Lanka's development since 2009, reconciliation impressive -CPA Sec Gen

By Uditha KUMARASINGHE

Dr.William F. Shija is the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).

He was a member of the National Assembly of Tanzania from 1990 to 2005. During that time he held the positions of Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Minister for Energy and Minerals and Minister for Industries and Trade.

He was a member of the Pan-African Parliament in 2004 and 2005 and chaired the Committee on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources.

Dr.Shija was appointed first African Secretary-General of the CPA on September 9, 2006 and took up the position on January 1, 2007. Before entering politics, he has worked as a civil servant and a teacher. After receiving higher education in India and the United States, he taught communications in Tanzania.

Secretary General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Dr. William F.Shija in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Observer, soon after the closing ceremony of the 58th sessions of the CPA conference in Colombo said Sri Lanka's post- conflict development and the path of reconciliation are very positive and impressive. He said having been among the group that went to Jaffna on Thursday with Commonwealth delegates, what he saw was really a country which is in a hurry to rehabilitate, to build unity to ensure that development goals are reached.

Dr.Shija said what the CPA delegation witnessed in the North was reconstruction of roads, rehabilitation of hospitals, promotion of agriculture through advanced seed technology and housing construction that is going on which is being promoted by the Government. All these activities and development projects are not solely carried out by the Government, but everybody is involved.

”I was fascinated that even military personnel are involved in assisting these activities and developments in Sri Lanka”, he said and added that the CPA appreciates and encourages Sri Lankans and the Government; that after 60 years of independence they need to be united and work together for the benefit of all.

The CPA Secretary General said that he believes the 58th session of the CPA conference has been a curtain-raiser, instructive and providing basic information, as to what will happen at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which will be held in Sri Lanka next year.

Q: How do you view the conclusion of the 58th session of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association(CPA) conference?

A: I think the end of the 58th CPA conference has been excellent. I am delighted that all the delegates had the discipline and willingness to continue to discuss issues to the very end. I think we finished with a wonderful plenary while delegates considered the impact of social media in modern politics. I am glad they discussed that because many political changes are being influenced by the social media;

We know what happened in the Middle East and North Africa and it's bound to happen in many other areas.

The CPA can point out certain aspects about social media; I am glad our lead discussions on the subject have identified the social media as both positive and negative. It is positive when people communicate fast, but negative when there is a negative impact or efforts that are brought about by social media. That subject is important and we believe that the CPA will continue to discuss such subjects. Another interesting subject was the communication technologies that are happening in the 21st century.

The end of our conference has come up well. I think the members and our delegates, were there all the time, until the end of the last session. I want to thank all of them and ask them to prepare to return to their countries. I want to thank most sincerely the host branch of Sri Lanka for drawing the interest of the members to the discussions until the very end.

Lasting peace

Q:What are your impressions of Sri Lanka as it treads on a path of reconciliation and lasting peace three years after the end of a war against terrorism?

A: It is very positive. I can assure you, having being a member of the group that went to Jaffna on Thursday, what we saw is really a country in a hurry to rehabilitate, to build unity to ensure that development goals are reached. What we saw was reconstruction of roads, rehabilitation of hospitals, promotion of agriculture through advanced seed technology and housing construction that is going on, promoted by the Government. The participants, it appears, in all these activities and development projects is not only the Government, but everybody is involved. I was fascinated that even military personnel are involved in assisting these activities and developments in Sri Lanka. We want to say that we appreciate and encourage all Sri Lankans and the Government; that after 60 years of independence they need to be united and work together for the benefit of all.

Q: What are your plans and actions to make the Commonwealth more vibrant, a bigger voice in world affairs?

A: Communication and modernisation. We believe that the steps we are taking will make the CPA a more modern organisation. We are taking a number of steps.

A number of recommendations was accepted by the General Assembly after being discussed by the working party and examined by the Executive Committee and they have been approved by the General Assembly. We need to begin our implementation step by step to modernise the organization.

Actually, the modernisation has to do with making ourselves better known by members participating in various programs and also to show that we communicate with other bodies that are there, strengthening Parliamentary systems in the world. We already have many partners, but we need to continue to increase our partnership and have various activities that are necessary for our parliamentarians and our parliamentary staff.

Diverse cultures

Q: Given that the Commonwealth has 54 member countries with diverse cultures, what are your plans and ideas to increase people -to-people contact within the Commonwealth?

A: Actually, we already do that; we have a number of exchange visits including cultural exchanges through our programs, international visits, training and also through CPA conferences as you saw in Sri Lanka.

The number of cultures and sub-cultures that were in Colombo for the 58th CPA conference is an indication. That is really a window for our members to interact cross-culturally and also to exchange the knowledge that they always have in parliaments in their countries. So we are going to adopt more exchanges in the future and we believe it is going to continue to be a useful activity in terms of how our members exchange information.

Q: The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) will be held in Colombo next year. What kind of input would you get from this gathering next year?

A: I think it would be very instructive, our CPA conference has been held this year as a curtain-raiser to the CHOGM next year. I believe that our success is going to be used in terms of knowing what can be done and what could be improved for the CHOGM next year.

I am glad that the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Dr.Kamalesh Sharma was invited to our conference. He came to Colombo and travelled to Jaffna as well.

He has been made aware of the various conference facilities that are here in Colombo. So I believe our conference has been a curtain-raiser, instructive and providing basic information as to what will happen at the CHOGM next year.

Q: What is the prominence given to youth by the Commonwealth as they are the future of the Commonwealth?

A: Now we have started definite programs of enabling the youth to participate in our conference. We had the President of the Commonwealth Youth Parliament speaking at our plenary session to indicate that we are using the youth in terms of movement for parliamentary activities.

In our branches and regions, we have Youth Parliaments that are held every year, particularly around the Commonwealth Day which comes around March.

So we are doing everything to put out information that is going to be useful for youth to learn about parliamentary democracy, so that when they assume leadership of parliament and also if they want to become members of parliament, they are likely to benefit from what they have learnt.

That’s really our connection between what we do traditionally and what we do for the benefit of future generations.