At
UN,
Kenya ICC Meeting Is Canceled by Security Council, No Ban
Summary
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 16 -- A week after a delegation from Kenya delivered a
pitch for deferral of International
Criminal Court cases to UN
Security Council members and reportedly Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon, the Council was scheduled to meet on the topic on Wednesday
afternoon.
Inner
City Press
was in front of the Council, seeking to cover the Kenya meeting as
well as the Council's ongoing consultations on Libya. The sign in
front of Conference Room 8 next to the Council chamber advertised the
Kenya ICC meeting all morning.
A
group of Kenyan
diplomats came down to the Council area at 3 pm, looking around. The
sign had been changed: “Canceled.” Inside, the conference room
was empty.
“When it is
rescheduled for?” Inner City Press later asked the Kenyan. It
hasn't been, they answered.
The
trip by
Kenya's vice president to meet Ban Ki-moon and UN mission had been
described as a success -- by the Kenyan delegation. Ban Ki-moon, in
fact, never confirmed the content of his meeting. On March 8, Inner
City Press asked Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky:
Inner
City
Press: the Secretary-General met at 11:00 a.m. with the Vice
President of Kenya, [Stephen] Kalonzo, and I wanted to know, now that
that meeting has happened, did the matter of deferring the ICC
[International Criminal Court] prosecution of Kenya arise? And
separately, what is the Secretary-General’s view on such a
suspension?
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Well, I need to await a readout on that meeting; so I don’t
really have any further comment at this time. But we have requested
a readout and I would expect one. Okay?
Inner
City
Press: Would that say specifically whether ICC arose or not? I
mean, I guess the readout…
Spokesperson
Nesirky:
Well, as I say, let’s see, let’s see. We have asked
for it and let’s see what happens.
But
no read out
was ever given. And now the Security Council's meeting on Kenya and
the ICC has been canceled.
In
fact, a Council
Permanent Representative earlier in the month pitched the Press on
the argument that the Security Council need not, or even cannot, vote
to suspect ICC action on Kenya, since unlike Darfur in Sudan, the
Council did not refer Kenya to the ICC. Whatever the merits of the
argument, the unceremonious canceling of the Kenya ICC meeting may
speak for itself. Watch this site.
* * *
On
Sri
Lanka,
UN's Haq Insists His Denial Meant Nambiar Isn't Target of ICC
Complaint, Is Only Called a "Co-Perpetrator"
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March
11 -- On Sri Lanka, a complaint filed with the
International Criminal Court against Palitha Kohona states of UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff that there is “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.”
Inner
City Press
on February 21 published a story containing that quote, and this
paragraph from the complaint:
"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.”
Days
later Ban's
Deputy
Spokesman
Farhan Haq sent a reporter an on the record
statement that
“The
Inner City Press story is inaccurate; there has been no complaint
formally filed at the International Criminal Court.”
Inner
City Press
asked Ban's lead spokesman Martin Nesirky to explain Haq's statement,
but Nesirky refused, saying that Haq had sent it to another
journalist, not Inner City Press. But it was an on the record
response. Still, no answer, including from Nambiar.
On
March 11, for
the first time in weeks Haq and not Nesirky took questions at the
UN's noon briefing. Alongside questions about the vetting of Ban's
envoy to Libya and UN actions in Sudan, Inner City Press asked Haq to
explain his statement.
After
attempting
the evade the question by calling it "all of your personal
things" and saying it could be
addressed outside of the briefing room -- Inner City Press has asked
outside of the briefing, without answer -- Haq now argued that he had
been asked if the ICC complaint named -- that is, was against --
Nambiar.
But
Haq's
statement in his e-mail, which Inner City Press published
on February 23 and is reproduced in full below, did not refer to
whether Nambiar was the named target, which he couldn't be as a
citizen of India, which is not a member of the ICC. (Kohona is named
because he is a joint citizen of Australia, which IS an ICC member.)
UN's Haq in briefing room, belated e-mail spin not shown
Rather,
Haq's
statement called inaccurate “the Inner City Press story,” which
quoted directly from the ICC filing, as set forth above. The story
was not inaccurate.
It appears,
including to the journalist who
received the e-mail from Haq, that the goal was to convince other
media to ignore any link between Nambiar and the ICC complaint, and
the underlying killing including “white flag murders” in Sri
Lanka.
Even
many of those
closest to Ban Ki-moon have questioned why Ban sent to Sri Lanka
former Indian ambassador Nambiar, given India's interest in Sri Lanka
especially after the murder of Rajiv Gandhi, and with Nambiar's
brother Satish writing publicly in praise of the Rajapaksas military
campaign in Northern Sri Lanka which has given rise to the war crimes
charges.
One Ban
insider says, “It's not really Nambiar's fault,
Ban should just never have made him the envoy to Sri Lanka.”
But
the mistakenly-given role of Nambiar for the UN in Sri Lanka has so
distorted the
Ban administration's and the UN's response to the events in Sri Lanka
that the spokespeople act as described above, and won't even answer
with whom Ban's Panel on Sri Lanka met. It is a low point in Ban
Ki-moon's tenure as UN Secretary General.
From
the
UN's
transcription
of its March 11 noon briefing:
Inner
City
Press:
there was a filing with the International Criminal Court
(ICC), admittedly not by a Government but by a private group, naming
the Sri Lankan Ambassador here, but also having two paragraphs
concerning the Chief of Staff of the Secretary-General, Vijay
Nambiar. And I, it has come to my attention that you wrote to a
journalist saying that this is inaccurate; that there is no complaint
filed with the ICC. And I wanted to know what the basis of that
statement was, since they claim it was filed and they have proof of
filing?
Acting
Deputy
Spokesperson
Haq: Again, you know, this briefing is not for
me to discuss all of your personal things. We can always discuss
this outside. The basic point is a reporter — and I don’t know
what his exchange with you was, but his exchange with me was whether
a complaint had been filed naming Mr. Nambiar. That is not the case.
But here is
what Haq sent out:
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.
