In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee

UN GATE, Feb 4 – How corrupt is the United Nations?

Well, UNSG Antonio Guterres named as his representative to China, to whose CEFC China Energy he has tried to hide his links, the son in law of his predecessor Ban Ki-moon, Sid Chatterjee.

  Chatterjee, after a time as a "peacekeeper" in Sri Lanka said to have committed abuses against Tamils, got one promotion after another in the UN system under his father in law. See what Sid is doing to - and not doing for -- the Uighurs.

Now on February 6, 2023, Ban Ki-moon is going to Sri Lanka, a country where he and since him Guterres have covered up the mass killing of Tamils, with Guterres allowing war criminals into Jean-Pierre LaCroix' UN Peacekeeping.
Ban "is scheduled to visit Sri Lanka on February 06, President’s Senior Adviser on Climate Change, Ruwan Wijewardena said. Ban Ki-moon, who is coming to Sri Lanka at the invitation of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, will" - what? Watch this site.

Guterres, who has been allowing his son Pedro to do undisclosed business in Africa while he is UNSG, for example meeting Paul Kagame just after Guterres did, makes Censorin' Sid his rep to China. We'll have more on this - now unlike even Ban Ki-moon, spokesman Stephane Dujarric answers no Inner City Press and Melissa Fleming keeps it banned.

  Ban Ki-moon, days after he left being UN Secretary General, saw the indictment for bribery of his brother Ban Ki Sang and nephew Dennis Bahn, who worked at the UN's landlord Colliers International, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

As to Dennis Bahn, this was and is a case of nepotism, including given his employment at Colliers International of which Inner City Press repeatedly asked Ban's spokespeople, here in 2015. But the nepotism issue became much earlier, when Ban's son in law Siddharth Chatterjee was repeatedly promoted in the UN system under Ban, more recently by Ban himself to the top UN job in Kenya in August 2016.

   In September 2016 Inner City Press asked to interview Chatterjee and he refused. On Sunday February 19 -- precisely one year after Ban, his Office of the Spokesperson and his head of Communications Cristina Gallach had Inner City Press physically thrown out of the UN with no hearing or appeal for seeking to cover corruption in Ban's UN in the Press Briefing Room -- Chatterjee had an underling three times telephone Inner City Press.

   As we reported in 2009, Chatterjee got an article removed from the Indian Star website - there's more to be reporting on how - and Chatterjee when asked to "confirm or deny that you acted to get an article about yourself removed from a publication, on information and belief the Indian Star" states he "did tell [the reporter] that what was published in the Star  was untrue and libellous." That he was promoted? Under his father in law whose other relatives have now been indicted for using their connections to him for financial gain?
 
  Censorship runs through this family.

    Asked if Inner City Press would commit sight unseen to publish something from Chatterjee, Inner City Press posed four sample questions, asking that they be answered and again requesting an on camera interview to be broadcast live and in full.

    On the late evening on Sunday February 19 -- the middle of the night in Kenya -- Chatterjee sent a narrative, copying it to Stephane Dujarric and Farhan Haq, who were spokesman and deputy spokesman for Ban Ki-moon and current hold (over) the same position for Antonio Guterres. Chatterjee demands that his narrative be published in full, something that CNN, for example, would never do - they in fact bar from their broadcasts officials they deemed to be untrustworthy. But we nevertheless publish it, below.

   Inner City Press responded, nearly immediately, with reiterated questions for Chatterjee to answer:

Inner City Press is request from you, again, answers to questions including:

what was your involvement in the IPKF's military operations in Jaffna including but not limited to its hospital;

confirm or deny that you acted to get an article about yourself removed from a publication, on information and belief the Indian Star;
confirm or deny that you offered or purported to offer a media member a job in the UN Secretariat, and if that was in the Office of the Spokesperson;

please state the last three times you have spoken with Ban Ki Sang (indicted and subject to an extradition order), Dennis Bahn (indicted) or Ban Ki Ho. Also, given your cc's, please summarize your most recent five conversations with Ban Ki-moon.

[Chatterjee states, on the record, "I don't know anything about the question you ask and have had no such conversations.  Mr Ban ki Moon is my father in law and I speak to him regularly." But no other family members? And, Chatterjee claims, no mention in these "regular" discussions of the irregular promotion to the top UN job in Kenya? We'll have more on this.]

please state whether you were the first selection to be UN RC in Kenya, and any and all agreements you reached with the Kenyan government to accept you.

  These are the questions, as I told [your intermediary] when you had him call me today, and when I requested to interview you, including in September 2016.

Please explain your cc to Stephane Dujarric and confirm or deny you have told UNON staff members they would be fired if they spoke to Inner City Press.

There are more questions, but this is the response to your [intermediary's] three calls this morning on Sunday and you 11 pm NY time email. Awaiting your response.

 Inner City Press has been Banned from the UN since July 3, 2018 - by Guterres.

 
Regarding alleged war crimes in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, on which Chatterjee in response to Inner City Press' question "what was your involvement in the IPKF's military operations in Jaffna including but not limited to its hospital" says "I am not a spokesperson for the IPKF and not qualified to answer that question," we note there was the Jaffna hospital massacre ten days later on October 21, 1987. 

Here is the Wiki-time line

"October 21, 1987 - 11h – The hospital environment came under cannon fire from the vicinity of Jaffna Dutch Fort and from overhead helicopters.

11h30 – A shell fell on the Outpatients Department (O.P.D) building.
13h – The chief consultant on duty was informed that Indian troops had been sighted at nearby Shanti Theatre Lane.

13h30 – A shell fell on Ward 8, killing seven persons. The chief consultant who went out with another doctor to survey the situation spotted some empty cartridges, suggesting that persons had been firing from inside the hospital premises.
14h – The chief consultant's attention was drawn to the presence of some armed LTTE fighters inside the hospital. The chief consultant went with Dr. Ganesharatnam and asked the group to leave the premises. The leader of the group agreed and they left.

14h5 – The chief consultant was informed that another group of LTTE men had come inside. Dr. Ganesharatnam requested that the chief consultant go with another doctor to speak to the LTTE group and ask them to leave. It is not clear if the LTTE men ever left the hospital.

14h, 16h – A few staff members left the hospital for lunch through the back door.

16h – Staff heard shooting for 15-20 minutes from the vicinity of the gasoline station on Hospital Road. No retaliatory fire from the hospital was heard.

16h20 and onward – According to an eyewitness, the IPKF entered the hospital grounds through the front gate, came up along the corridor and warned everybody inside the hospital. The IPKF fired into the Overseer's office and other offices. The eyewitness saw many of his fellow workers killed, including the overseer and an ambulance driver. The eyewitness also saw a soldier throw a grenade at a man, killing several people.

According to another eyewitness, the IPKF came into the Radiology room, which was filled with people including the patients evacuated from Ward 8, and fired indiscriminately. Those who pretended to be dead by lying on the floor escaped the attack.

Throughout the night a few bursts of fire and grenade explosions were heard.

October 22, 1987 - 8h30 – Dr. Sivapathasundaram was seen walking out of the hospital with three nurses. They were walking with their hands up shouting, "We surrender, we are innocent doctors and nurses."[3] Shots were fired; Dr. Sivapathasundaram was killed and the nurses injured.

11h – An Indian Army officer turned up at one of the wards and was confronted by a doctor. The doctor explained the situation to the officer and later, with help of the officer, she called out to her colleagues and those who were injured to come out with their hands up. About 10 staff members who were alive were escorted out. They found their colleague Dr. Ganesharatnam dead. Later in the day all the dead bodies in the hospital were collected and burned."

Amnesty International's 1988 annual report cites reports of the Indian Peace Keeping Force's rapes of Tamil women and extra-judicial executions. Was it from his son in law that Ban took his advice on Sri Lanka, before sending Vijay Nambiar, brother of general Satish Nambiar, for the “finish” in 2009?

   More to the point, what is the relationship between Dalvir Singh's screed and Ban Ki-moon? Ban's son in law has grateful re-tweeted Dalvir Singh's article; beyond the continued stonewalling and eviction of Inner City Press, the Guardian wrote that the only time Ban got upset in their interview was in defense of his son in law Siddharth Chatterjee. Now Guterres rep to China.

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

Past (and future?) UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2017 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for