KAMPALA, Nov 23: The Commonwealth defended its decision to suspend Pakistan on Friday as leaders from the 53-nation grouping opened a summit in Uganda and shifted the focus to climate change and other issues.

“In these circumstances, you can be assured that every country that has been suspended will say that we didn’t understand the unique circumstances that prevailed in their country at the time,” Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon said. “We think we did.”

An ultimatum set by the Commonwealth this month for President Gen Pervez Musharraf to step down as army chief, free judges and opposition supporters, and lift media curbs expired on Thursday.

Mr McKinnon said there had been differences within the nine-country ministerial committee that decided to suspend Pakistan, notably objections from Sri Lanka, but stressed the move was the result of consensus.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse expressed “strong objections” to the move, his office in Colombo said, while diplomatic sources said that Malaysia was also opposed.

Other leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown praised the move.

Human Rights Watch hoped the Commonwealth would follow it up by taking on a more active role in international diplomacy, spokesman Reed Brandy told AFP.

Gen Musharraf’s coup in 1999 had already earned Pakistan a Commonwealth suspension. It was brought back in the fold in 2004 when the general promised to hang up his uniform, a promise he failed to keep.

The last countries to be suspended were Fiji last year and Zimbabwe in 2002.

Gathered in a retreat just outside Kampala, presidents and prime ministers from most of the Commonwealth’s 53 members meanwhile began discussing efforts to combat climate change.

Officials emphasised the urgency of the issue and the need to step up cooperation between member states.

Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, the group’s chairman, said that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by at least 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Among the major polluting countries at the gathering are Britain, Canada — and Australia, the latter one of few rich nations not to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gases.

But Commonwealth members in front line of climate change’s effects include the Maldives and Kiribati, a Pacific island group in acute danger of being washed away by rising sea levels.—AFP