On
Myanmar,
as Nambiar of UN “Neglects Justice” & Minorities,
Q&A Requested
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May 13 -- As UN envoy Vijay
Nambiar was on his way to
Myanmar earlier this week, Inner City Press asked the UN if he
would
meet with ethnic minority groups including the Shan, whom the
government is attacking. The UN said it didn't know yet.
Now
Nambiar has
left Myanmar, after issuing a statement that does not mention the
Shan or the ending of ceasefires. At Friday's noon UN briefing in New
York, Inner City Press asked again the Nambiar take questions from
the media when he returns, for example about the situation of the
Shan, Karen, Rohingya and other groups, especially since his
statement did not mention them.
“How do you
know
he didn't mention them?” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky demanded.
Well,
Nambiar's
statement was sent to Inner City Press by e-mail, as were various
statements from human rights groups critical of Nambiar's work.
Nambiar last time, Press excluded, new request not shown
Nesirky
pointed
again to Nambiar's statement in Yangon, where previously even Burmese
press was excluded from Nambiar's press conference.
I'll
relay your
requests, Nesirky said. He told Inner City Press, you don't have to
rely “on NGOs.”
This
was ironic
because later on Friday Ban Ki-moon met with Kenneth Roth of Human
Rights Watch, who had just tweeted that Nambiar “neglects justice
for war crimes.” Is Roth aware of, and did he raise, other
questions about Nambiar and human rights? It's not yet known, as
there's been no read out. Watch this site.
* * *
With
UN's
Nambiar
in Myanmar, UN Won't Speak on Minorities or ASEAN
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May
12 -- With UN Envoy Vijay
Nambiar's trip to Myanmar more
than half over, the UN in New York still refused on Thursday to say
who Nambiar would meet with, and whether he would hold an open press
conference.
As
Nambiar's trip
began, Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's acting
deputy spokesman Farhan Haq if Nambiar would meet with ethnic
minorities, as was requested but not done during Nambiar's trip to
Myanmar last year.
Haq
said, “I
don’t have a schedule for all of his meetings... as the trip
proceeds, we will try to get some more details about other meetings
as they are scheduled.”
Two
days later,
Inner City Press asked again, this time to Ban's lead spokesman
Martin Nesirky, including whether Nambiar would hold an open press
conference and take questions.
Nesirky
said he
did not know. When Inner City Press asked if Nambiar would be raising
to the government its status as the world's worst recruiter of child
soldiers, Nesirky said he assumed Nambiar would raise all the issues.
But
just the
previous day, the UN's expert on Children and Armed Conflict Radhika
Coomaraswamy stated that no meeting with or briefing to Nambiar on
the topic was held before he left.
Nor
would Nesirky
on Thursday express any UN or Nambiar view on Myanmar's request to
chair ASEAN by 2014.
During
Nambiar's
last trip in November
2010, several media organizations were barred
from his press conference inside Myanmar:
“Reporters
who
were denied access included staff from The Myanmar Times, 7 Day,
Venus, The Voice, True News, Weekly Eleven and other news journals.
'We face difficulties in collecting news because the army, police and
local authorities all restrict us from doing so. Even if we have
news, we have to go through the PSRD before we publish it. We are
working under very tight control. The situation may become worse when
the new government lead by the Union Solidarity and Development Party
(USDP) takes office,' said a reporter, who asked to remain
anonymous.The [military government's Press Scrutiny and Registration
Division] suspended nine private journals last week.”
Now
a formal
request has been made that he hold an open press conference, in New
York as soon as he returns, on these and other matters. 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.
