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UN's
and Ban's Backing-Down to Sri
Lanka Questioned by NGOs, IMF Delay Praised
Byline: Matthew
Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News
Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, April 22 -- The lead-up to the
"bloodbath on the
beach" in Sri Lanka was the barring from the northern part of the
country
of not only journalists but also non-governmental organizations.
Wednesday
several prominent NGOs had a briefing at the UN, and they were asked
why not
only the UN but also they had not said more. Joseph Cornelius Donnelly
of CARITAS
International replied that fear of losing all access to the country, as
with
the UN, weighed on the side of keeping quiet.
Nimmi
Gowrinathan of Operation
USA pointed out that as an American NGO, the Patriot Act and the
Material
Support of Terrorism Act problematized some of their activities in
north and
east Sri Lanka. The group's president, she said, went to Colombo to
meet with
U.S. Ambassador Robert O. Blake, but a decision was made not to speak
up in
such a way as to "bring in Homeless Security" to see what they were
doing. Video here,
from Minute 50:21.
Inner City Press asked the groups to assess the UN's
performance, in
withholding casualty figures and refusing to call for a cease-fire.
Anna
Neistat from Human Rights Watch said that more journalists should have
pushed
the UN to give out the figures. She referred to the March 2009
document which
Inner City Press obtained and published: at that time, 2683 dead,
now risen
past 4500.
The UN played scared, said Robert Templer of the
International Crisis
Group, and ended up with the worst of both worlds: no full access to
the camps,
and complicity in not speaking up about casualties caused by the
government.
The UN "should have been more forthright," he said. Video here,
from
Minute 29:55.
Annan biographer Traub, UN's "Best
Intentions" on Sri Lanka not shown
Also taking questions on the panel was James Traub,
policy director of
the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect and biographer of
-- some
say apologist for -- Kofi Annan. After Traub had praised Annan's
successor Ban
Ki-moon for "very intense telephone" advocacy leading to the
government's call for a two day holiday lull, Inner City Press asked
him to
comment on Ban's refusal to call for a cease-fire, and failure to speak
out
about the detention of UN staff without freedom of movement in
government IDP
camps.
"I can give a very satisfactory answer," Traub said,
because
"I don't know the underlying facts you cited to me." He went on to
muse that Ban's failure to call for a cease-fire might have been a
question of
"nomenclature," that he was willing to call for a pause but not a
cease-fire. But why? While appropriately also laying
blame at the feet of member states, Traub conceded that the UN "is
too institutionally
inclined to say yes to retaining access, and no to speaking out
publicly." Video here,
from Minute 53.
But the problem is not only institutional. Even Kofi
Annan, one
surmises, would have said more in this case, when the UN's own
reports showed
2,683 civilians killed between January 20 and March 7. HRW's Anna
Neistat posed
a question that remains to be answered: how could Sri Lanka so
intimidate the
UN, when it has so little leverage? She said she doubts Sri Lanka can
even
afford to throw out humanitarian groups. Why did the UN back down so
cravenly? This remains to be answered.
One development was praised at Wednesday's session,
the delay at the International
Monetary Fund of Sri Lanka's request for a $1.9 billion loan. It was
supposed
to be approved weeks ago, HRW's Anna Neistat said when asked by a
correspondent
from Xinhua. Video here
from Minute 49:09. In mid-March, when Inner
City Press asked the
IMF's spokesman if any conditions would be attached, he said it was
still being
negotiated.
While Neistat said that human rights conditions
can't be attached to
loans, early in the the week at the UN, Jo-Marie Griesgraber from New
Rules for
Global Finance responded to Inner City Press' question about Sri
Lanka's loan
request by noting that under Michel Camdessus, military
over-expenditure can be
to considered a "non productive expenditure." Video
here,
from Minute 33:14.
And is the building of detention camps, now being
funded by the UN, a
legitimate "humanitarian" expenditure? To be continued.
Footnote:
We continue to wait for the
UK's formal answer to the first of the two
questions which Inner
City
Press asked the UK Mission to
the UN two questions on Sri Lanka early on April 15:
Does the UK
believe that international law and the
rights of UN humanitarian staff are being violated by the
now-acknowledged
detention of UN staff in the Sri Lankan government's “IDP” camps?
It has been reported
this morning that Sri Lanka's “minister also told the
British
Foreign Secretary that there was concern that the LTTE would
continue to
consolidate its fortification of the No-Fire Zone.” Please confirm the
accuracy
of that, and of this
and if so, does the UK interpret it as saying that
an offensive on the No-Fire Zone and the civilians in it will begin?
What did
the UK Foreign Secretary say?
As
of
this press time a week later, the formal answer has been
referral to Minister
Miliband's April 12
statement, and this.
Tuesday, Inner City Press put the question to U.S. Ambassador Susan
Rice, whose spokesman on Wednesday cleared this response: "UN
personnel should have freedom of movement and be treated with respect."
As more answers arrive or are released we will report them on this site.
Click here
for an Inner City Press YouTube channel video, mostly UN Headquarters
footage, about civilian
deaths
in Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City
Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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
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