were fleeing Vietnam. This had rattled the Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and he made a long and rambling presentation (unlike his usual precise self) on the dangers of what is happening in South East Asia. When Harold Wilson made his proposal, Lee Kuan Yew at the end of Wilson’s speech, shouted at Wilson and said that if this kind of presentation from a prepared text was to be the pattern that will be the end of informal discussions at CHOGMs.

Wilson hit back and said that he had listened to a rambling, illogical speech from Harry (meaning Lee Kuan Yew) and that was tolerated. I saw them later shaking hands at the tea interval. The Vietnam war was a subject of discussion at the meeting, and there was a sharp exhange of views between Lee Kuan Yew and Mrs. Gandhi.

Sri Lanka had one matter of substantive interest at the meeting. We had presented a paper on the Brain Drain, following on our own report In Sri Lanka on the subject. We proposed that there can be reciprocal arrangements among Commonwealth countries. Briefly what we said was that the developed countries could contribute to the building of technical educational capacities in those countries which are losing skills, so that there are extra capacities to allow for an outflow. This triggered a valuable discussion on the brain drain but there were no firm decisions.

There was another issue where Mrs. Bandaranaike wanted me to brief her in Kingston. Harold Wilson had proposed that the subject of machinery of government be taken up for discussion at the traditional weekend retreat for heads of government. No officials are present on these occasions. Mrs. Bandaranaike wanted to take up the subject of Cabinet proceedings and cabinet agendas, where relatively minor issues are discussed, and large long term issues are neglected. She wanted to open up a discussion on the framing of cabinet agendas and cabinet committees. I briefed her and she told me later that there was a lively discussion.

An important issue at the CHOGM was the election of a new Secretary General for the Commonwealth. Arnold Smith of Canada was the first and the only SG so far, and he was there in Kingston for his last meeting. He had done a great job in building up the Secretariat. The new candidate was Sridath Ramphal from Guyana. He was the Attorney General and Foreign Minister of Guyana. The Caribbean countries were pushing for him. There was no contest and he was selected to be the SG which he held for the next 15 years.

This was far too long, and later, the CHOGM decided to restrict the tenure of an SG to two terms totalling eight years. Shridath Ramphal, unlike Arnold Smith, was a politician and a flamboyant personality whose view of the Secretariat was in contrast to his predecessor. He was a more activist Secretary General and saw his role as an equal to other heads of government.

Another matter was the appointment of a Committee of Experts to examine the current state of international economic relations from a North South perspective. This arose directly from the discussions on Harold Wilson’s paper on international trade in commodities. The Commonwealth had both developing and developed countries and it was felt that a consensual position could be developed within it, so that the North-South tensions in UN forums could be reduced.

Aliste McIntyre, Head of the Caricom Secretariat and an academic was appointed to head the Committee. They produced a very useful report. Alister was later to be deputy secretary general of UNCTAD during the days of Gamani Corea, and after his retirement he was knighted. When we were in Geneva, he was also there and we became family friends, also working together in UNCTAD.

When I lost my job in Colombo in late 1977, Alister had recommended me to Sridath Ramphal to be the Director of Economic Affairs at the Commonwealth Secretariat, but that could not materialize, as the Government of Sri Lanka was not in favour of my appointment.

Daniel Arap Moi, Vice President Kenya was there acting for Jomo Kenyatta. At that time, Sri Lanka had made a proposal, within the framework of tea negotiations, to establish an Organization of Tea Exporting Countries (OTEC). This was a proposal I had suggested to the Prime Minister and she was glad to pursue it. The objective was to take the tea negotiations out of FAO’s control, so that tea exporters can generate more goodwill and better and more innovative ideas.

Kenya had not been helpful with regard to this proposal. So I thought that an intervention by Mrs. Bandaranaike might help. At a tea break, during the conference, I suggested to Mrs. Bandaranaike that she has a word with Arap Moi. It was all very cordial and he promised to see what he can do. The next thing I heard about it was when our high commissioner in Nairobi, Kenya (W.T Wijekulasuriya, former Mayor of Galle) sent us a press cutting of a speech by Arap Moi in the Kenyan highlands where tea was grown. Arap Moi had said that the Sri Lankan Prime Minister had wanted to control the expansion of tea production in Kenya!

Queen Elizabeth 11 as Head of the Commonwealth was present at Kingston, and threw a glittering party to the Commonwealth Heads of Government on board HMS Britannia, anchored in Kingston harbour. Some of us were able to have a look in at the party. I remember Tissa Wijeyaratna being recognized by the Queen’s private secretary, Michael Charteris, whom he had known in his London days and he never forgot to mention it to us repeatedly.

There was a small but active Sri Lankan community in Kingston who felicitated the Prime Minister. Tony and Charmalene (Perera) Bennet were there and Tony, who is a chartered accountant had been in Colombo working with the United Nations and for some time in the Planning Ministry. When discussing cricket, Tony told me that he could take me to meet George Headley, the great West Indian cricketer, known as the “Black Bradman”, who was living in reirement.

So we spent a delightful morning having breakfast with George Headley at his simple residence. George Headley showed me some cricketing artifacts associated with cricketers like Wally Hammond and Nawab of Pataudi, cricketers of his generation. Tony and Charmalene have remained our friends and now they live in England.

The second CHOGM I attended was in London in May 1977.1 was in Geneva, the previous six weeks working with UNCTAD on the non aligned proposal for a Third World Bank when I got a telephone call from Dharmasiri Pieris, Secretary to the Prime Minister, asking me to go to London and assist Felix Dias Bandaranaike who was to lead the Sri Lankan delegation at the CHOGM. Mrs. Bandaranaike, who was to have come to London cancelled her visit, due to the announcement of the General Election in Sri Lanka.

Felix was in London at a clinic recuperating from an eye infection. I met him there and he wanted a few things done.The CHOGM in London was not as interesting and informal as at Kingston. The Heads of Government were more preoccupied and they had other business to conduct in London. We did not stay in the same one or two hotels as in Kingston. James Callaghan, who was the British Prime Minister chaired the meeting and I remember listening to a wide ranging survey of the global economic situation from Denis Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

From Ghana had come the army general who was then the ruler of that country (if I remember right, it was General Acheampong), resplendent in his army uniform. When he returned to Accra from the Summit meeting, he was shot dead at the airport, in a military coup. At this meeting, I renewed my contacts with Moni Malhotra of the Commonwealth Secretariat, who had been Mrs. Gandhi’s private secretary, and who was now with the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Queen Elizabeth, invited the officials, accompanying Heads of Government for a Buckingham Palace party and it was informal. I had a two minute chat with the Queen, and I told her that I had seen her on her 28th birthday in 1954 in then Ceylon. This made her think about her Ceylon visit and she had many questions to ask me. She had confused memories and she was mixing up tea plantations and elephants and the Polonnaruwa rest house.

Apart from CHOGMs, I had other interactions with the Commonwealth. One meeting I remember clearly is the Commonwealth Ministers Meeting on Food Production held in London in 1974. 1 accompanied the Minister Hector Kobbekaduwa and Mahinda Silva, the secretary of the ministry to London. It was a very pleasant visit and working with the minister and his secretary were most enjoyable. It was a roundtable meeting chaired by Judith Hart, the then Minister of Overseas Development in the UK. She was a brilliant chairperson.

We listened to a superb exposition on the problems associated with food and hunger by Michael Liption, from the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex who was advising Judith Hart (Lipton had been a member of the Seers mission to Sri Lanka). The Commonwealth also organized sometime in 1973 a meeting on Tea in London. Most tea exporting countries were in the Commonwealth.

I met Anne Weston, then with the Overseas Development Institute in London who was advising the Kenyan delegation, for the first time. Since that time, Anne has worked with me in many projects in Geneva and London. Anne later became Vice President of the North South Institute in Ottawa.

My association with the Commonwealth over a period of seven years leads me to the conclusion that it can be a very useful body for countries like Sri Lanka, if the opportunities are appropriately identified.

Mrs. Bandaranaike found CHOGMs very useful to her. While officials and even Ministers attend large numbers of conferences and seminars, Heads of Government have very little opportunity to interact personally, and the Commonwealth meetings were in the nature of a seminar or workshop on foreign, political and economic issues for them. For this to happen, CHOGMs have to be informal occasions.

What happened in Colombo in 2014 was a travesty of what a CHOGM experience should be. It is my belief that if we wish to strengthen institutions like the Commonwealth, then we should be actively engaged with them continuously so that we in Sri Lanka can influence and shape events, There is a trend now for institutions (the United Nations, the Commonwealth) to dominate the shaping of agendas and programmes, with little regard to the interest of less influential countries. A few powerful countries have come to dominate these institutions. There is no reason why we cannot reverse this trend.