As
UN Ban Ki-moon Hosts Sri Lanka Peiris, Press Banned Even from Photo Op,
"Turn
That Camera Off"
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May 24, updated -- Not only on Sri Lanka and war crimes, but
now on
press freedom and access, the UN has hit a new low. Hours after UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told Inner City Press he "totally
reject[s] all that kind of allegations" by the International
Crisis Group of UN complicity in violation of international
humanitarian law, Inner City Press was banned from the photo
opportunity of Ban and Sri Lanka's visiting Minister of External
Affairs G.L. Peiris.
While
a UN Security Officer demanded that Inner City Press turn off its
video camera and leave, to go downstairs and have a dog sniff the
camera, visible through the glass was Mr. Peiris and his entourage,
and Ban advisor Nicholas Haysom. Coming out of the elevator was top
Ban political advisor Lynn Pascoe. Inner City Press said, "I'm
being blocked from even taking a phone." But Pascoe was gone.
The
photo op was on Ban's schedule and the day's Media Alert by the UN's
Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit, for 3:15 pm. After asking
Ban
about Sri Lanka and war crimes and publishing his answers-- that he
rejected and then didn't know he'd denied the allegations -- Inner City
Press at 2:48 pm in an abundance of caution told two MALU officials
in their office over the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Library that it would
be attending the 3:15 pm photo session.
They
said fine, that another staffer would be there. Inner City Press
walked directly and briskly from the Library to the UN's new North
Lawn Building, arriving at 3 pm. After waiting for the MALU staffer,
Inner City Press telephoned MALU's office. No one answered the phone.
Inner City Press left a voice mail reminding of its pre-announced
desire to attend the photo op. Finally at 3:09, Inner City Press took
an elevator up to Ban's third floor.
There,
one security office said it would be no problem, Inner City Press was
known and could go in. But another, in charge of Post 500, told Inner
City Press to step back and turn off the camera. Then he demanded
that Inner City Press be escorted down to the first floor to wait for
a bomb sniffing dog.
This
is ridiculous, more than one UN staffer remarked. Several UN audio
visual correspondents have told Inner City Press this has never
happened to them.
Photo not shown: not allowed
When finally the
canine handler came and say the small video and still camera, he
laughed. The dog gave one sniff and Inner City Press was gestured
upstairs. It was 3:18 pm.
"It's
over," Inner City Press was told. Ban must already been meeting
with Peiris, Palitha Kohona and his Deputy who daily sends letters
trying to intimidate from questions being asked.
Earlier
on Monday, Ban said that his 80 day delay in naming even a panel to
advise him about Sri Lanka's dubious Lessons Learnt and
Reconciliation Commission was not because of pressure from Sri Lanka.
To have the journalist who has persistently asked Ban and his
officials about their actions on and about Sri Lanka banned from even
taking a photograph is, at least for now, a new low. Watch this site.
Update of 4:09 pm -- after 4 p.m.,
Minister Peiris, Kohona and his deputy came down on the elevator. Inner
City Press asked, "What did Ban Ki-moon say?" Peiris looked away, and
another correspondent remarked on how his entourage tried to wall him
off. But this is how it's done at the UN: reporters shout -- in this
case, say -- questions. Usually, exiting diplomats answer. Not this
time. Not ready for prime time?
* * *
On
UN Role in Sri Lanka War Crimes, Ban Rejects Then Denies Rejecting
Allegations
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May 24 -- "I totally reject all that kind of
allegations," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Press on
Monday, responding to a question about the UN's involvement in war
crimes in Sri Lanka. Video here,
from Minute 38:07.
Two
minutes later, in response to a second question from Inner City
Press, Mr. Ban said, "I rejected it? I don't know I ever said I
reject it." Video here,
from Minute 40:07.
Inner
City Press had initially asked Mr. Ban about the International Crisis
Group report,
which even in the Executive
Summary calls for "an
independent international inquiry into... the UN’s September 2008
withdrawal from Kilinochchi through to its ineffectual attempts to
push for a ceasefire and its involvement in Sri Lankan government
internment camps."
Would the group of expert Ban
committed
eighty day ago to name to advise him have jurisdiction over the UN's
own actions and inactions?
Beyond
"totally reject[ing]" ICG's criticism of the UN's and Ban's
performance on Sri Lanka, Ban said that his panel would only address
"international standards" applicable to the Lessons Learnt
and Reconciliation Commission belated announced by President Mahinda
Rajapaksa.
To
some, there was a parallel: Rajapaksa rejected any allegation that
his soldiers killed civilians, before conducting any investigation.
And at Monday's press conference, Ban Ki-moon totally rejected ICG's
call for an "inquiry into... the UN’s September 2008
withdrawal from Kilinochchi through to its ineffectual attempts to
push for a ceasefire and its involvement in Sri Lankan government
internment camps."
To
these, Inner City Press added the issues raised by Ban's chief of
staff Vijay Nambiar's still murky role in encouraging the surrender
of rebel leaders who were then summarily executed. Video here,
from
Minute 37:16. In fairness, this may have thrown Ban off and led
to the rejection then non-rejection.
But the UN's own Special Rapporteur Philip
Alston has asked
the Rajapaksa government about this -- presidential brother
Gotabaya
Rajapaksa has been accused of ordering the killings -- but has yet to
ask the UN's own Vijay Nambiar. Alston's mandate expires in June. So
who will investigate? Especially after Ban's "total reject[ion of] all
that kind of allegation"?
UN's Ban and Mahinda Rajapaksa, united- in "total
rejection of allegations"
After
Ban announced his intention to name a group of experts "without
delay," the Rajapaksa government protested, including seeking
and obtaining -- albeit in a late, "non-objection" portion
of a NAM meeting in New York -- a letter from the Non Aligned
Movement that told Ban he had no jurisdiction over human rights.
While
some Ban advisors have said they disagree with the NAM letter's
logic, the Ban Administration never publicly rebutted the reasoning.
And now eighty days have passed without Ban naming even the group of
experts.
On
Monday, Inner City Press asked Mr. Ban why he has delayed these
eighty days to pass. With Ban slated to meet with Sri Lanka's
Minister of External Affairs G.L. Peiris later on May 24, he said
that the delay was "not based on pressure of Sri Lanka."
Reading from notes, Ban said he
would discuss "accountability..
reconciliation... and improving the conditions" for people,
nearly entirely Tamils, in the UN-funded camps. Ban and his advisors
should know the G.L. Peiris has publicly refused to provide any
timeline for resettling the people still in the camps, and he said
that Ban should not even name his group of experts. Some ask where
does Ban Ki-moon stands, does he reject or not remember rejecting?
Footnote: Inner City Press, which covered
Ban's trip to Sri Lanka last
May and has asked follow up questions at the UN since, had its
request to Sri Lanka's Mission to pose questions to Minister Peiris
ignored and thus denied. It was sent to Permanent Representative
Palitha Kohona, a former UN staffer, but was not responded to. A
Mission staffer said arrangements, including invitations to journalists
who have never written about or been to Sri Lanka, were coordinated by
Kohona's Deputy, who now sends Inner City Press repetitive and abusive
e-mailed every day before the UN noon briefing.
On Monday, two Mission staffers shepherded G. L. Peiris
around the UN on Monday, from BBC to Reuters, and then on to Ban
Ki-moon. There is a 3:15 "photo opportunity" and Inner City Press has a
right to be there. Watch this space.
* * *
As
Sri Lanka Names Its Own Palihakkara as Investigator, UN Panel Would
Not Look at UN's Role in War Crimes
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May 19 -- As witnesses testify
that orders to execute
prisoners came from the top of Sri Lanka's government, the UN on
Wednesday couldn't confirm it is even following the issue. Inner City
Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky
about the much
publicized report
on UK Channel 4. "I would have
to check with colleagues if they are aware" of the report,
Nesirky said.
Inner
City Press
asked if the panel that Ban said ten and a half weeks ago would be
named without delay would have jurisdiction to look into the UN's
own
role, described by the International Crisis Group, in war crimes in
Sri Lanka. Video here,
from Minute 11:12.
No,
Nesirky in
essence replied. He said the panel would only "advise the
Secretary General on the extent to which a domestic inquiry in Sri
Lanka would meet normal standards." Thus, the delayed Ban panel
would not, even if named, be responsive to the calls for
investigation made by ICG, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch
and others.
On
BBC, Louise
Arbour of ICG said the government violated the laws of war by
blurring the line between combatants and civilians, and that its
killings of civilians were not accidents. Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka's
Number One Ambassador to the UN who is apparently letting his Number
Two run wild or play bad cop, said he had read the ICG report -- the
UN has apparently not finished it -- but that any outside,
independent investigation would be "colonial and paternalistic."
But
how could a
panel now named by Mahinda Rajapaksa investigate war crimes claims
made against his own brother? On the panel is
Kohona's predecessor as Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN,
H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, who defended the blood bath on the beach as
it took loomed and took place. See video here
(March 26), here
(April 22, and Inner City
Press' Q&A report), and here
(June 5).
Would
the UN accept, for example, Sudan's UN Ambassador investigating
claims against Omar al-Bashir?
UN's Ban and Palihakkara-
credible investigation not shown
Against
this
backdrop, Nesirky has in two days not provided any of the answers he
promised on Monday, including how much the UN spent on Sri Lanka's
internment camps, and with what safeguards if any. There has still
been no
response from the IRIN or Ban's office to what's described as
censorship of the ICG report by the UN's IRIN news service.
From
the UN's
May
19 transcript:
Inner
City Press: on Sri Lanka, I wanted to ask, there is a report since
our last interchange on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, citing
senior military commanders, that there were orders from the top to
kill surrendering soldiers or hardline elements of the Tamil Tigers,
saying these orders came from the top, that “we were to leave no
one alive”. What I am wondering is, in light of this still either
delayed for 10 and a half weeks — however you characterize it —
appointing of a panel to advise Ban Ki-moon on accountability in Sri
Lanka, are they aware of this report? Does it make it go faster, and
would that panel have jurisdiction to advise the Secretary-General on
the UN’s own role in, as we discussed, leaving Kilinochi, an
ineffective call for a ceasefire, and funding internment camps as ICG
[International Crisis Group] has alleged?
Spokesperson:
On the specific news report that you are referring to on Channel 4,
I would have to check with colleagues whether they are aware of it. I
do not know the answer to that right now. On the broader question,
the Panel of Experts will have the role to advise the
Secretary-General on what the standards are for a credible domestic
investigation or inquiry. In other words, to address the question of
accountability that has been discussed very often. So it is a very
specific aim, to advise the Secretary-General on the extent to which
a domestic inquiry — meaning in Sri Lanka — would meet normal
standards, widely-held standards, for that kind of investigation. So
it is fairly specific.
Inner
City Press: And if you don’t mind, since on Monday, I think, you
had said that the Secretariat was going study this International
Crisis Group report, which actually made some allegations or called
for an international inquiry into the UN’s own conduct. What is
the UN’s response to that? Do they think that is appropriate? Given
that this Panel would not even do that if named, what is the
UN’s response to Louise Arbour and the ICG’s call for an inquiry
into the UN’s own actions in this matter?
Spokesperson
Nesirky: As I mentioned, and as you have pointed out, we said that
it is being studied in some detail and that remains the case.
Watch this site.
, 
