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When
Sri Lanka Ordered Doctors Out
of Conflict Zone, UN Said Nothing
Byline: Matthew
Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, April 23
-- A week after he was sent for the UN to Sri Lanka
and two days after he returned, Vijay Nambiar has yet to speak to the
Press
about his mission. Thursday Inner City Press asked UN Deputy
Spokesperson Marie
Okabe why Nambiar skirted the media stakeout Wednesday outside the
Security
Council meeting on Sri Lanka, if he stopped in India on his way back to
New
York and if so who he met with, and if he could be made available at
such a
stakeout or press conference. "I don't think so," Ms. Okabe said to
the last request, attempt to permit no other questions. Video here,
from Minute 36:56.
Instead, the UN's Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator
Catherine Bragg took
questions, with nothing allowed to be asked beyond the artificially
limited
humanitarian issue. Inner City Press asked Ms. Bragg about reported
intimidation of doctors in northern Sri Lanka by the government,
including
their removal earlier this year from government payrolls if they stayed
to
treat patients in the conflict zone.
Ms. Bragg said that the UN "only heard this through
the NGOs"
on April 22. Video here,
from Minute 16:17. But even the BBC pick up these reports, back
on February 11. Does
the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which operates
the
ReliefNet web site and oversees a separate IRIN reporting service, not
even
monitor BBC about the exclusion of doctors from where civilians need
them?
Another reason for the UN to check the BBC: they
quoted Defense
Secretary (and Presidential brother) Gotabhaya Rajapakse saying that it
was not
sensible to send a mission to the "No Fire" zone as called for by Ban
Ki-moon. Rajapakse said "it would not be sensible to let aid agencies
into
the conflict zone because there was already an army operation in
progress to rescue
civilians." Now what?
UN's Catherine Bragg and Marie Okabe, Vijay
Nambiar not shown
Inner City Press asked Ms. Bragg when the UN had in
fact complained to
the government about the 13 UN staff who, along with their families,
are being
detained in the government's internally displaced person's camps. I
don't have
that timeline, Ms. Bragg said. Her spokesperson has said the complaints
began
in February, but the Sri Lanka government says the first they heard
from the UN
was a letter on April 15 from the UN's Country Representative Neil
Buhne.
Buhne, who has been described to Inner City Press
even by senior Ban
Ki-moon advisers as having gotten far too close to the Sri Lankan
government,
has been approved by the government to head a "technical" mission to
the conflict zone. Inner City Press asked Ms. Bragg if anyone other
than Mr.
Buhne had been considered. Ms. Bragg insisted that the UN had chosen
Mr. Buhne.
But there are senior UN officials who are embarrassed by him.
Bigger picture, Inner City Press asked Ms. Bragg why
her Office and the
UN had not noticeably complained when NGOs and journalists were
excluded from
northern Sri Lanka by the government, in contrast to the noise made
about 10
international NGOs expelled from Darfur in Sudan. Ms. Bragg focused on
a more
recent time, saying that Ban Ki-moon has issued more statements about
Sri Lanka
this year than any other country. Video here,
from Minute 22:54.
But these
statements haven't even called for
a cease-fire. It is said that Ban will
return Friday afternoon from the most recent of his many trips, this
time
passing through Malta. Watch this site.
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 eight days later, the formal answer has been
referral to Minister
Miliband's April 12
statement, and this.
On April 21, Inner City Press put the question to U.S. Ambassador Susan
Rice, whose spokesman the following day cleared this response:
"UN personnel should have freedom of movement and be treated with
respect." But they are still detained as of this writing. 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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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