As
Sri Lanka Spins, UN Slow and Silent on Why Stopped Counting the Dead
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May 25, updated --
Eighteen hours after UN Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon met with Sri Lankan minister G.L. Peiris, Inner City Press
asked him how the meeting had gone and what he had said. His
associate spokesperson Choi Soung-ah cut in, "We'll get you a
read out... We have a read out for today."
But
Sri Lanka's
Mission to the UN put out their spin on the meeting before eight pm
on Monday, four hours after it ended. Why would the UN delay twelve
hours and counting?
Perhaps
in the
nature of a read out, Ban advisor Nicholas Haysom went on the record
to say "there are times when, on grounds of safety, you have to
make tough calls about whether and when to remove international
staff, or even national staff, and yet how to continue to deliver
humanitarian aid, and we've had to do this in Afghanistan."
But
the question is
not only the UN pulling out of Kilinochchi, it is also the UN
stopping preparing estimates of civilians being killed, after the
government expressed anger at the leak of one such report (to Inner
City Press). By contrast in Afghanistan, the UN provides estimates of
and statements on the killing of civilians.
UN's Ban and Peiris: one issues a read out, the other doesn't
If
Haysom is going
to be providing the UN's response to the International Crisis Group's
call for an international -- and independent -- investigation of the
UN's role in war crimes, he should come and do a briefing and take
questions. More importantly, Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar
should at last answer questions about his role. We will await the
UN's belated read out.
Update of 2:20 p.m.
-- even at Tuesday's noon briefing, no UN read out of the meeting with
Sri Lanka was given. Nor, even after eight days, was any response ready
to the International Crisis Group report. A question about Mr. Nambiar,
however, was asked, and was strangely referred out by the UN. We will
have more on this.
Update of 11:37 p.m. -- long after
close of business on Tuesday, the read out below was received:
Subject:
Readout
From: Associate Spokesperson
Date: Tue, May 25, 2010 at
10:53 PM
To:Inner City Press
Dear
Mathew,
I'm
told you asked for the readout of the SG's meeting with the Sri
Lankan Minister of External Affairs. Sorry you didn't receive it but
you should've asked me right away after I told you this morning that
we have it in the office. Here it is:
Readout
of the Secretary-General's meeting with the Minister of External
Affairs of Sri Lanka
24
May 2010
The
Secretary-General met with the Minister of External Affairs of Sri
Lanka Pieris today. They discussed issues of common interest and in
particular the situation of persons displaced during the conflict,
national reconciliation and human rights accountability.
The
Secretary-General noted the establishment of the Sri Lanka Commission
on Lessons Learned and Reconciliation and indicated to the Minister
that he is continuing to work on establishing a Panel of Experts to
advise him on the commitment made by the Government of Sri Lanka in
this regard.
* * *
On
UN Role in Sri Lanka War Crimes, Ban Rejects Then Denies Rejecting
Allegations
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May 24 -- "I totally reject all that kind of
allegations," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Press on
Monday, responding to a question about the UN's involvement in war
crimes in Sri Lanka. Video here,
from Minute 38:07.
Two
minutes later, in response to a second question from Inner City
Press, Mr. Ban said, "I rejected it? I don't know I ever said I
reject it." Video here,
from Minute 40:07.
Inner
City Press had initially asked Mr. Ban about the International Crisis
Group report,
which even in the Executive
Summary calls for "an
independent international inquiry into... the UN’s September 2008
withdrawal from Kilinochchi through to its ineffectual attempts to
push for a ceasefire and its involvement in Sri Lankan government
internment camps."
Would the group of expert Ban
committed
eighty day ago to name to advise him have jurisdiction over the UN's
own actions and inactions?
Beyond
"totally reject[ing]" ICG's criticism of the UN's and Ban's
performance on Sri Lanka, Ban said that his panel would only address
"international standards" applicable to the Lessons Learnt
and Reconciliation Commission belated announced by President Mahinda
Rajapaksa.
To
some, there was a parallel: Rajapaksa rejected any allegation that
his soldiers killed civilians, before conducting any investigation.
And at Monday's press conference, Ban Ki-moon totally rejected ICG's
call for an "inquiry into... the UN’s September 2008
withdrawal from Kilinochchi through to its ineffectual attempts to
push for a ceasefire and its involvement in Sri Lankan government
internment camps."
To
these, Inner City Press added the issues raised by Ban's chief of
staff Vijay Nambiar's still murky role in encouraging the surrender
of rebel leaders who were then summarily executed. Video here,
from
Minute 37:16. In fairness, this may have thrown Ban off and led
to the rejection then non-rejection.
But the UN's own Special Rapporteur Philip
Alston has asked
the Rajapaksa government about this -- presidential brother
Gotabaya
Rajapaksa has been accused of ordering the killings -- but has yet to
ask the UN's own Vijay Nambiar. Alston's mandate expires in June. So
who will investigate? Especially after Ban's "total reject[ion of] all
that kind of allegation"?
UN's Ban and Mahinda Rajapaksa, united- in "total
rejection of allegations"
After
Ban announced his intention to name a group of experts "without
delay," the Rajapaksa government protested, including seeking
and obtaining -- albeit in a late, "non-objection" portion
of a NAM meeting in New York -- a letter from the Non Aligned
Movement that told Ban he had no jurisdiction over human rights.
While
some Ban advisors have said they disagree with the NAM letter's
logic, the Ban Administration never publicly rebutted the reasoning.
And now eighty days have passed without Ban naming even the group of
experts.
On
Monday, Inner City Press asked Mr. Ban why he has delayed these
eighty days to pass. With Ban slated to meet with Sri Lanka's
Minister of External Affairs G.L. Peiris later on May 24, he said
that the delay was "not based on pressure of Sri Lanka."
Reading from notes, Ban said he
would discuss "accountability..
reconciliation... and improving the conditions" for people,
nearly entirely Tamils, in the UN-funded camps. Ban and his advisors
should know the G.L. Peiris has publicly refused to provide any
timeline for resettling the people still in the camps, and he said
that Ban should not even name his group of experts. Some ask where
does Ban Ki-moon stands, does he reject or not remember rejecting?
Footnote: Inner City Press, which covered
Ban's trip to Sri Lanka last
May and has asked follow up questions at the UN since, had its
request to Sri Lanka's Mission to pose questions to Minister Peiris
ignored and thus denied. It was sent to Permanent Representative
Palitha Kohona, a former UN staffer, but was not responded to. A
Mission staffer said arrangements, including invitations to journalists
who have never written about or been to Sri Lanka, were coordinated by
Kohona's Deputy, who now sends Inner City Press repetitive and abusive
e-mailed every day before the UN noon briefing.
On Monday, two Mission staffers shepherded G. L. Peiris
around the UN on Monday, from BBC to Reuters, and then on to Ban
Ki-moon. There is a 3:15 "photo opportunity" and Inner City Press has a
right to be there. Watch this space.
* * *
As
Sri Lanka Names Its Own Palihakkara as Investigator, UN Panel Would
Not Look at UN's Role in War Crimes
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May 19 -- As witnesses testify
that orders to execute
prisoners came from the top of Sri Lanka's government, the UN on
Wednesday couldn't confirm it is even following the issue. Inner City
Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky
about the much
publicized report
on UK Channel 4. "I would have
to check with colleagues if they are aware" of the report,
Nesirky said.
Inner
City Press
asked if the panel that Ban said ten and a half weeks ago would be
named without delay would have jurisdiction to look into the UN's
own
role, described by the International Crisis Group, in war crimes in
Sri Lanka. Video here,
from Minute 11:12.
No,
Nesirky in
essence replied. He said the panel would only "advise the
Secretary General on the extent to which a domestic inquiry in Sri
Lanka would meet normal standards." Thus, the delayed Ban panel
would not, even if named, be responsive to the calls for
investigation made by ICG, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch
and others.
On
BBC, Louise
Arbour of ICG said the government violated the laws of war by
blurring the line between combatants and civilians, and that its
killings of civilians were not accidents. Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's
Number One Ambassador to the UN who is apparently letting his Number
Two run wild or play bad cop, said he had read the ICG report -- the
UN has apparently not finished it -- but that any outside,
independent investigation would be "colonial and paternalistic."
But
how could a
panel now named by Mahinda Rajapaksa investigate war crimes claims
made against his own brother? On the panel is
Kohona's predecessor as Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN,
H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, who defended the blood bath on the beach as
it took loomed and took place. See video here
(March 26), here
(April 22, and Inner City
Press' Q&A report), and here
(June 5).
Would
the UN accept, for example, Sudan's UN Ambassador investigating
claims against Omar al-Bashir?
UN's Ban and Palihakkara-
credible investigation not shown
Against
this
backdrop, Nesirky has in two days not provided any of the answers he
promised on Monday, including how much the UN spent on Sri Lanka's
internment camps, and with what safeguards if any. There has still
been no
response from the IRIN or Ban's office to what's described as
censorship of the ICG report by the UN's IRIN news service.
From
the UN's
May
19 transcript:
Inner
City Press: on Sri Lanka, I wanted to ask, there is a report since
our last interchange on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, citing
senior military commanders, that there were orders from the top to
kill surrendering soldiers or hardline elements of the Tamil Tigers,
saying these orders came from the top, that “we were to leave no
one alive”. What I am wondering is, in light of this still either
delayed for 10 and a half weeks — however you characterize it —
appointing of a panel to advise Ban Ki-moon on accountability in Sri
Lanka, are they aware of this report? Does it make it go faster, and
would that panel have jurisdiction to advise the Secretary-General on
the UN’s own role in, as we discussed, leaving Kilinochi, an
ineffective call for a ceasefire, and funding internment camps as ICG
[International Crisis Group] has alleged?
Spokesperson:
On the specific news report that you are referring to on Channel 4,
I would have to check with colleagues whether they are aware of it. I
do not know the answer to that right now. On the broader question,
the Panel of Experts will have the role to advise the
Secretary-General on what the standards are for a credible domestic
investigation or inquiry. In other words, to address the question of
accountability that has been discussed very often. So it is a very
specific aim, to advise the Secretary-General on the extent to which
a domestic inquiry — meaning in Sri Lanka — would meet normal
standards, widely-held standards, for that kind of investigation. So
it is fairly specific.
Inner
City Press: And if you don’t mind, since on Monday, I think, you
had said that the Secretariat was going study this International
Crisis Group report, which actually made some allegations or called
for an international inquiry into the UN’s own conduct. What is
the UN’s response to that? Do they think that is appropriate? Given
that this Panel would not even do that if named, what is the
UN’s response to Louise Arbour and the ICG’s call for an inquiry
into the UN’s own actions in this matter?
Spokesperson
Nesirky: As I mentioned, and as you have pointed out, we said that
it is being studied in some detail and that remains the case.
Watch this site.
, 
