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UN in Sri Lanka Admits 400 Killed, No Word from Ban Ki-moon on Visit

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 -- In Colombo, UN spokesman Gordon Weiss has acknowledged that at least 400 civilians were killed over the weekend in northern Sri Lanka. Weiss claimed that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been doing everything possible. But when asked, repeatedly, if he was calling for a cease-fire, Ban Ki-moon did not.

  Ban was invited, how ever cynically, to visit the country, and his spokesperson claimed that if he thought his visit could save civilian lives he would go. But he didn't go, nor announce that he would. And over the weekend, the government shelled the conflict zone and killed 400 civilians.

   On Friday night in New York, one of Ban's main advisers on the issue told Inner City Press that the UN had been too slow to sound the alarm on genocide. At this point, he said, you have to call it mass atrocity. You need to show motive, means and consequences, he said. Okay, there were four million Tamils and now there are only one million, he said. Language was disrupted. The means used were social, economic and military. But did the Sinhalese government intend to call all Tamils? The Colombo Tamils are happy, he said. And the rubber plantation Tamils, they've had no incident in 20 years, he continued. The Jaffna Tamils, they support the LTTE, because the Sinhalese punched all the moderates.

So the UN thinks these things, and then just stands by.

Fire in Sri Lanka's conflict zone, dithering from UN in NYC

  Two top UN advisers told Inner City Press on May 8 that Ban was leaning toward making a visit. Now 400 more are dead. At some point it is too late.

Footnote: also on Friday, Inner City Press learned that the Sri Lankan government pressured the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to remove articles it did not like from the UN's Relief Web internet site. When those in charge in New York bristled at the request for censorship, the government pressured the UN's office in Colombo, and then the piece came down, according to a well-placed source. The UN's track record on this bloodbath is among its lowest points. And it can get lower still.

 On Thursday May 7, Inner City Press asked Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq:

Inner City Press: I wanted to ask about this invitation that’s been made to the Secretary-General to visit Sri Lanka. First I wanted to ask if on Monday when he met with the Ambassador of Japan, whether he was briefed on a visit by Mr. [Yasushi] Akashi to Sri Lanka and was urged by Japan that he should take this visit. And I also wanted to know whether he would be in New York 11 May for the Middle East debate, and 15 May to meet with the Chinese diplomats, that in fact this is one reason that he is considering not going, as I have been told by senior Secretariat staff.

Associate Spokesperson Haq: Well, first of all, we don’t announce the trips of the Secretary-General until they are close to occurring. And in that regard, I don’t have anything to announce about a trip to Sri Lanka at this stage. At the same time, as Michèle told you yesterday, and is still true for today, if the Secretary-General believes that visiting Sri Lanka can have an impact in terms of saving lives there, he will certainly try to go. So he is considering that. But part of what he is studying is what the impact of a potential trip would be.

Inner City Press: But if he had that belief, that would be without regard to attending the 11 May Middle East thing or the 15 May meeting with the Chinese diplomats? I am told that’s a major factor in his planning.

Associate Spokesperson: Scheduling is a separate issue. What we’re talking about is the decision of whether or not to go. And certainly if he can make a difference and can save civilian lives, which is what his priority has been on this case, then he will go. At present, we don’t have anything to announce at all in this regard, though.

Question: Just one last one on that. I wanted to know, can you at least confirm that he met with Ambassador Takasu on Monday in his office inside the Security Council? Can you give a read-out of that meeting and say why it wasn’t on his public schedule?

Associate Spokesperson: I can confirm that he met with the Permanent Representative of Japan. He did that, yes. It was in his office in the Security Council. We don’t provide readouts of meetings with ambassadors.

Question: And why wasn’t it on the schedule?

Associate Spokesperson: It came up all of a sudden when he had a bit of free time in between other appointments on a fairly hectic day.

  While Ban Ki-moon is working on his issues as a trip to Manama, Bahrain, after a news-less trip to Malta, the killing of civilians accelerates in Sri Lanka. On Friday May 8, Inner City Press asked Deputy Spokesperson Okabe:

Inner City Press: On the invitation by the Government of Sri Lanka to the Secretary-General to visit, is there any progress in thinking? In the alternative, is the Secretary-General, is he considering invoking Article 99 or responsibility to protect or making some other move of some type on the situation in Sri Lanka?

Deputy Spokesperson: I have nothing beyond what we’ve been saying from this podium this week on Sri Lanka, including what the Secretary-General himself has said earlier this week.

   What Ban said did not involve calling for a cease-fire, did not respond to the invitation to visit Sri Lanka, or the accelerating rate of civilians death over the weekend, during which no statement issued about Sri Lanka. Watch this site.

 Channel 4 in the UK with allegations of rape and disappearance

  Click here for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian deaths in Sri Lanka.

Click here for Inner City Press' March 27 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press' Feb 26 UN debate

Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate

Click here from Inner City Press' December 12 debate on UN double standards

and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.

* * *

These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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