‘Skipping summit would be counter-productive’:

Australia rejects calls to boycott CHOGM

SYDNEY, Saturday (AFP): Australia has vowed not to boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka despite mounting calls not to attend.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr said it would be counter-productive to skip the summit in Hambantota in November.

“Any suggestion of a boycott would be counter-productive. It would simply isolate the country and render it defiant of international opinion,” he told ABC television late Friday.

“Our challenge is to keep the pressure on to see there are further improvements, especially directed at reconciliation in the North.

“People in the north, they’ve told me they have seen former Tamil Tigers - that is fighters using terrorist means - are now being rehabilitated, being employed, gainfully employed, being reintegrated into that community.”

Earlier this week, former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser joined dozens of other prominent Australians in calling for Canberra to boycott the meeting unless there was significant progress on Sri Lanka’s human rights record.

After nearly four decades of terrorism, Sri Lanka crushed the Tigers in 2009.