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UN's Ban Tips Hat to Protesters from High Above NY, Claims He Met With Tamils

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

UNITED NATIONS, June 17, updated -- It was projected as a light evening of honor for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to receive from the Foreign Policy Association a Global Humanitarian Award, along with former US president Bill Clinton.

   Clinton, however, canceled his appearance due to "family health issues" -- word on the street, literally 55th Street in front of the St. Regis Hotel, was that Hilary was in a car crash. [Update: the man in the street, as is so often the case, was half-right: Hilary broken her elbow on the way to the White House, but there was no vehicle involved.] And Ban himself was protested, for hours, with chants urging him to resign, or to "go home," or at least to feel shame.

   The protesters, it must be said, were nearly entirely ethnic Tamils. Despite the tens of thousands of people killed in the war in Sri Lanka, unlike Darfur, Myanmar or the Middle East, the victims have yet to gain noticeable solidarity from non-Tamils. This feels of abandonment was palpable Wednesday night in front of the St. Regis Hotel.

Picketers of Ban in front of St. Regis, June 17, 2009 (c) M.Lee

   Inner City Press, which has asked questions at the UN which have cut both ways but focused on civilians, was filming the photographing the protest. Several of the participants asked, where is the rest of the media? A television producer known to Inner City Press stopped by, gave congratulations for having found the news, but emerged from a cell phone calls saying that "there is no crew."

    One of the protesters asked, "No clue?" The producer continued along. Later two Turkish journalists stopped by, on their way to covering Ban Ki-moon's speech. They urged Inner City Press to come upstairs and hear it. Since Ban had slipped by the protesters -- click here for the blow by blow report filed in real time with wireless Internet from the street -- there was little left to do but to go up and hear him.

   A half-dozen seats had been set in the back of the ballroom for the press. There had been a reception; dinner had been served. Now Ban Ki-moon arose, and to his credit made a joke. "I was impressed and encouraged," he began, "I know there were hundreds of people who were welcoming me or some other person in front of the hotel."

   The audience, a mix of Ambassadors and business people, laughed. Several had been shouted at as they entered. Claude Heller, the Ambassador of Mexico who had at least tried to get the Security Council to consider the plight of civilians in Sri Lanka, had stopped and told Inner City Press, "this is good." But others hurried back the protest, as in finding the mention much less chanting of the word genocide in Midtown Manhattan distasteful.

   Ban said of the protesters, "I am aware of their concerns, their pride, their challenges... that is exactly why I went to Sri Lanka four weeks ago." It was May 23, and Inner City Press was with him. Ban said he had visited the IDP camps, "met with government leaders, with representatives of the opposition, representatives of the Tamil minority."

   About this last, doubts exist. As the press corps sat waiting on the UN plane at Colombo's airport, Inner City Press was told that Tamil MPs who had been promised a meeting with Ban were barred from the airport.

   Inner City Press asked UN officials Lynn Pascoe and John Holmes about this, and was told an answer was been forthcoming. None has been provided. Neither was visibly in attendance on Wednesday night, but seated with Ban was his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar.

Sign in front of St. Regis Hotel, June 17, 2009, (c) M.Lee

   Down on 55th Street, a protesters displayed a sign, "$ for the Nambiyar brothers," meaning Vijay and Satish, a former Indian general part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force which occupied northern Sri Lanka in the late 1980s, strafing the population and losing 1500 troops before decamping.

    Many, including some of Ban's own senior advisors, say that sending Nambiar at the UN's envoy was unwise. Nambiar has been quoted that the doubts are beneath contempt. If so he better look around himself, as the doubts extend to the UN's 38th floor around him. Ban moved from Sri Lanka to the climate change issue, urging the Foreign Policy Association to help him "seal the deal in Copenhagen."

   The FPA, whose board members include former AIG big wig Maurice Greenberg and the CEO of Santander, a bank which allegedly laundered money for Augusto Pinochet, on Wednesday also gave an award to the CEO of an Italian oil company. These hypocrisies are beyond the scope of this article.

    Inner City Press had waited outside the St. Regis from six to 8:30 p.m., seeking to get from Ban himself a reaction to the protest. After the speeches and the dinner, Ban was spirited out by a side door, and faced neither the protesters nor the Press. A swag bag was passed out, with publications about oil.

   Down on 55th Street, the protesters had been told to leave at 8:30 by the police, who said that hotel had cooperated at much as it would. Ban said he heard the protesters, but he never faced them. His spokespeople have told Inner City Press that they will not comment on "what you read in the news about Sri Lanka." How about mass internment? Watch this site.