Hugo Swire's unwelcome remarks created disharmony

by Ranil Wijayapala

The Chairman of the Commonwealth People's Forum Dr. Lalith Chandradasa told the Sunday Observer that the unwelcome remarks by Hugo Swire, the British Minister of State, Foreign Office and Commonwealth and Minister for Sri Lanka and Maldives created a lot of disharmony between civil society organisations and the government.

He said the British Minister of State Hugo Swire gatecrashed the concluding ceremony of the Commonwealth People's Forum at Chaaya Traz, Hikkaduwa and made remarks on Sri Lanka and the Maldives against the Commonwealth principles of not having country specific discussions."He suddenly rushed into the closing session and made a statement against Sri Lanka and the Maldives", he said.

"This was not in keeping with our principle of not having country specific discussions. This created a lot of disharmony mostly for Sri Lankan civil organisations as they are trying to build better relations with the government," he said.

"He gatecrashed and made very bad remarks about Sri Lanka and the Maldives and now both governments feel that we purposely provided a forum to attack these governments. This is totally untrue and we never talked about country specifics", Dr. Chandradasa said.

"He created a big problem for use specially our relations with the Sri Lankan Ministers who think that we purposely did so and are now having a strained relationship", he said.

The unwelcome move by the British Minister of State deprived them of the chance for civil society organisations to have a meeting with the Cabinet Ministers too.