At
UN,
Ban & Nambiar Meet Sri Lanka AG & General Silva, Despite
Denials
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 23 -- Amid controversy
about the UN's seeming
failure to follow up on accountability for presumptive war crimes in
the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Sri Lanka, UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar
met Wednesday with the country's Attorney General Mohan Peiris and
its Deputy
Permanent Representative to the UN, former General
Shavendra Silva.
Silva
has been
the subject of controversy, for his role in the military assault in
northern Sri Lanka in 2009. It has been reported that the government
of Mahinda Rajapaksa converted such as General Shavendra Silva into
an Ambassador to give him diplomatic immunity, and sent him to the UN
to see if the UN would in a sense legitimate him. Inner City Press
observed and took a photo as Ban Ki-moon shook Shavendra Silva's
hand on Wednesday.
UN's Ban and Silva, Kohona looks on, ICC not shown (c)
MLee
Also
attending the
meeting but standing off to the side during the handshaking was Ban's
chief of staff Vijay Nambiar. Inner City Press nevertheless took a
photograph of him standing by the side
Nambiar off to side of Sri Lanka photo op, Feb 23, 2011 (c) MLee
and later
sitting at Ban's
right hand for the meeting.
Sri Lanka officials, Ban, Nambiar et al - Ban's left not ID-ed (c) MRLee
In
recent days,
Inner City Press has asked Ban's spokesperson's office for a response
to the inclusion of Nambiar in a filing with the International
Criminal Court, which asserts
“a
basis to question whether Vijay Nambiar was in fact an innocent
neutral intermediary or in fact a co-perpetrator within the
negotiation related community.”
The
filing, which
has been reported in the Australian press, recites that
"NAMBIAR
again
through the United Nations-24 hour dispatch center in New York.
NAMBIAR replied to COLVIN that MAHINDA RAJAPAKSE, GOTABAYA RAJAPAKSE,
AND PALITHA KOHONA had assured NAMBIAR that the LTTE members would be
safe in surrendering to the SLA and treated like “normal prisoners
of war” if they “hoist[ed] a white flag high.”
Ban's
lead
spokesman Martin Nesirky would not say he would seek a response from
Nambiar or the Executive Office of the Secretary General to these
descriptions.
Nesirky's
deputy
Farhan Haq issued an on the record statement to another journalist that
“the Inner
City Press story is inaccurate; there has been no complaint formally
filed at the International Criminal Court.” Earlier on February 23,
Inner City Press asked Nesirky to explain the statement; he has
declined.
It
was also
unclear if Wednesday's meeting was intended to replace what Ban had
announced as his Panel's ability to travel to Sri Lanka. The trip has
not happened, and Inner City Press has been told by sources on both
sides that Sri Lanka said the Panel could only “make
representations” to Rajapaksa's own Lessons Learnt &
Reconciliation Commission, not interview Peiris, External Affairs
Ministry Secretary Romesh Jayasinghe and other officials.
Inner
City Press
has been told, and has reported, that while Sri Lanka insisted that
its officials would only meet with the Executive Office of the
Secretary General -- run by Nambiar -- and not the UN Panel, the UN
counter offered a video conference call with the Panel, or even
written questions.
Now,
instead,
there has been a meeting with the Executive Office of the Secretary
General, including Nambiar and Silva. The meeting, after Inner City
Press yesterday reported its scheduling, was denied by Sri Lanka's
Deputy Minister of External Affairs Neomal Perera:
The
Government
today rejected reports that External Affairs Ministry
Secretary Romesh Jayasinghe and Attorney General Mohan Peiris were in
New York to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Deputy
Minister of External Affairs Neomal Perera told the Daily Mirror that
the External Affairs Ministry Secretary was overseas on a private
visit and that, to his knowledge, there was no meeting scheduled
between the Attorney General and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The
Minister
further rejected claims that the government had hindered the
UN Secretary Generals’ Expert Panel from contacting the local
Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).
“We
are in constant contact with the UN Secretary General’s office and
they have not requested to meet with the LLRC. If they so wish they
can contact them through us or even directly”, he said.
A
representative
of the LLRC told the Daily Mirror that any contact
between the panel and the LLRC would generally have to be through the
External Affairs Ministry. “The Commission has not been contacted,
normally however it is understood that any contact would have to be
made through the External Affairs Ministry; the Secretary Generals
office or the UN office in Colombo would have to contact them- but no
such contact has been made,” the representative said.
Reports
claimed
today that besides disallowing the UN Panel to visit Sri
Lanka the government had rejected the Secretary Generals offers for
those from the Panel to contact members of the LLRC through video
conferencing or written questions.
As
Inner City
Press stood at the UN's stakeout on the second floor of the North
Lawn building, Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona, named in the
ICC filing, walked by with the ministers. Inner City Press asked,
what about the denial? Kohona said that the deputy doesn't know
anything, just ask him. But he has declined to comment on the ICC
filing, not wanting to “dignify” it. Watch this site.
Footnote:
one attendee on the UN side of the table was left unidentified: watch
this site.
* * *
On
Sri
Lanka, As UN Haq Claims No Nambiar ICC Filing,
Meeting Disputed
By
Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
February 23 -- With the UN accused of misstatements by Sri
Lanka's government, the UN spokesperson's office has claimed that
there is no filing with the International Criminal Court involving
chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, in the process telling media covering
Myanmar that an Inner City Press story is inaccurate.
But
when UN
spokesman Martin Nesirky was publicly asked Wednesday by Inner City
Press about his deputy Farhan Haq's statement that “the Inner City
Press story is inaccurate; there has been no complaint formally filed
at the International Criminal Court,” Nesirky did not answer, only
claiming “we spoke about that yesterday.”
The
previous day,
Nesirky would not commit to seeking a response from Nambiar if the
descriptions of his involvement in Sri Lanka were accurate.
After
that, at 7 pm on February 22, Haq received a question about Inner
City Press' story about the ICC filing involving not only Sri Lanka
Permanent Representative Palitha Kohona but also Nambiar, and why
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has not responded to calls, including
by Permanent Five and other members of the Security Council, to on
Myanmar replace Nambiar with a full time envoy.
Haq
replied:
From:
Farhan
Haq [at] un.org
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:16 PM
Re:
Question about Nambiar, ICC and Burma envoy role
Yes,
he
is still the acting Special Adviser on Myanmar.
The
Inner City Press story is inaccurate; there has been no complaint
formally filed at the International Criminal Court. Please ask
the
ICC for anything more on that.
As
for
a full-time Special Adviser, Ban Ki-moon has been considering
that idea; there is nothing to announce for now.
Inner
City Press
on February 23 asked Nesirky the basis for Haq's statement that
“there has been no complaint formally filed at the International
Criminal Court.” On both February 22 and 23, Inner City Press told
Nesirky that the ICC filing had been widely reported in the
Australian press.
Did the UN
seek any retraction or correction from
the Sydney
Morning Herald?
Nesirky
said he
would only take a few questions on February 23 -- he used time
accusing Inner City Press of making noise with its laptop, which was
untrue -- so Inner City Press was unable to ask for the UN's response
to Sri Lanka's government's claim that Ban Ki-moon daily schedule for
February 23 is false, and that the UN has never even asked to meet
wth members of Mahinda Rajapaksa's Lessons Learnt &
Reconciliation Commission.
UN's Ban & Nambiar, response to Haq & Lanka
statements, ICC not shown
Watch
this space and
see below:
The
Government
today rejected reports that External Affairs Ministry
Secretary Romesh Jayasinghe and Attorney General Mohan Peiris were in
New York to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Deputy
Minister of External Affairs Neomal Perera told the Daily Mirror that
the External Affairs Ministry Secretary was overseas on a private
visit and that, to his knowledge, there was no meeting scheduled
between the Attorney General and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The
Minister
further rejected claims that the government had hindered the
UN Secretary Generals’ Expert Panel from contacting the local
Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).
“We
are in constant contact with the UN Secretary General’s office and
they have not requested to meet with the LLRC. If they so wish they
can contact them through us or even directly”, he said.
A
representative
of the LLRC told the Daily Mirror that any contact
between the panel and the LLRC would generally have to be through the
External Affairs Ministry. “The Commission has not been contacted,
normally however it is understood that any contact would have to be
made through the External Affairs Ministry; the Secretary Generals
office or the UN office in Colombo would have to contact them- but no
such contact has been made,” the representative said.
Reports
claimed
today that besides disallowing the UN Panel to visit Sri
Lanka the government had rejected the Secretary Generals offers for
those from the Panel to contact members of the LLRC through video
conferencing or written questions.
Watch
this site.
* * *
