Uganda: ready for Commonwealth; The Commonwealth holds its biennial heads of government meeting in Kampala, Uganda, from 23-25 November. Tom Mbakwe and Derek Ingram (an executive committee member of the Commonwealth's Human Rights Initiative), have looked through their crystal balls and seen some tough issues lying in wait for the Kampala meeting.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the highest decision-making body of the 53-member club of mainly former British colonies, is held every two years and brings together Commonwealth leaders to discuss global and Commonwealth issues, and to agree upon collective policies and initiatives.

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CHOGM has an eventful history. Its first meetings, which started in 1887, were known as Colonial Conferences. These were replaced in 1911 by Imperial Conferences which were held regularly until 1937.

In 1944, the meetings became the British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations Prime Ministers Meetings and were held almost annually in London. But with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, and their inclusion in the Commonwealth, the subsequent meeting became known as the Commonwealth of Nations Prime Ministers Meeting. The words "British" and "Empire" were permanently dropped.

In 1971, in Singapore, the term Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) was adopted to encompass presidents, prime ministers and monarchs. Since then, CHOGMs have taken place on a biennial basis.

Of the 53 member countries, 18 are African, including Cameroon and Mozambique which are not technically former British colonies. The other African members are: Botswana, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Zimbabwe used to be a member, but it withdrew its membership in 2003 in protest against the non-lifting of its suspension two years earlier, on account of the political troubles in the country.

As CHOGM brings together leaders sharing a common language--English--the breakdown of communication barriers means that exchange of views can be frank and honest, especially at the Executive Retreat which gives the prime ministers and presidents an informal environment to trash out thorny issues. Member states--regardless of size, population and financial contributions--have an equal say and vote, at least on paper. In reality, however, the "White Commonwealth" comprising Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, by virtue of their financial clout and global political muscle, have been dominant and sometimes unduly influenced decisions to their individual or collective advantage. CHOGM decisions and initiatives, again on paper, are only taken by consensus but in recent years, especially under the secretary-generalship of Don McKinnon, certain critical decisions, particularly on Zimbabwe, have not always been taken by consensus, to the chagrin of some African member countries.

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As the popular belief goes, the Commonwealth is about human rights and democracy or it is about nothing. Human rights problems abound in the 53 member countries, but it would be wrong to conclude that Commonwealth countries have a poor record by comparison with non-Commonwealth countries. On the contrary, if analysed region by region, Commonwealth countries come out rather better.

Nonetheless, the Kampala CHOGM is likely to be one of the most difficult for many years. Among the major issues that will confront the leaders are the situations in Pakistan, Fiji and Bangladesh, but to these must be added the Maldives, The Gambia and Sri Lanka as well as unsettling recent developments in parts of the Pacific such as Solomon Islands, Tonga and Papua New Guinea. Each poses human rights problems, and challenges the basic principles laid down and accepted by all member states in the Singapore Declaration of Commonwealth Principles of 1971, the Harare Declaration of 1991, and the Millbrook Action Programme of 1995.

Of special concern must be the position of the host country, Uganda, whose president, Yoweri Museveni, will chair the meeting and then automatically become chairperson-in-office of the Commonwealth until the next CHOGM is held in Trinidad in 2009.

When Museveni was sworn in as president in 1986 after years of turmoil in Uganda, he said: "The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power."

That was 21 years ago and he is still president. Uganda's 1995 constitution prescribed two-term limits for the presidency, but in 2003 Museveni's ruling party (the NRM) scrapped that and last year he won an election which, as Commonwealth observers pointed out, was flawed, partly because of legal harassment during the campaign of the opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, and his Forum for Democratic Change candidates.

In a speech during his visit to Uganda in June, the outgoing Commonwealth secretary-general, Don McKinnon, boldly warned that unless the situation changed, one question bound to be fired at him when CHOGM took place in November would be: "Where stands the case against Kizza Besigye, and the need to separate politics from justice?"

McKinnon also asked whether the truce with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which waged a bitter insurgency for years in northern Uganda, was holding, and "what sort of justice, if any, is due to Joseph Kony", its leader.

McKinnon, a former deputy prime minister of New Zealand (1990-1996) who also served as his country's foreign minister (1990-1999) before assuming the Commonwealth post, was obviously not satisfied with what Museveni had told him privately about these matters. Two years ago, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Kony and three of his commanders for the shocking atrocities committed by his fighters. The peace deal between Museveni's government and the LRA has been blocked for months by the ICC's demand for Kony to be handed over. The decision to hold CHOGM 2007 in Uganda was made at the Abuja CHOGM (Nigeria) in 2003. Four years later, it has turned out to be an uncomfortable venue. Recent practice has been for the CHOGM chairman to become, for the following two years, chair of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), the watchdog body of foreign ministers which monitors human rights and democratic breaches by member countries. What will CMAG say (and do) about Uganda, its chairman for the next two years?

Aside from this embarrassment, CHOGM 2007 will find itself confronted with the even greater challenge of Zimbabwe. Although that country is not now a member of the Commonwealth, having withdrawn its membership at the end of the Abuja CHOGM, pressure has been growing from civil society for the Commonwealth to help bring back Zimbabwe into the fold, in order to talk about the problems in the country, including human rights.

Feeling is strong that after Zimbabwe walked out in 2003, the Commonwealth seemed to wash its hands of the problem. Officially, the Commonwealth cannot get itself involved in the affairs of non-members and Zimbabwe will not be on the official agenda of the executive sessions of CHOGM 2007. But Zimbabwe will certainly be discussed at the Executive Retreat where the Commonwealth leaders are free to raise informally whatever they like, and at the civil society forums held alongside CHOGM. Whatever the official attempts to downplay the subject, Zimbabwe will figure prominently in the media coverage leading up to the Kampala meeting.

In the last few months a major initiative on Zimbabwe has been prepared as a result of a consultation convened by the Royal Commonwealth Society in London and attended by more than 100 delegates who included British MPs, representatives from many civil society organisations, the media, Commonwealth governments, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and Commonwealth Foundation as well as many Zimbabweans.

Their recommendations and plan for action will be discussed in Kampala during and around CHOGM 2007, and certainly at the Human Rights Forum.

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Over the years, the Commonwealth has been confronted by many dire events--in Abacha's Nigeria, Amin's Uganda, apartheid South Africa, Zia's Pakistan, Speight's Fiji and of course Ian Smith's Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

All that said, the issue posed by the fast-moving situation in Pakistan could be one of the most difficult that CHOGM 2007 has had to face. Since independence in 1947, Pakistan's relationship with the Commonwealth has been chequered. The country was abruptly taken out of membership by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1972 and remained outside for 17 years. His daughter, Benazir, brought it back in 1989 after she became prime minister, but the return of military rule in 1999 led to its being suspended.

However, under pressure from Washington and London, the Commonwealth restored Pakistan to full membership in May 2004, albeit prematurely, on the understanding that President Pervez Musharraf would step down as head of the army at the end of the year. That did not happen.

The Commonwealth holds the firm view that a country can only be seen as truly democratic if the roles of head of state and head of the army are separately held.

Despite this, the suspension has not been re-imposed. Pressure within the Commonwealth for the lifting of the suspension came from the West, notably from the UK and Australia, because Musharraf is seen as a vital ally in the so-called war on terror and the struggle against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan. A presidential election is due in Pakistan only weeks before the Kampala CHOGM. The situation in Bangladesh also poses CHOGM with a conundrum. The delay of the election there for a year and rule by civil servants supported by the army has created a unique situation. Bangladesh is a country without ministers. Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, the foreign affairs adviser, effectively the foreign minister, will represent Bangladesh at CHOGM 2007.

Under the Millbrook rules, a country which overthrows an elected leader faces suspension, but Prime Minister Khaleda Zia was not actually ousted. She stepped aside as per the constitution and the country came under a caretaker government pending the imminent election. At that point, therefore, no elected government was in office. However, the country is now virtually under military rule and 100,000 people are reported to be under arrest. Suspension by the Commonwealth is becoming a real possibility.

New secretary general

Kampala will also see the election of a successor to Secretary-General McKinnon, who is finishing his second four-year term. Not many people, including Commonwealth staff members, will miss McKinnon though.

As New African reported last year, McKinnon's rule at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London was punctuated with controversial decisions on some member states and some of his own staff (especially the non-white staff), resulting in what some staff members have described as "a climate of fear and intimidation" at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

The battle to succeed him now looks like a straight fight between the foreign minister of Malta, Michael Frendo, and the Indian high commissioner to the UK, Kamalesh Sharma. A third candidate is Mohan Kaul, director-general of the Commonwealth Business Council. Malaysia nominated its culture, arts and heritage minister, Dr Raid Yatim, but within weeks he withdrew, apparently without even informing his own prime minister, Abdullah Badawi.

The election of secretary-general is carried out at CHOGM and is personally supervised by its chairman who counts and announces the result. Each head of government has one vote in a straight first-past-the-post contest. If Sharma is elected, he will be the fifth secretary-general since the Commonwealth Secretariat was set up in 1965 (as a brainchild of Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah), and Sharma would be the first to come from Asia.