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In Sri Lanka, UN Still Withholds
Casualty Numbers, Funds Detention Camps
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, March 9 -- The UN
on Monday acknowledged that it is funding camps in Sri Lanka from which
people
cannot leave, and that it has compiled casualty figures from the
fighting which
it will not release. Inner City Press, which two weeks ago published a
local
count of 1800 civilians killed since January, on Monday asked UN's
relief
coordinator John Holmes to confirm that the UN now has a count of 2300.
Video
here,
from Minute 32:58.
Holmes said the UN has "done some of our own
attempt" at a count,
but "cannot verify them" and therefore will not release the figures.
By contrast, the UN repeatedly uses a 300,000 figure for deaths in
Darfur,
regarding which many questions of verifications have been raised. The UN and
Holmes are in
the midst of protesting the expulsion and lay-off of half of the
humanitarian
workers in Darfur. But there is no humanitarian or media access at
all to the
conflict zone in Sri Lanka.
Some say, if the UN benefits Sri Lanka's government
by refusing to
release civilian casualty numbers in a zone the government blocks them
from
entering, more figures like Sudan's Omar al-Bashir will just keep the
UN and
the NGOs out, and count on the UN's on-again off-again concern about
full
verification.
UN's Holmes: Sri Lanka casualty figures not
shown, camps policy in evolution
For two weeks, Inner City Press has asked at the UN
whether
international aid funds will be used for detention camps in which those
fleeing
the conflict zone in Sri Lanka will be detained, until the end of 2009
or
longer. Holmes on Monday confirmed that the UN has "offered to assist
transit camps" or "semi-permanent camps," and as to funding as
so far "make no links between the two." He said that in the long run,
the UN would be hard pressed to fund camps that violated international
standards. But he said the UN wouldn't want to "punish those in the
camps." So would the UN just keep on paying, for detention camps? Watch
this site.
Footnote:
the comparison of the UN's approach to Sudan and Sri
Lanka is apposite
not only because of the varying acceptance of a government killing
civilians
during offensives against rebels, but also in light of Ban Ki-moon's
Deputy
Spokesperson Marie Okabe's answer on Monday that Ban's statement on Sri
Lanka
"last week... was shadowed by other developments." Click
here
for transcript, first question.
Ban's evolving
position on Sri Lanka was overshadowed not only by Bashir's decision,
but by
Ban's and the UN's immediate reaction, briefings and phone calls on
Sudan but
not Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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