SYDNEY, March 5: The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) ended in a tiny Australian resort, Coolum, on Tuesday after condemning terrorism and splitting on racial grounds on the issue of Zimbabwe.
The leaders of the Commonwealth also had to defend the relevance and usefulness of the 54-nation group in the modern world.
Questions were also raised by observers how Commonwealth could effectively tackle terrorism without the help of Pakistan.
The organization’s secretary general has revealed that President Musharraf has spoken to a number of Commonwealth leaders the summit.
Although Pakistan remains suspended, but its flag was waved at the opening ceremony as a symbolic gesture of its sporadic relationship with the Commonwealth.
Today, at the end of its deliberations, CHOGM issued a five-page communique, a three-page Coolum Declaration and a 17-page report, submitted by the High Level Review Group that was unanimously adopted by the presidents, prime ministers and senior delegates from 51 attending members of the Commonwealth.
All three documents discussed issues as diverse as terrorism, democratic values, good governance, landmines, debts, climate change and disputes in countries like Cyprus, Belize and Guyana.
But the focus during the four-day meeting and all media attention was on the situation in Zimbabwe.
Though leaders finally agreed on a strategy for tackling the thorny issue of suspension or sanctions against Zimbabwe, the issue left the group bitterly divided on racial lines.
Britain and New Zealand are still critical for not prevailing over the majority for imposing sanctions against Zimbabwe before presidential elections.
Their main supporters were the other two white powers of the groups - Canada and Australia. African countries, led by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, opposed action against Zimbabwe prior to elections.
A compromise was reached on Monday and a three-member committee was appointed to decide on any action against Zimbabwe after monitoring its elections, but deep divisions remain.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair was showing his disappointment openly to the media even after the final deliberations of CHOGM.
“No, I would have wanted us to suspend Zimbabwe now,” he insisted.
New Zealand Prime minister Helen Clark also showed her dissent and disputed the language of the communique that was adopted unanimously.
“We don’t think the expression of concern is strong enough with respect to the Zimbabwe government’s action. The communique reads a little as though everybody is equally responsible for the violence and intimidation. That is not the case,” she said in an interview with ABC Radio.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard says it is wrong to describe differences on the issue as a racial divide, “... it’s not like that, really. I think that is gross distortion,” he said.