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At UN, Of Sri Lankan Letters
Lost, Tamil Tiger Cards Revoked, Sexed-Up Peacekeepers
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, September 6 --
Amid the conflict in Sri Lanka, the UN receives and then loses a letter
of
complaint, allows in then disaccredits Tamil Tiger representatives, and
leaves
tales of peacekeeper sexual abuse unresolved. On
September 5, Inner City Press asked a
senior
UN official present at the UNESCO conference in Paris about the
exclusion of
three attendees later linked with the Tamil Tigers. This official, the
director of the Outreach Division of the UN's Department of Public
Information Eric Falt, responded quickly by
email from Paris:
Early
on the second day of the conference, we realized that an error had been
committed during the registration process, whereby three
representatives of
[the Tamil Center for Human Rights] TCHR had been mistakenly accredited
for the conference. For your information,
any NGO wishing to participate must be formally accredited with either
DPI, or
ECOSOC, or UNESCO (where we are meeting) or OHCHR (since the conference
focuses
on human rights).
This
was not the case of TCHR and, therefore, on the second day, two of
their
representatives were prevented from entering the UNESCO premises and
their
badges were withdrawn. The third person had already entered but was
certainly
never "ejected"
(To the best of my knowledge, he did not come back to
UNESCO premises on the third day).
Please
be informed also that the Chair of the conference, Shamina de Gonzaga,
was not
responsible for this decision. Since this issue falls under the
responsibility
of DPI, we took the decision in close consultation with all our UN
partners
(Ms. de Gonzaga was however informed and had no objection).
One
wonders if of all the conference attendees, there were not
others who for whatever reason were not members of formally accredited
NGOs. DPI's online
"Rules of Engagement" call for participants to "discuss challenges and ways
to overcome them." But it appears
that the subsequently disaccredited individuals were linked to the
Tamil Tigers by an email from an
individual who requested -- and is granted -- anonymity, directed to Ms. Hanifa Mezoui, New York-based Chief of the
UN's
NGO Section. Then again, a Tiger-affiliated web site, which headlines a
charge of "state terrorism" of the type that is apparently to be
excluded from the UN's symposium on the victims of terrorism on
September 9, bragged of TCHR's participation in the conference, on
which we will have more to report.
News muse: In a run-up press
conference about the Paris confab on the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights by UNESCO and the UN Department of Public Information, Ms. de
Gonzaga asked the Press for suggestions for getting the conference more
news coverage. Inner City Press suggested that the conference relate
the Declaration to current events, such as the conflicts in Georgia and
Sudan. The UN representatives disagreed, taking a less newsy or
time-sensitive approach. Video here.
Then they disaccredited an insurgent side of a current conflict -- and
made news. How does one say irony in Sri Lankan? What is known is that before the Island
was called Ceylon, its name was Serendip, the root of the word serendipity...
Sri Lankan troops in Haiti,
repatriated one-tenth, lost letter and revoked IDs not shown
Earlier in the week on September, Inner City
Press asked the UN about a letter reportedly sent to Secretary General
Ban
Ki-moon by one Father James Pathinathan, described as the
President of
the Peace and Justice Commission in the Wanni. The UN's Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told Inner City Press, that's a
question
for the Spokesperson for the Secretary General. So Inner City Press
asked the
OSSG, whose deputy then said that the letter was received and passed on
to
OCHA. But later on September 5, OCHA told Inner City Press that such a
letter
was never "logged in." So complaints from Sri Lanka also get lost in
the mail.
Complaints
against
Sri Lanka, or at least Sri Lankan peacekeepers, are also made to
disappear or
be forgotten. When one-tenth of the Sri Lankan contingent in the UN
peacekeeping mission in Haiti were charged with sexual
abuse and exploitation,
they were sent back to Sri Lanka. The then-acting chief of the UN's
Department
of Field Support Jane Holl Lute has said this represented "zero
tolerance." But there
has been no follow-through or follow-up, certainly no update on what
discipline, if any, was imposed back in Sri Lanka. So for now the more
accurate phrase appears to be "zero follow-through."
While Sri Lanka's
presentation at the 2007 UN General Assembly was surreal,
perhaps in the GA starting later this month these questions will be
answered. In between the two GAs, the country ran for the UN
Human Rights Council and was roundly trounced. Bad karma?
Watch
this
site. And this (on
South Ossetia),
this, on
Russia-Georgia,
and
this --
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