Sri
Lanka Gives Army Promotion to
Shavendra Silva, Laundered by UN
as Peacekeeping Adviser
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
April 2 – The UN did little
during the killing of Tamils
in Sri Lanka in 2009. Then
under Ban Ki-moon, the UN even
accepted a military leader implicated
in the mass killing, Shavendra
Silva, as a Senior UN Adviser
on Peacekeeping. Inner City
Press pursued
the question and asked
Ban why he did it; later Ban
had Inner City Press evicted
from the UN, where restrictions
remain still. Now on March 30,
laundered by Ban Ki-moon and
the UN, Shavendra Silva has
been named Adjutant General of
the Sri Lankan Army, photos
here. It is an outrage -
but one in which the UN has
played a shameful part. (There
was also Shavendra Silva as a
speaker at a "UN screening" of
a war crimes denial film, here.)
Not only does the UN remain
silent on human rights abuses
like this year in Cameroon:
it actively launders war
criminals, and remains silent
when they get promotions,
accepts their troops as peacekeepers.
Last week Inner City Press formally
asked the UN Spokesman to describe
the UN's vetting and due diligence
of the Sri Lanka military
figures it is deploying to
peacekeeping missions, without
response. We'll have more on
this.
Now that Sri Lankan president
Sirisena has said, No foreign
judges, Inner City Press on
March 3 asked Stephane
Dujarric, the spokesman for
Ban Ki-moon and now Antonio
Guterres, for the new
Secretary General's reaction.
Video
here; UN
transcript here:
Inner City Press:
the President of Sri Lanka,
Mr. Sirisena, has said in Sri
Lanka that there will be no
foreign judges, no hybrid
court. I know this was
an issue that the former
Secretary-General had kind of
a personal interest in, this
idea of following up on the
2009 events. What's the
response of the UN system to
essentially a flat “no” by the
President?
Spokesman: The situation
remains one that we're
following. I think I
would encourage you to ask the
human rights… our colleagues
in the Human Rights Office who
are on the lead on this issue.
(Of
course, the spokesman of the
UN Human Rights Office, Rupert
Colville, has refused
to answer written
questions from Inner City
Press.)
The UN,
which half-admitted systemic
failure under Ban Ki-moon
while tens of thousands of
Tamils were killed in Sri
Lanka, has been supporting
something called the National
Authority for Protection of
Victims of Crime and
Witnesses.
But now
that the body has been shown
to include, among others, a
person accused by the UN's own
Special Rapporteur of torture,
what does the UN do? Nothing,
it seems.
The issue
was raised again on February
20 in the 66th Session of
Committee on Elimination of
Discrimination against Women.
Video
here. This came, as it
happens, hours after the son
in law of just-left UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon,
Siddharth Chatterjee, dodged
again on his connection to
alleged war crimes in Sri
Lanka. He wrote: "The fact is
that I arrived in Sri Lanka
having cut short a specialized
combat under water diving
course with the Indian Navy on
October 16, 1987. The raid at
Jaffna University took place
on 12 October 1987." But it
was after the failed October
12 raid - and after
Chatterjee's now specified
October 16 arrival - that the
alleged reprisals took place.
We'll have more on this,
including in light of the new
human rights self-attestation
promulgated in the UN.
On February
14, Inner City Press asked UN
deputy spokesman Farhan Haq
about it. He had no answer,
and later in the briefing,
regarding Ban Ki-moon who has
had two relatives indicted for
real estate fraud involving
the UN, called Inner City
Press "obsessive"
then an a*hole.
(This same Haq in
2016 cut off Press questions
about a protest in Jaffna of
Ban Ki-moon's unilateral
eviction from the UN of Inner
City Press, where it remains
restricted as
"non-resident correspondent.")
Here's
from the February 14 UN
transcript, on Sri
Lanka:
Inner City Press:
I want to ask you about Sri
Lanka, and I'll say why.
There's a report
out by the International Truth
and Justice Project run by
Yasmin Sooka, who was one of
the named panellists.
And they've basically said
that there's a Sri Lankan body
called the National Authority
for Victim and Witness
Protection, and they've named
a member of the body, put on
by the Government, who's named
in a UN report as having been
accused of torture by a
Special Rapporteur on
Torture. And the reason
I'm asking is the UN is
apparently providing financial
support to this National
Authority for Victim and
Witness Protection.
There's a… a… they've… they've
hired a management
consultant. And I wanted
to know, is the UN, given its
previous role in Sri Lanka,
aware that it's financially
supporting a body that has, in
fact, torturers on it?
And, if so, what happens to
the financial support?
Deputy Spokesman: We'd
have to check and see what
sort of financial support is
being provided. I'm not
aware of what support is given
to this group and whether that
would need to be conditioned
on any particular set of
circumstances.
Haq, after
calling
Inner City Press an obsessive
a*hole, left his office hours
later having provided no
answer. Here
is the report, and here
a sample
UN system recruitment,
showing support.
40,000 dead
Tamils, UN failure? Get over
it.
***
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