On
Sri
Lanka, Ban Won't Push to Get UN Heyns In, Have Been Given Killing
Fields, Will Watch if Has Time, Ranil on July 5?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 30 -- Despite UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's
statements that he is “checking every day” to see if the
government of Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka
has deigned to respond
to the UN Panel of Experts report documenting war crimes, there is
very little follow-through.
On
June 30 Inner
City Press asked Ban's acting deputy spokesman Farhan Haq if Ban has
done anything about Sri Lanka blocking the visit requested by UN
Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executing Christof Heyns, who has
said “I have asked to visit Sri Lanka, but this has so far been
denied.”
Haq
couldn't not
say anything that Ban has done or even tried to do in this regard,
instead “referring” the questions to the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.
Heyns
authenticated
video used in the Killing Fields documentary,
saying that the “video that I have examined in detail shows
textbook examples of extrajudicial killings -- naked, blindfolded
people whose hands are tied, are being shot through the head by
people in military uniform. They speak Sinhalese. This clearly raises
major concerns that cannot be ignored by someone tasked to
investigate arbitrary executions.”
For
more than two
weeks Inner City Press has asked Ban's
spokespeople if he has taken
the time to see the Killing Fields video.
Ban & M. Rajapaksa Sept 2010, Killing Fields not shown
The first
answer was that
he was traveling.
On June 30
when Inner City Press asked, Haq replied
that “we have actually shared the
video with the Secretary General.
When he has time, we expect that he'll see it.”
Inner
City Press
is told that Team Ban will meet on July 5 with Sri Lanka's Ranil
Wickremesinghe. Might Ban have finally “found time” to see the
Killing Fields by then? Watch this site.
* * *
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.
, 
