UN
Dodges
Sri Lanka Claim On Killing Fields, Ban Hasn't Seen,
Silent on Prageeth
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 23 -- While Sri Lanka has yet to even respond to the UN
on its Panel of Experts report on war crimes, the country's Mission
to the UN has put out a response to the recent film
“Killing Fields," entitled "Still trying to corner Sri Lanka." On June
23, Inner City Press asked
for the UN's
reply:
Inner
City
Press: There has been a response now by the Sri Lankan Mission
to the Killing Fields film.. it talks about the scene where Tamil
civilians were seen
pleading with the UN not to leave, which was Kilinochchi. And the
statement by the Mission is: “At the time the UN had said that the
demonstration was not genuine.” Is it possible to know from the
UN if they agree with this or they deny this statement by the Sri
Lanka Mission that the demonstration, which was one of the things he
is supposed to be looking into; the UN’s own action, pulling out of
Kilinochchi, did the UN leave because they thought that the
demonstration was somehow not genuine, or is this a false statement
by the Sri Lankan Mission?
Spokesperson
Martin
Nesirky: I’ll have to look into that; I don’t know the
answer to that at this point.
But
when
Nesirky's office did respond, they did not address Sri Lanka's
statement that “At the time the UN had said that the demonstration
was not genuine.” This was the response they inserted into their
transcript:
[He
later added that, unfortunately, the United Nations had to
reluctantly withdraw from Kilinochchi on 16 September of that year,
following the announcement by the Government of Sri Lanka that they
could no longer ensure the safety of aid workers in the Vanni, and
their request that United Nations and NGO staff should relocate to
Government-controlled territory.]
A question,
of
course, is did the UN protest or make enough noise about leaving. And
why wouldn't the UN deny (or confirm) Sri Lanka's statement that
“At
the time the UN had said that the demonstration was not genuine”?
Ban & spox, Ban answers on Sri Lanka, Killing Fields& Prageeth
not
shown
When
Ban
announced for a second term as Secretary General on June 6, Inner
City Press asked him about Sri Lanka and he said he would be starting
the review of the UN's own actions. It has still not started,
according to his spokesman, who has also twice told Inner City Press
that Ban has not seen the documentary “Killing Fields.” Click
here for Channel 4.
Nor has a
major Ban advisor, nor the most senior UN official from Sri Lanka,
Radhika Coomaraswamy (who told Inner City Press she would be recused
from any decision to review actions in Sri Lanka). So who is it, who
“briefed Ban” about the Killing Fields?
Footnote:
On
June 23, Ban with the Committee to Protect Journalists. Inner City
Press asked CPJ for a read out, and if the case of disappeared Sri
Lankan journalist Prageeth Eknelygoda had been raised, and what Ban
said.
CPJ
replied that
“the focus of our meeting was the Middle East and freedom of
expression online but we also provided details on the Prageeth
Eknelygoda case. Our time was also cut a bit short because Ban was
running late. It is our understanding that there will not be a
readout of the meeting and that is a decision of the Secretary
General’s office.”
Later,
CPJ issued
a press
release about the meeting, which mentioned two French
journalists in Afghanistan and a blogger in Bahrain but not
Prageeth
Eknelygoda. Watch this site.
* * *
As
Ban's
Spokesman
Blames UN Radio for Question, Other Answers Not Public
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June
22 -- Just after Ban Ki-moon won his one-candidate race
for five more years as UN Secretary General, when he came to the
General Assembly stakeout on June 21 his final
question was given to
the UN's own in-house radio station.
The
question was, “hi
Secretary-General, it is nice to see you again. How do you feel on
this historic day and what is the message you have to the young
people of the world?”
Ban
smiled and
gave his longest answer at the stakeout, transcribed
and put online
by the UN.
The next
Inner City Press asked
Ban's
spokesman Martin
Nesirky, “at that press encounter yesterday, it seemed that the
question was granted by yourself to UN Radio, which is owned by the
UN, so it’s sort of an in-house station. Is that generally
accepted?”
Nesirky, prepared
for the question, said that “No, it is not generally accepted, and
it shouldn’t have happened. And UN Radio staff have been reminded
of what the rules are. The rules are quite clear: it is for people
with press badges to ask questions.”
Some
wondered
about blaming the hapless UN Radio reporter, when it was Ban's
spokesman who for whatever reason devoted the last question to her,
and has
left the seemingly scripted answer online.
Later
on June 22
this problem was addressed by Ban taking, but the UN apparently not
transcribing, by-invitation only questions, about Kashmir, Japanese
engineers to South Sudan and as reported, Syria.
Ban
was asked,
perhaps as wishful thinking, about “speculation in Korea that you
are a potential candidate for the President. Are you going to run for
the presidency of the country?”
Twenty
hours
later, unlike his stage-managed stakeout including the child question
from UN Radio, this Ban Q&A has not been transcribed and put
online by the UN, even in its “off the cuff” section.
To
some
this appeared to be a new media strategy, implemented on the first
two days of Ban's new term:
Take
public
questions from the UN's own media and put the answers online; take
questions in private from hand-selected journalists and don't put any
transcript online. We'll see.
* * *
After
One
Candidate Race, Ban Ki-moon Takes Last Question from UN In-House
Radio and not on Sudan:
“Propaganda”
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June
21 -- After Ban Ki-moon won a one candidate election as
UN Secretary General for the next five years, he came to take
questions from the press. There are unanswered questions swirling
about the inaction in Sudan of UN peacekeepers under Ban's command,
and about Ban's own inaction on war crimes in Sri Lanka.
But
with time
limited, Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky whispered in the ear of the
UN TV sound man, pointing out where to give the last question.
It was
to UN Radio, the UN's own radio service, and the question was what
Ban Ki-moon will do with the world's youth. Ban answered, then in
the face of a request for a “question on Sudan,” Nesirky, Ban and
two South Korean advisers left the UN, presumably to celebrate.
Afterward
a number
of reporters said it was improper to give one of the few questions to
Ban to the UN's own in-house “propaganda” station, as one
reporter called it, “under Ban's UN.”
Ban
Ki-moon's big
day began Tuesday with a meeting with Kim Sung-hwan the Foreign
Minister of South Korea, the job Ban used to have. Then there was a
billed media availability at 9:30 am about sustainable sanitation.
Inner City
Press attended, ready to ask about Ban's Panel of Experts'
finding that UN peacekeepers' practices in Mirebalais, Haiti hadn't
stopped feces from entering drinking water. But no questions were
taken.
At
noon Inner City
Press asked Ban's spokesman Nesirky, who said there had been no
meeting, only the 9:30 event, four seats and a rostrum. Inner City
Press asked about the Sri Lanka Killing Fields documentary -- Nesirky
said Ban hasn't seen it, but that it's incorrect -- and then about
GRULAC, the Latin American and Caribbean states group.
A
GRULAC member has
shown Inner City Press notes from Ban's meeting with GRULAC, as which
the “invisibility” of Latin America and the Caribbean in Ban's
first term was critiqued. Inner City Press asked Nesirky what is
Ban's response to the critique.
“The
immediate
response is he's just come back from a long trip to four countries
in Latin America,” Nesirky said.
Inner
City Press
asked, so the trip was his response to the critique?
“That's
extremely
frivolous,”
said Nesirky, later in the day to give the UN's own
in-house radio station the last question, rather than take a chance
on Ban having to response to actual critiques.
“Trips
take a
long
time to plan," Nesirky added.
But
of course the
problem is more than trips. Ban may be going to the South Sudan
independence ceremony on July 9, but has yet to address the inaction
of UN peacekeepers under his command in Abyei and Southern Kordofan,
much less questions about Darfur.
In
between the
questionless press (non) availability at 9:30 and this noon briefing,
Ban met with his corporate Global Compact. An attendee said he left
early, saying there's “something in the General Assembly... about
my future,” to much laughter.
Then
as the
speeches began, with Bolivia having to give the speech for GRULAC,
one of Ban's spokespeople pointedly asked Inner City Press, “Happy
day, isn't it?” Reporters are not supposed to say (but only show).
Watch this site.
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