Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

UN Says Lankan President's Nephew was Murdered in Arusha, Genocide Conspiracy Alleged

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 24 -- Following the death in Tanzania of the nephew of Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa, Shyamlal Rajapaksa, who served as a prosecutor for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, allegations have been made in Sri Lanka that the UN is involved in a cover-up of the death.

In New York on August 24, Inner City Press Michele Montas, the Spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to respond to the allegations, including about UN insurance coverage. Ms. Montas answered that "the preliminary finding.. is that he has been murdered." Video here, from Minute 10:03.

This is more than a little strange. In Sri Lanka, "outgoing Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona told The Sunday Times they were awaiting a full report from Tanzania... He said the accountability is clearly with the UN, whether the death was caused by natural causes or otherwise since Mr. Rajapaksa was working for the world body. He also said Mr. Rajapaksa was entitled to full insurance compensation irrespective on how the death occurred."

Inner City Press asked Ms. Montas if the UN's payment of insurance would be impacted by the cause of death, which some press reports ascribe to a drug overdose. Ms. Montas called insurance a "hypothetical question."

But "Lalitha Rajapaksa, mother of Shyamlal, said it was difficult to accept the UN version that her son died owing to natural causes. She said she suspected that there was more to it... 'It was known that my son was in possession of a damning report that was to shed a lot of light on the Rwandan genocide some 15 years ago. He had even made this known to his UN bosses last month,' Ms. Rajapaksa said.

UN's Ban and Mahinda Rajapaksa only last month, insurance and response to genocide theories not shown

'Shyamlal had been on a five-year fact-finding mission regarding the massacres in Rwanda, a task from which several others opted out because of the dangers involved. I suspect UN officials are trying to cover up something either to dodge the insurance payments or simply to save face in the international community,' she said. Ms. Rajapaksa said the truth could be found out if the investigators were able to retrieve the bombshell report that her son had."

As one wag at the UN put it, the cousin of the president of one regime accused of genocide had discovered some smoking gun about another genocide? Watch this site.

Footnotes: Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, whose Centre for Policy Alternatives has recently publicized a death threat he received citing CPA's advocacy around Sri Lanka's re-application for favorable GPS Plus tariff treatment in Europe, is now scheduled to give a Press briefing in UN headquarters on August 25 at 3 p.m. in the UNCA Club, on topics including the conditions in the internment camps. Also, UNCA has asked that its extension of the deadline until September 21, 2009 for submission for its journalism awarded, described here, be announced. Consider it done.

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In Sri Lanka, Death Threats Over Speaking on EU's GSP Plus Tariff Treatment, Silence at UN

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 23 -- A Sri Lankan academic and human rights activist faces death threats for allegedly providing information about the situation in Sri Lanka which might force the European Union not to continue its tariff free treatment of Sri Lankan textiles under the so called GSP Plus program.

Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the Centre for Policy Alternatives received the death threat, reproduced below, last week. The UN Security Council, which despite the UK's claim to have had the votes to put Sri Lanka on the agenda didn't, has not spoken on the death threat, nor on the worsening conditions in the internment camps for Tamils which the UN is funding.

On April 30 of this year, Inner City Press asked UK Ambassador to the UN John Sawers about using the GSP Plus renewal as some leverage for better treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Sawers answered, "We're not in the job of penalizing the government of Sri Lanka." Click here for that story.

Flooding in Sri Lanka's internment camps from sources there

In May, Inner City Press asked the Netherlands' deputy permanent representative to the UN Piet de Klerk about Sri Lanka and the GSP Plus program. DPR de Klerk said he didn't think that human rights were "applicable to this sort of situation." Click here for that story.

Now, despite these deaf ears, Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu has received a death threat about the mere possibility of GSP Plus treatment being suspended. We hope to have more on this.

For now, this is what Norway's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Mona Juul had to say about the UN's Ban Ki-moon's actions on Sri Lanka:

Another example of weak handling from the Secretary-General’s side is the war in Sri Lanka. The Secretary-General was a powerless observer to civilians in their thousands losing their lives and being driven from their homes. The authorities in Colombo refused to receive the Secretary-General while the war was going on, but he was an honored guest -- and he accepted the invitation -- once the war had been “won.” Even though the UN’s humanitarian effort had been active and honorable enough, the Secretary-General’s moral voice and authority have been absent.

And now, despite the UN Secretariat's commitment to monitor the country, these have deteriorated to death threats against human rights defenders. What will be done by and at the UN? Watch this site.

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With UN Silent on Flooding of Sri Lankan Camps, Aid Groups Plead for Release of IDPs

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 18 -- While the UN refuses to address the flooding of the Manik Farms detention camps it built and is funding in Sri Lanka, the aid groups which offer services there have petitioned not only the government but also the UN to at least release those imprisoned before the September monsoon season. The UN has said nothing. At the UN's noon briefing in New York on August 17, Inner City Press asked

Inner City Press: Over the weekend there was this flooding of the UN-funded camps, quite bad, and the Government has actually blamed the UN for it, has said the UN was responsible for building the camps and for sewage and which is now backed up and has now filled up the tents. Does the UN have any response either to what it’s going to do to solve this problem and also to being blamed by the Government for the problem?

Deputy Spokesperson Montas: We’ll try to get you something from OCHA. I don’t have anything from them this morning.

More the 30 hours later, the UN has provided no statement and no response, even to the appeal from aid groups, that

We fear that once the monsoon rains set in after September there is significant likelihood of a major humanitarian catastrophe. Increasingly there is an overwhelming consensus amongst health, shelter and water experts that significant adverse monsoon conditions will develop in IDP sites that are well beyond the present capacity of aid agencies and the government response.

Shelter and Drainage Monsoon flooding and wind will expose structural limitations, destroying or damaging the majority of shelters. Additionally inadequate drainage will increase the risk of disease, whilst the resultant water logging will severely restrict vehicle access and hamper interventions to maintain and repair shelters in many areas.

Food Flooding will contaminate food supplies and render communal cooking areas unusable, whilst wet firewood will mean that people are unable to cook for themselves. This could lead to serious food shortages and malnutrition among an already vulnerable population.

Water and Sanitation Effluent and excreta will flood many areas of the camps contaminating drinking and bathing water and intensifying the risk of epidemics of life-threatening water-borne diseases, such as cholera, typhoid and diahorrea. Many sanitation and water purification facilities will have to be disconnected as a health and safety measure, threatening the viability of other essential facilities such as shelter.

Transport Flooding will make access roads impassable preventing food, dry clothes, life-saving medicines, and essential machine parts for restoring water and other essential aid services from reaching the affected IDP population.

The breakdown of services in these four vital areas, we believe, will create an unparalleled health risk threatening many thousands of lives.

Flooding in the internment camps: what is floating in the water?

...We increasingly believe that from a technical and logistical perspective, the present high concentration of people in such a vulnerable site as Menik Farm is unworkable, unsustainable and beyond the collective capacity of Humanitarian Agencies, the UN and the Government to manage in a way that would guarantee the safety and security of the IDP population.

We therefore urge the government and the UN to consider additional response strategies to ensure the health and well-being of the IDPs, particularly:

--An accelerated resettlement programme for Menik Farm IDPs under the government’s present 180–day program.

--Instigating a host family programme for thousands of IDPs who have access family in nearby areas. We believe as many as 50% of camp residents have relatives they can stay with during the monsoon.

We hope that you will give serious consideration to these proposals and we wish to reaffirm to you our common humanitarian concern and continuing cooperation.

But there has as of yet been no response. It appears that top UN humanitarian John Holmes is out of the loop -- his deputy Catherine Bragg is representing OCHA on the first humanitarian day event at the UN on August 19 -- while UNHCR's country representative Amin Awad has appeared to excuse the government's detention and torture of UN staff. WFP has reportedly used Sri Lanka as the dumping place for employees it should have disciplined -- click here for Inner City Press' story.

Conditions in the camps have gotten so bad that there is talk of an attempt to break out to survive -- or to be killed by the government. This is a low point for human rights, for the UN and humanitarian law. And it just keeps getting worse....

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On Sri Lanka, UN Funds Now Flooded Internment Camps, Still Silent on ACF Killings

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 16 -- As the Sri Lankan government conducts extraordinary renditions and declares itself the winner of elections in Jaffna, weeks after it cleared itself and declared over an investigation into killings including of 17 Action Contre La Faim aid workers, the UN in New York still has nothing to say.

Inner City Press on August 10 asked Deputy UN Humanitarian chief Catherine Bragg about the ending of the investigation into the slaughter of the 17 ACF workers. Ms. Bragg said that "we have only seen bits and pieces of the report... we would like to ask the government for the whole report." One wag asked, you'd like to ask the government -- but have you? another week has passed, and still the UN has said nothing.

But as the internment camps that it funds are flooded, and the government blames the UN, one expects the UN to belatedly speak out this week. Back on August 10, Ms. Bragg was more decisive is answering that from the government's detention camps, the "rate of return is very low" and that the government should "allow freedom of movement." But the UN keep raising money for the internment camps. So why should the government change what it is doing? In fact, the government now blames the UN for the flooding.

Flooded camps in Sri Lanka, government blames UN

Inner City Press asked UNICEF to "describe and quantify UNICEF's work in the IDP camps, described as without freedom of movement for IDPs, in Northern Sri Lanka, including what if anything UNICEF is doing to ensure that its assistance is not supporting a violation of international law and human rights, the involuntary confinement of IDPs." After two days, UNICEF replied that "we have contacted our country office for information on those questions. We will get back to you as soon as possible."

We will report the response upon receipt. So too the upcoming return to the UN of Sri Lanka's new Ambassador, Palitha Kohona. Despite his hard to understand statement this year that the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay somehow did not represent the UN system in her criticism of his government, Kohona previously served as the head of UN's Treaty Section. At that time, sources tell Inner City Press, Kohona was not Sri Lankan, but rather a citizen of Australia. Expect ever greater contentiousness. Outgoing Ambassador H.M.S Paliakara stopped to say goodbye to Inner City Press, saying he is off to write his memoirs. We'll wait to fact check them.

On August 12, Inner asked about extraordinary rendition, a topic on which the UN system has spoke in other circumstances:

Inner City Press: Sri Lanka has arrested, either in Malaysia or in Thailand, it’s unclear, an opposition leader Mr. (Patmen?), also known as KP. [inaudible] may extraordinary rendition, i.e., he was arrested, there was no extradition trial and now he is back in the country. Has the UN said, some people say he’s been tortured but, does the UN have anything to say about that?

Deputy Spokesperson: I don’t think we’ve received ay reports on that, but we’ll look into that for you.

No response has been provided, even though a senior Ban advisor from the 38th floor unprompted told Inner City Press that they had been expecting the question about Pathmanathan and extraordinary rendition. And so it goes with the UN.

Inner City Press' June 18 debate on Sri Lanka, click here

These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund. Video Analysis here

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

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