Left to right: John Marshall, Harold Briley, Andrew Walker and Tony Paynting at the Correspondents' Unit at Bush House - courtesy Ian Richardson

Derek Ingram, President Emeritus of the CJA:

Think Andrew Walker and one word immediately springs to mind: integrity.  A second quality is not one that can often be applied to broadcasters – he was as a person self-effacing.

As the leading staff journalist reporting Commonwealth affairs day by day in the BBC World Service he was always hugely supportive of the lively journalists organisations that developed in London in the second half of the 20th Century – first the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA), later the Diplomatic and Commonwealth Writers Association (DCWA), and then the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA).

He was for years a member of the CJA’s training committee and helped plan many training programmes for journalists in Commonwealth countries. In the 1970s he published two most readable, practical books on the Commonwealth – the Modern Commonwealth (Longman) and The Commonwealth: a New Look (Permagon) – mainly aimed at the younger generation.

He was always hugely helpful to younger journalists coming on the scene. He was not one of the many who so often argued over the years that the Commonwealth had nothing in common and no wealth. He was, in other words, always a glass half-full person rather than a glass half-empty person. And as a journalist it was usually sensible, constructive Commonwealth words he poured out of the bottle.

Patsy Robertson, Director of the Ramphal Centre:

Andrew Walker belonged to that distinguished body of British journalists  who were entirely supportive of the decolonisation process.  They considered it their duty to understand the problems facing countries as they went through the difficult years of negotiating independence with the various British Secretaries of State who handled this fraught period of transition from Empire to Commonwealth.

Andrew was knowledgeable, thoughtful, kind, courteous, soft-spoken and reliable, in that  one  could share with him unprintable anecdotes about the secret meetings of leaders in the knowledge that he would never betray confidences. He attended every Heads of Government and other Ministerial meetings for two decades, and as the representative of the BBC World Service, when it was widely admired throughout  the world as the premier international broadcasting organisation, he was always a welcome presence at Marlborough House.

The Commonwealth was fortunate that along with Andrew Walker, the Brtiish media took an informed interest in its development.  I recall such distinguished journalists as Reg Steed, Llew Chanter and David Adamson of the Daily Telegraph, John Dickie of the Daily Mail, Patrick Keatley of the Guardian, Michael Leapman and Michael Lake of the Scotsman, John Osman, Christopher Serpell and Richard Kershaw of BBC Radio and TV, John Fisher of Thomson Newspapers, David Williams and Kaye Whiteman of West Africa, JDF Jones and Bridget Bloom of the Financial Times, Roy Lewis of The Times, Andrew Boyd of the Economist, and last but not least the inimitable Seaghan Maynes of Reuters.  There were many others as well, from the Statesman, the Daily Mirror, and the Liverpool Daily Post in Britain, from Canadian papers and news agencies such as Jane Armstrong, as well as many Australian, Nigerian and Indian journalists . I will  go through my archives to find their names and the organisations they represented . They should be recorded and lauded for their work in establishing the Commonwealth’s reputation internationally.

All these journalists believed that the Commonwealth had unique attributes which  could shape the international community and  set standards for civilized behaviour between developed and developing countries.  They attended Prime Ministers Meetings, held in London until 1966 and travelled first  to Lagos, Singapore, Ottawa and Kingston, and in other capitals around the globe.  At that time, the Commonwealth Secretariat  recognised how important these journalists were to its growth and effectiveness and arranged  media receptions so that journalists could have frank conversations with leaders about the issues on the agenda of their biennial meetings.  The establishment of the Diplomatic and Commonwealth Writers Association in 1960 also enabled  Commonwealth visitors to London to meet with and brief this distinguished group of journalists.  These close relations with journalists were the key to the support which the Commonwealth commanded worldwide, during its titanic and successful action to end racism in Southern Africa.

Andrew’s fair and comprehensive reports of Commonwealth activities on the BBC World Service made him a well-respected name from Antigua to Zambia in the Commonwealth.  His retirement from the BBC was a sad occasion and he has been missed by his many Commonwealth admirers.  His death will be mourned by a generation who worked to bring peaceful change to an Empire which had outlived its raison d’etre.

Today (17 May 2012) marks three years since the end of the fighting in Sri Lanka. I would like to mourn the dead but still I do not know how many. Estimates range from seven to 147,000. It is a shocking difference.

How is it possible in this world of satellites, rolling news and internet we have no idea how many human beings really perished, even rounded up to the nearest thousand?

It is because as journalists we have failed to get close to the truth. On one hand the Sri Lankan government says the 2009 war was a magnificent humanitarian rescue operation, while on the other many Tamils say it was a genocide. As reporters it is not enough to quote both extremes without digging a little deeper, but that is what the media reports in 2009 were like, citing army and rebel claims and just adding a proviso that these were unverified because journalists had no access to the war zone.

Perhaps that is why the media dubbed the Sri Lankan conflict “a war without witness”. That is simply not true. There were 60 Catholic priests and nuns, 240 local NGO workers, and Tamil civil servants working for the central government including five doctors. All of them were people who prided themselves on their professional integrity. Not to mention the survivors of this war, many of whom are now traumatised, suicidal, destroyed people, racked with guilt at being alive when so many around them died. Every emaciated person who walked out of those months of hell had a tale of narrowly missing death, of sitting chatting to someone one minute and seeing them dead the next. This is a story that has been largely missed, with the notable exception of Channel 4 news.

There is little knowledge of the horror of those final months of war in a tiny patch of tropical, palm-fringed beach. It was a place where milk powder was more precious than gold, where women cut up their best silk wedding saris to make sandbags and children died hungry while an hour down the road the shops were full of food.

Numbed to the sight of death, families were forced to abandon the corpses of their loved ones as they ran for their lives. A brave doctor who saved thousands of lives is haunted by the memory of the 150 patients he abandoned under a tree on the last day of the war; he can no longer stand the sight of blood and does not want to be a surgeon. It was a place where loving parents discussed suicide with their children, unable to tolerate the agony of dying one by one. A medic saw a baby born with a bullet lodged in his tiny leg, shot while still in the womb. In the makeshift hospitals dying mothers screamed for their babies to give them one last feed – knowing the breast milk would be their last gift of life.

It was not just the indiscriminate government rockets fired from multi-barreled launchers into densely packed civilian refugee camps that caused untold suffering. At night in the bunkers women cursed and ranted against the Tamil Tiger rebels who stole their children. At first it was one child recruited from each family; in the final months they came back for the second and third children.

Parents buried their teenagers underground, hiding them in suffocatingly hot diesel cans with just a pipe to breathe through, hoping to evade the child-catchers. It was bad enough to lose your home and possessions, even worse to have your precious son or daughter taken away to die a pointless death in a jungle trench.

Three years on there is still no clarity about what really happened. The Tigers refused a credible Norwegian surrender plan with international supervision, which would have given amnesty to all but the two top rebels. It would have prevented all the torture, rape and disappearances after the end of the war. But the rebel leadership preferred to hold out for a humanitarian intervention that could have saved them as a political force. As a result they exposed their own people to more bloodshed at the hands of the Sri Lankan army when defeat was already guaranteed. It was an immoral and callous decision and it fed the cycle of revenge, ensuring the continuation of the struggle.

In Libya Colonel Gaddafi took his loyal bodyguards and fought to the death, but Velupillai Prabakharan, leader of the Tamil Tigers, took tens of thousands of exhausted but trusting Tamil civilians with him to the end. There is no public discussion of these choices in the Sri Lankan media, no questioning of what armed struggle really achieved, no acknowledgement of the assassination, extortion and child recruitment by the rebel leaders.

The evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Sri Lankan government has been independently documented by a United Nations inquiry that many journalists do not seem to have read in full.

For a long time the government claimed theirs was a “zero civilian casualty war” – a ridiculous assertion that was never properly challenged. Human rights groups documented more than 30 attacks on makeshift hospitals in six months. It is hard to believe they were all accidental.

Last night at a Frontline Club debate I heard a Sri Lankan MP in charge of reconciliation say the international Red Cross had praised the Sri Lankan army for its restraint. The same Red Cross publicly confirmed its staff had come under fire inside a hospital from positions held by the Sri Lankan military. When the fighting ended, the Red Cross said it had seen a lot of wars, but rarely one where civilians had been so badly affected. They called it an “unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe”.

Many Tamils blame the international community for abandoning them to die. It is true that the United Nations failed utterly in its duty of care. Those aid workers who spoke out were forced to leave the country. Record numbers of journalists were killed and exiled in a deliberate attempt to silence the truth.

But no intrepid journalists smuggled their way into rebel territory as they did in Syria, even though an erratic bus service ran across the front line until mid-January 2009. There were Scottish, Australian and Bangladeshi UN staff who witnessed war crimes at the start of the war, but their stories did not get out at the time. Journalists reported on British politicians wooing the Tamil vote in general elections but they failed to read a Swedish study that found the UK issued more arms-export licenses for Sri Lanka during 2001-2008 than any country in Europe.

At the time 400,000 Tamils were trapped in the war zone in Sri Lanka, international media attention was focused on Gaza where at most an estimated 1,500 died. A UN report now says reports of up to forty thousand civilian deaths in 2009 in Sri Lanka are credible. If that number is correct, then the defeat of the Tamil Tigers was one of the bloodiest conflicts so far this century. Every journalist has heard of Srebrenica. How many have heard of Mullivaikkal where just as many perished?

By Humphrey Hawksley, BBC World Affairs Correspondent and CJA-UK member

The Economics of Killing: How the West fuels war and poverty in the developed world

Wednesday, April 25th 2012 at 6:30 – 8.00pm

By his own admission, Vijay Mehta chose a provocative title for his book The Economics of Killing in which he blames Western democracies for fuelling ‘war and poverty in the developed world’. His meticulous research bolsters his argument, and whether you agree or not, Mehta makes a charge that goes to the heart of modern strategic policy making.

What exactly is this institution known as the military-industrial complex? Is it a force for good, an umbrella of benevolent power that revived Europe after the Second World and has allowed East Asia to flourish. Or has it allowed a few to get very rich, while seeking out wars and exploitation in poorer parts of the world.

The issue is deep and important. In its lively, intelligent debate,  the CJA panel only brushed the surface bringing to light more issues on which many would like to know the answers.

www.humphreyhawksley.com

Read the event notice here.

Hubert Lacroix - Courtesy of CBA

By Will Henley

When faced with a crisis, what makes the media resort to condescending, patronising, cliched and predictable coverage? Why do broadcasters fall into the trap of arriving too late and leaving too early?

These questions were raised at last week’s Commonwealth Broadcasting Association conference in Brisbane by Australian TV news reporter Yalda Hakim, who won plaudits for her coverage of the Libyan conflict from the Tunisian border for SBS world affairs programme Dateline.

“Although for audiences, issues dealing with refugees and internally displaced people in camps can be a turn off, we still have a responsibility to report and understand the source of the problems, even when they are no longer making headlines,” she said.

“It’s easy to zoom in on and show a close-up of a child eating their last bit of breadcrumb, or a stretched out hand reaching for aid, but to actually give them an identity and know why and how they came to be in that situation is a completely different story.”

As Hakim surmised after reporting on frantic scenes of migrant workers clambering for food, shelter and passage home, even the most well-meaning of journalists can be constrained in their attempt to reveal the wider context to a crisis by the perception that it is somewhat superfluous, or even distasteful, to get the fuller picture.

Read more at commonwealthjournalists.org

More information on the CBA Brisbane conference is available here.

“Commonwealth leaders have consistently re-affirmed their commitment to promoting the fundamental values and principles of the association, which include freedom of expression and freedom of the press,” spokesperson Richard Uku said in the statement.

“The challenge is to translate these commitments into action ‒ moving beyond declarations to walking the talk.

“Our priority at the Commonwealth Secretariat is to continue working with member states to assist them to observe what they have agreed to do.

“There cannot be a properly functioning democracy without a free and responsible press.

“We shall continue to support the development of responsible and professional journalism, while at the same time working to ensure that there is a conducive political, legal and economic environment for journalists to operate from.”

Read the full statement here.

Map World Press Freedom Day celebrations with Unesco at unesco-ci.org/foemap/

WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY, May 3, 2012

Violence and censorship are still daily threats for too many journalists, said the President of the Commonwealth Journalists Association in a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

“The Commonwealth Journalists Association unanimously condemns instances of state repression against media reported out of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and some African member states of the Commonwealth,” said Rita Payne, underlining the consensus of a recent CJA conference on Threats to Democracy.

With some Commonwealth countries including India and Pakistan resisting a draft UN Action Plan on Safety of Journalists, the CJA warns that democracy itself is under threat due to constraints on the ability of journalists to operate.

Putting action to words, the CJA has endorsed the Table Mountain Declaration, aimed at abolishing criminal defamation and promoting a free press in Africa.

“Without a free press and freedom of expression, governments can impose bad policy and abuse power with impunity,” Payne said today.

“The result is diminished quality of life. Journalists in these circumstances are not the lucky ones of our profession, but they are among the bravest. We must salute and support them with our best weapon: well-chosen words and determination to stand up for the inalienable rights of journalists everywhere who face violence or persecution for their profession.

Worldwide statistics paint a grim picture of the way journalists are targeted and prevented from doing their job of reporting on government and society:

Monitoring agencies report 179 journalists were imprisoned world-wide last year, up from 145 the previous year.

Another 67 were killed 2011; 17 more so far this year. They were murdered, killed on dangerous assignments or died in crossfire.

Wars and the uprisings of the Arab Spring claimed many journalists in 2011. But even outside of conflict zones some of our Commonwealth colleagues face threatening conditions in their every day work.

Pakistan is rated among the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. South Africa has enacted strict censorship measures that limit reporting of corruption and attempt to control the press. There are others with less-than-perfect performances, and judicial practices which need reform.

The CJA is active in bringing these issues to the world stage. Its efforts are global, with CJA branches in Pakistan, Sarawak, Uganda, Cameroon, India and Britain among those holding educational workshops and awareness-raising events to mark World Press Freedom Day.

“A free press and freedom of speech constitute the strongest pillars of a democracy,” Payne said.

“It is time for all Commonwealth countries to uphold the same values of a civil society. The onus here is on governments. Press freedom and freedom of speech must be protected and promoted.”

Read at CommonwealthJournalists.org

Dr Matsanga ... 'Why do these sanctions remain in place unchanged?'

By Rajasinghe Bandara, CJA-UK member

London-based journalist and lobbyist Dr David Nyekorach-Matsanga has filed an application with the General Court of Justice of the European Union, seeking that the sanctions against Zimbabwe be declared illegal and lifted immediately.

The Uganda-born, now British, Dr Matsanga briefed journalists in central London, hours after filing his application in Brussels on 24 April, criticizing the West and international organizations for not having eased or lifted any sanctions after the Government of National Unity was formed in 2009.

Until 2000, Zimbabwe was known as ‘the breadbasket of Africa’, exporting wheat, tobacco, and corn to the rest of the continent and beyond. Zimbabwe contains the most fertile farmland on the continent and until recently was one of the greatest tourist attractions, home of Victoria Falls, one the seven natural wonders of the world, and numerous game reserves, now nearly emptied by poachers and starving rural people.

Dr Matsanga said: “Because of the Western sanctions against the regime, Zimbabwe cannot sell its precious diamonds; and innocent people of the country are dying from hunger and deadly diseases like cholera. Yet, the minister of health cannot travel abroad to seek help from the world for the people.”  

He continued: “The unity government has the support from the vast majority of people. Despite forming the Unity Government with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, not a single sanction has been removed. Not a single goodwill approach has been given. Africa needs to stand up now. Why these sanctions? Why do they continue to kill people? Why do these sanctions remain in place unchanged?

“It is in the Western interest of regime change. What is the fate of Iraq? What is the fate of Libya? They were wealthy nations; now people have to beg for food, beg for jobs. Unemployed Libyans with arms might go to the Mediterranean Sea as pirates when they do not have food to eat and jobs to do. The West, including Britain, wants to remove President Mugabe from power. But they failed to remove Mugabe.”

He added: “Think of the unity government; President Mugabe’s Zanu-PF represents nearly 51% of the voters and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai’s party, The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) represents 49%. If the West supports democracy why do they still need sanctions? Their ally Morgan Tsvangirai is travelling around the world begging help. He has not been able persuade the West to remove even a single sanction.”

He criticized the West’s sanctions pioneered by the United States as a ‘killing machine of innocent people’ while defending President Mugabe’s political leadership.

In his application to the EU General Court of Justice he has named the EU member states, including Great Britain, France, Germany and Belgium, as dependents. He also named multilateral lending agencies including the International Monitory Fund, World Bank and Africa Development Bank, the UN, and other individual countries such as Norway and Australia.

Dr Matsanga’s application also seeks to have international travel bans against some Zimbabwe officials annulled and for Zimbabwe to be given compensation against economic loss suffered because of sanctions.

To read Dr Matsanga’s full application to the court, visit his web site at http://africaworldmedia.com

Journalists take notes as Charles Taylor listens to the verdict. - Reuters pic

By Trevor Grundy, CJA-UK member

While the conviction of Charles Taylor for aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes brings a measure of justice to the people of Sierra Leone, it is “just the tip of an iceberg,” according to one of the Commonwealth’s best known human rights activists, Brima Abdulai Sheriff. 

In a statement after the trial of the former President of Liberia – a marathon five-year undertaking estimated to have cost in the region of £31 million – the Director of Amnesty International in Sierra Leone said from his offices in Freetown: “There is no doubt that the verdict sends an important message to high-ranking state officials that no matter who you are or what position you hold, you would be brought to justice for crimes you have committed.”

He added: “This verdict can also be seen as a reminder for Taylor’s home country, Liberia, that those responsible for the crimes committed during Liberia’s conflict must be brought to justice.”

The International Criminal Court’s Special Court for Sierra Leone, sitting at The Hague, delivered on 26 April its verdict on Taylor, 64, finding him guilty of arming Sierra Leone’s rebels who paid him in blood diamonds. Sentencing will take place on 16 May this year.

Britain has offered to act as his jailer although his defence team, led by Jamaica-born Courtney Griffiths, is considering an appeal against the verdict.

The former president – a ‘warlord’ largely responsible for the deaths of at least 120,000 lives in Sierra Leone and unknown numbers in his own country – is the first head of state to be convicted of war crimes since the 1945-46 Nuremberg Trials after the Second World War.

Human rights groups have welcomed the guilty verdict with Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch describing the verdict as “an incredibly significant decision.” She said that Charles Taylor had been called to account for the crimes in Sierra Leone. “It is an incredible day for international justice but most of all for victims in Sierra Leone and everywhere else.”

Taylor was accused of backing rebels who killed tens of thousands of completely innocent men, women and children during the 11-year civil war that started in 1991 and ended in 2002  following British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to send 1,000 British soldiers to Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Taylor as rebel leader in 1990. - AFP pic

Taylor was convicted on 11 counts, including terror, murder and rape but cleared of ordering the crimes. Lawyers said his conviction takes war crimes jurisprudence to a new level, establishing the principle that a serving head of state is not immune for prosecution.

During the long Special Court proceedings it was heard how Taylor armed and assisted a bloodthirsty rebel army whose trademark was to amputate the arms and feet of young men, women and children. In return for blood diamonds, Taylor armed Sierra Leonean rebels who terrorised villagers. Tens of thousands of women were raped, thousands of children were turned into ‘soldiers,’ at least 10,000 people suffered amputations, around 120,000 killed and over two million made homeless.

The Special Court is the first international criminal tribunal to be funded from entirely voluntary contributions from governments. It received contributions in cash and kind from over 40 states, representing all geographic areas of the world.

Commented Benedict F. Sannoh, former Chief of Human Rights Sections UNIOSIL/UNIPSIL in Sierra Leone: “The Social Court issued only 13 indictments, out of which only nine high profile cases have been prosecuted at an estimated cost of anything between US$200-400 million, compared to US$3 million under the UN Peace Building Fund (PBF) for victims of the conflict.”

In the book Fambol Tok, the title of an organisation founded in 2007 to administer traditional African methods of reconciling warring parties, Sannoh said there are still hundreds of perpetrators, especially in the provinces who cannot muster the courage to return to their villages and towns, such is their fear and shame after committing acts of appalling brutality against their own people – sometimes even own friends and families.

“The situation called for increased reconciliation at all levels throughout the country,” he said, but there was no effective response either from the government, the international community, civil society or religious organisations.” He added: “The positive linkage between Fambol Tok’s reconciliation initiatives and the consolidation of peace in Sierra Leone cannot, therefore, be over emphasised.”

Fambol Tok was founded in 2007 by the Sierra Leonean human rights activist John Caulker and the American philanthropist Libby Hoffman.

Fambol Tok – it means ‘Family Talk’ in the Krio (creole) language spoken by most people in Sierra Leone – has emerged as one of that West African country’s most important face-to-face community-owned programmes, bringing together perpetrators and victims of the valence in the civil war.

It provides an opportunity for those caught up in terrifying acts of violence to seek reasons why they acted the way they did and then beg forgiveness (at quasi religious/cultural bonfire ceremonies) from those they abused. 

In an interview Caulker said: “Fambol Tok is built upon Sierra Leone’s ‘family talk’ tradition of discussing and resolving issues within the security of the family circle.  Fambol Tok is rooted in the understanding that reconciliation is a process and not a one-time event and works with communities on a long-term basis. It ensures full community engagement – through initial consultations to determine where her people are ready to reconcile and subsequently through community-led preparations and outreach for Fambol Tok ceremonies.” Its organizers say Fambol Tok is a distinctly Sierra Leonean initiative. 

Says Libby Hoffman: “It is not rooted in Western concepts of blame and retribution but rather in African communal sensibilities that emphasise the need for communities to be whole, with each playing a role if peace and development are to be achieved for the nation at large.”

Sierra Leone is entering a new era as the final phases of internationally driven institutions such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court are coming to a close. Fambol Tok is stepping up its activities to meet the demand of this new phrase by broadening its campaign to all regions of Sierra Leone. “We believe that the time for peace has come,” said Caulker.

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Also read:

Victor’s Justice: What’s Wrong with Warlord Charles Taylor’s Conviction – an alternative view by Chris Mahoney, Deputy Director of the New Zealand Centre for Human Rights law, Policy and Practice at Auckland University, who worked at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

“The Commonwealth Journalists Association wishes to join in the messages of outrage and concern that have been expressed at the attack by bombers on the premises of This Day and other media in both Abuja and Kaduna in Nigeria on 26 April 2012…”

Continue reading at CJA International by clicking here.

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Note to Editors:

For more information on the CJA’s 2012 conference in Malta and its final communique, please visit: http://commonwealthjournalists.org/events/conference-2012-in-malta/

Please visit: www.commonwealthjournalists.org or contact rita.payne@commonwealthjournalists.org

pat.perkel@commonwealthjournalists.org

Photo Credit: Nigeria flag © Commonwealth Secretariat

Guests who included members of the House of Lords, High Commissioners, Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma and dozens of representatives from Commonwealth organisations, heard Derek being praised for his devotion to the Commonwealth, first as a newspaper journalist, then as founder and editor of Gemini News Service, which brought unparalleled and in-depth coverage of developing countries before it closed in 1993.

Derek was also founder president of the CJA  in 1978.

His dogged support has seen him write on some of the biggest events in recent times – on coups, apartheid, the break up of countries, emergence of others as newly independent states and the growth of the Commonwealth as a multilateral association itself. He has also covered every Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting bar the last one (in 2011) and has interviewed three generations of leaders.

“No other individual has done so much to communicate the Commonwealth to the world, and to mentor other communicators,” Ghana’s High Commissioner, Professor Kwaku Danso-Boafo, said, reading from the citation before presenting the award. “And if that wasn’t enough he is also responsible for the famous ‘hedgehog’ Commonwealth logo!”

The full citation for Derek can be read at the Nexus Awards site.

True to form, in his acceptance speech, Derek alluded to critics who often write off the Commonwealth as being past its prime. “On the contrary,” he said to applause. ” I firmly believe the Commonwealth is on its way up. It is, in fact, a young association.”

How young was underlined by the fact that the awards, which were sponsored by Nexus Strategic Partnerships as the Nexus Commonwealth Awards 2012, were held on the 63rd anniversary of the signing of the London Declaration in 1949 which is generally accepted as the starting date of the Modern Commonwealth.

Derek shared the Outstanding Contribution Award with Peter Williams (in picture, standing, right), head of the Commonwealth Consortium for Education, who had devoted nearly half a century to improving access to quality education in the Commonwealth.

The Nexus Commonwealth Lifetime Achievement Award went to former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Other awards: Communicator of the Year Award to the Commonwealth Secretariat (Youth Programme) for its innovative web site YourComonwealth.org; Investor of the Year Award to  Coca Cola Company; Enterprise of the Year Award to the education organisation Link Community Development; and the Jubilee Award t0 the Royal Commonwealth Society Jubilee Time Capsule.

All the award winners and full citations can be read here.