Commonwealth wraps up Summit

KAMPALA—Commonwealth leaders called on Pakistan on Sunday to remain engaged with the group as they wrapped up a summit here that saw the suspension of President Pervez Musharraf’s country.
Leaders from the 53-nation federation “called on the government of Pakistan to respond positively to the Commonwealth’s desire to remain engaged and support the return of democratic government and the rule of law.”
They endorsed Thursday’s decision by Commonwealth foreign ministers to suspend Pakistan after Musharraf failed within a 10-day deadline to end emergency law despite progress in other areas, a final communique said.
Leaders from the Commonwealth, a body representing nearly a third of the world’s population, also called for global trade talks to be concluded swiftly and endorsed a statement made Saturday to be sent to next month’s climate change conference in Bali, the communique said.
It was the second time Pakistan has been suspended from the Commonwealth, with the first in 1999 when President Pervez Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup d’etat. It returned to the fold in 2004.
Musharraf declared a state of emergency on November 3, placing the chief justice under house arrest, detaining lawyers, rights activists and opposition members and curbing press freedoms.
An ultimatum issued on November 12 by the group of mostly former British colonies for Musharraf to repeal measures it described as being in violation of the organisation’s core political values expired Thursday evening.
In the days beforehand Musharraf performed some measures appearing to go in the direction of allaying the Commonwealth’s concerns, such as releasing some 3,400 prisoners including opposition leader Imran Khan.
A compliant supreme court also confirmed his victory in a poll last month and he now has until December 1 to swear himself in as a civilian president. He has vowed to quit as army chief before then.
But despite misgivings from Commonwealth members Sri Lanka and Malaysia, foreign ministers decided that Musharraf had not done enough and suspension followed.
Islamabad called the suspension “unreasonable and unjustified” and threatened to pull out from the organisation, as Zimbabwe has done. Once the Commonwealth summit opened though, leaders shifted their focus to the fight against climate change.
The Commonwealth represents two billion people, nearly a third of the global total, drawn from the broadest range of religions and cultures, from the world’s smallest countries to its largest and its poorest to its richest.
It also encompasses some of the biggest villains and victims of climate change, from major polluter Australia — whose outgoing government refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on reducing emissions — to Tuvalu.
This Pacific Ocean island group, the second lowest nation in the world and home to 10,000 people, could disappear for ever under the waves if melting ice gaps and glaciers cause sea levels to rise.
The summit comes just ahead of next month’s climate change conference in Bali where nations will attempt to thrash out a successor to Kyoto when it expires in 2012.
Some Commonwealth nations, led by Britain, pushed for the summit to send a recommendation that that binding emissions cuts be agreed in the Indonesian resort. But others, reportedly led by Canada and Australia — at least under the outgoing government — oppose binding cuts if they fail to include all countries, most notably economic powerhouse China.
The result was no recommendation of binding cuts and in its place a climate change “action plan” trumpeted by Secretary General Don McKinnon as a “very strong political statement.” The action plan called for a deal in Bali which “should include a long-term aspirational goal for emissions reduction to which all countries would contribute”.