On
Sri Lanka,
Samarsinghe
Brags of Ban
Support, Slams
Pillay
Quotes to
Press
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 27 –
When Sri
Lanka's
Mahinda
Samarsinghe
spoke
Wednesday at
the Human
Rights Council
in Geneva, he
referred
repeatedly to
the UN
Security
Council in New
York.
He
bragged that
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon has
taken Sri
Lanka off
the Security
Council
agenda. The
reference was
to the issue
of
Children and
Armed
Conflict: the
conflict and
killing of
civilians in
Sri Lanka in
2009 was never
on the
Council's
agenda, and
Ban never
asked to put
it on.
Mahinda
Samarsinghe
criticized UN
High
Commission for
Human Rights
Navi
Pillay,
including her
comments NEAR
the Security
Council.
In
the most
recent of
these, Pillay
answered Inner
City Press'
questions
about visiting
Sri Lanka thusly:
“Let's see in
the March
session
when they come
over if
they'll fix a
date.”
But
Mahinda
Samarsinghe in
Geneva argued,
as did Sri
Lanka
Permanent
Representative
Palitha Kohona
to Inner City
Press in New
York, that
Pillay has had
an invitation
since April
2011.
Samarsinghe
said her
advance team
went only in
order to
collect
evidence, not
to prepare a
visit.
What's
wrong
with
collecting
evidence?
Nowhere in
Samarsinghe's
speech did
he provide an
estimate of
the number of
civilians
killed in
2009. And
what of the
journalists
shot and
missing? Ban
Ki-moon does
not speak
much on this,
either.
(Click
here for
Inner City
Press'
exclusive
coverage
earlier this
month of Ban
receiving a
"whitewash"
report on Sri
Lanka.)
Samarsinghe
defended
the ouster of
the former
chief justice.
Days before
his
speech, Sri
Lanka's Deputy
Permanent
Representative
to the UN
Shavendra
Silva managed
to get his
picture taken
with a Justice
of
the US Supreme
Court, Antonin
Scalia.
Inner
City Press ran the
picture
yesterday,
asking if this
could lead to
a
recusal in a
lawsuit under
the US Alien
Torts Claims
Act.
Such a
suit, or other
outside
mechanism, is
more and more
clearly
required.
Forty thousand
killed and no
one
accountable?
Samarsinghe
referred
dismissively
to the
"Channel 4"
film "No Fire
Zone: Killing
Fields of Sir
Lanka" that
he's tried to
ban from the
UN in Geneva.
The
last “Killing
Fields of Sri
Lanka” film
was not
screened
inside the UN
in New York,
though Sri
Lanka's
Mission to the
UN including
Shavendra
Silva were
invited in to
present what
they called
their
rebuttal. Click
here for
coverage by
the Sri Lanka
Campaign.
This outrage reverberates
still.
Watch this
site.
Footnote:
in
the run up to
Samarsinghe's
speech,
Yeman's human
rights
minister
spoke
movingly, but
had nothing on
the GCC
immunity deal
of Ali
Saleh, or
drones.
Denmark spoke
and touched
not only on
Sri Lanka but
also Bahrain
-- another Ban
Ki-moon blind
spot. On one
thing, we can
agree with
Samarsinghe:
the West is
fickle. Watch
this site.
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