At
UN,
Asked Of Withholding Casualty Figures, Ban Ki-moon Says Sri Lanka Made
Threats, Nambiar Involved in Inaction
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April 26 -- After the Sri
Lanka war crimes report by the UN
Panel of Experts was quietly
presented to the UN Security Council by
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Inner City Press asked Ban two
questions about the report.
Among
his answers
on Sri Lanka, Ban implicitly acknowledged the report's charge that
the UN withheld casualty figures during the conflict.
Asked
to "respond to the criticisms in the report that the UN failed in those
last months to do what it could to help protect civilians, including
keeping statistics of the actual casualty figures back," Ban said that
the Sri Lankan authorities said that they couldn't guarantee the
safety of UN staff:
“the
security situation was very precarious, at the last stage of the
crisis. And we were told by the Sri Lankan Government, as I
understand and remember, that the Sri Lankan Government would not be
able to ensure the safety and security of United Nations missions
there. Then we were compelled to take the necessary action according
to their advice.”
So,
allowing the
Rajapaksas to in essence point a gun at UN staff, Ban's UN withheld
the facts about how many civilians were being killed. At the time, UN
whistleblowers gave Inner City Press an internal count of deaths by
the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which the
UN in New York refused to confirm even after Inner City Press
published it.
Asked
about his
senior adviser Vijay Nambiar's role in the White Flag killings, Ban
dodged the question by saying he will set up a review of the UN's
performance, after consulting with his senior advisers -- that is,
with Nambiar:
“I
will try to review the work and performance of the United Nations
missions in Sri Lanka at that time. I am going to discuss this matter
with my senior advisors.”
Ban's
cover
letter to the report stated that for an “investigation mechanism,
[Ban] is advised that this will require host country consent or a
decision from Member States through an appropriate intergovernmental
forum.”
Inner
City Press
asked Ban WHO advised him of this, and why after Ban three times
claimed the Panel's members could travel to Sri Lanka, they
ultimately did not.
Ban
did not say
who advised him, rather saying that he would welcome a mandate voted
by Member States in an intergovernmental forum:
“about
the future course of action, it is true and it is a fact that if I
want to establish any independent international commission of
inquiry, I will need to have a clear mandate from an
intergovernmental body or the consent of the Sri Lankan Government.”
But
when asked if
he was requesting the Security Council to take the matter up and vote
whether to start an investigation, Ban merely said that all members
have the report. So, he is not asking.
Ban & M. Rajapaksa, Nambiar & actual investigation not shown
This
was confirmed
by April's Security Council President Nestor Osorio of Colombia, who
when Inner City Press asked if Ban had requested a vote in the
Council replied that “we just took note” of the report, calling
this the “normal course of justice.” But Ban says without a vote,
there can be no investigation -- and refused to specify who gave him
this advice.
Inner
City Press
asked Ban to explain his three statements that the Panel could go to
Sri Lanka, and the fact that they were not allowed to go. They tried
very hard, Ban said, then referred to the meeting, made secret at the
time, by Attorney General Mohan Peiris with the Panel:
“We
have been trying very hard to get the Sri Lankan Government to [agree
to a visit] by the Panel of Experts. They have been very reluctant
to receive the Panel of Experts. Finally they dispatched some
high-level officials who met the Panel of Experts.”
That
is a meeting
which the UN initially denied took place. What explains all these
irregularities? What gun might the Rajapaksa government have pointed?
Watch this site.
* * *
On
Sri
Lanka,
After Ban Passes Buck to UN Councils, UN Won't Say If He's Raise
to UNSC or Who Advised Him
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
April
26 -- The UN was unable or unwilling to answer
questions about its Panel of Experts report into Sri Lanka war crimes
on Tuesday, a day after Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon belatedly
released the report.
Inner
City Press
asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky three questions at Tuesday's
noon briefing, not one of which was answered.
Ban's
cover letter
accompanying the report stated that for an “investigation
mechanism, [Ban] is advised that this will require host country
consent or a decision from Member States through an appropriate
intergovernmental forum.”
Inner
City Press
asked, twice, BY WHOM was Ban advised that he doesn't have the power
to investigate? Nesirky would not say. At opening the briefing,
Nesirky had called it an “advisory” report. But the advise on
what Ban can't do is not from the report.
Given
a number of
seeming errors in the report, such as misidentifying in Paragraph 171
the role of Presidential brother Basil Rajapaksa in the so-called
White Flag killings in which Ban's own chief of staff Vijay Nambiar
has acknowledged he was involved, without recusing himself from
review of the report, Inner City Press asked Nesirky to explain this
error, and to clarify Basil's role. Inner City Press had previously
posed this question, and ones about Nambiar, by e-mail to Nesirky and
his deputy Farhan Haq.
I
will have to
check that, Nesirky said, adding that the Panel's work has ceased
when it turned the report in. Why this is being done differently
that Ban's panel on the murder of Benazir Bhutto, on which a press
conference with questions and answer with the Panel chairman was held
after the release has not been explained.
Even
if one
accepted Ban's argument for his own powerlessness, which Amnesty
International and others do not, Ban could formally ask an
intergovernmental body to vote on an investigation of war crimes in
Sri Lanka.
Ban
will be
briefing the Security Council then the press on Tuesday afternoon. He
will tell the Council not only about this recent trip to Ukraine,
Hungary, Russia and elsewhere, but also about Cote d'Ivoire and,
Nesirky said, Sri Lanka.
Inner
City Press
asked Nesirky if Ban will be asking the Security Council to take up
and vote on his panel's recommendation for an international
investigation of war crimes in Sri Lanka, since Ban is advised -- by
whom, we still do not know, beyond noting it is the Rajapaksa's and
Vijay Nambiar's position -- that he cannot order an investigation
himself. Nesirky did not answer that either. Watch this site.
