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Row over inviting Lankan President Rajapaksa for CWG closing | Activists have opposed India 's decision to invite Sri
Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the guest of honour at the closing ceremony of the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games. Rajapaksa accepted a joint invitation
from the Indian government and the event organisers, and would be flying to India
on Wednesday. The Lankan government confirmed that Rajapaksa would be the guest of honour at Thursday's event. The move has angered rights groups and the Tamil diaspora who have accused Rajapaksa of failing to protect many thousands of civilians
who died in battles in the long civil war against Tamil separatists last year.
The Commonwealth Secretariat said that the decision to invite Rajapaksa to be
chief guest was made by India. Yolanda Foster of Amnesty International told BBC
News that "impunity remains the order of the day" in Sri Lanka despite repeated
promises to deliver on accountability. "Commonwealth countries including India
should be at the forefront of supporting an international inquiry into the allegations
of violations of international law during the conflict," she said. The Tamil Diaspora
would like to see Commonwealth members exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government,
as they say Britain did in the cases of Zimbabwe and Pakistan . Hundreds of Tamils
say relatives are still missing, more than a year after the war ended. "The then
Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague told the Global Tamil Forum (GTF) conference
in the UK that just because a country has general elections does not necessarily
mean that it is following democratic principles," Suren Surendiran, of the GTF,
told BBC News. Sri Lanka is competing with Australia to host the 2018 Commonwealth
Games in Rajapaksa's hometown, Hambantota.
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