Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

At UN, Ban Silent on Sri Lanka Repeal of Term Limits, Links, Panel Still Not Started

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 14 -- As Sri Lanka's Mahinda Rajapaksa moved to repeal term limits, and barred publication which criticized this as inconsistent with national reconciliation, the UN and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stayed silent.

Inner City Press on September 14 pushed and asked Mr. Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky about this, about why Ban's panel of experts on war crimes in Sri Lanka, announced in March, has yet to begin its work, and Ban's connections with Rajapaksa and Sri Lanka. Video here, from Minute 35:23.

Nesirky said that the UN and Ban have no comment on the repeal of term limits, calling it an internal matter. That's what Russia and China on the UN Security Council said about the bloody final stages of the conflict in early 2009. The Economist wrote that by the subsequent constitutional change, Rajapaksa showed he "preferred to put the consolidation of his family's power ahead of a sorely needed national reconciliation” -- and then got banned. Nesirky offered the “general” thought that censorship is inconsistent with democracy.

Nesirky confirmed that Ban's panel still has not begun its work, that its four month clock has not begun. He said that the panel members will meet with Ban “this week.” We'll see.

Inner City Press asked Nesirky to describe Ban's experience with Rajapaksa prior to becoming Secretary General of the UN, and to confirm that Ban's son in law Siddarth Chatterjee, while an Indian army officer, served in the Indian Peace Keeping Force in majority Tamil areas.

UN's Ban and M. Rajapaksa, repeal of term limits not shown

Nesirky said he would “get back” to Inner City Press on these. Watch this site.

Footnote: Mr. Ban held a press conference on September 13, but Inner City Press was not granted permission to ask a question. On September 14, Inner City Press was told no more questions were being allowed -- so Inner City Press asked for an explanation of this limitation, that it wanted to ask about Sri Lanka. Video here, from Minute 31:18.

Nesirky, seemingly begrudgingly, allowed the Sri Lanka questions, while deferring any answer to two of them. We will continue to follow these issues.

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On Sri Lanka, UN's Holmes Speaks of Gov't Shelling, Casualties, 2 Sides' Propaganda

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 26 -- Asked about Sri Lanka on his final day as UN Humanitarian Coordinator, John Holmes offered a defense of his department's funding of the government's internment camps while admitting the government may have “deliberately shelled” civilians and hospitals. Video here, from Minute 17:29.

Inner City Press asked Holmes about criticism of his and the UN's actions in Sri Lanka, for example pulling out of Kilinochchi, funding the internment camps and failing even now to get to the bottom of the murder of the Action Contre La Faim humanitarian workers. Video here, from Minute 14:30.

Holmes called this the “ACF massacre,” and said it has still not been explained or even investigated. He did not explain the Kilinochchi pull out, which has been criticized including the International Crisis Group.

He said there's a need to know how many civilians were killed, when it was his OCHA unit which stopped reporting on civilians casualties when one of their reports was leaked to and published by Inner City Press.

Holmes began his answer by referring to the “heavy propaganda claims on both sides.” It was not clear if, beyond side of the the government and “Sinhalese extremists” -- to use Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew's description of Mahinda Rajapaksa -- Holmes meant the LTTE Tamil Tigers, or the Tamil diaspora.

As Inner City Press reported at the time, during Ban Ki-moon's trip to Sri Lanka in May 2009, Holmes during an on the record briefing on the UN plane said that he got lots of email from the Tamil diaspora alleging for example bias by Ban's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar. I just delete it, Holmes said of the e-mail.

John Holmes in the UN auditorium, accountability not shown

Later after complaints, Inner City Press tried to soften the story. But that is what he said. And since he said it, information has emerged about Nambair's still unexplained role in telling LTTE leaders who wanted to surrender to come out with white flags. They were killed, and the leader of the unit which did the killing is now reportedly coming to the UN as Sri Lanka's Deputy Permanent Representative.

Holmes is headed to a think tank of sorts, Ditchley Hall. Perhaps he will write a book -- and perhaps it will address these issues. We'll be watching.

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At UN, Sri Lanka Move to Place Alleged War Criminal As Ambassador Questioned

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 25 -- Sri Lanka's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN post, vacant following Bandula Jayasekera's department triggered by a sexual harassment scandal, is now reportedly slated to be filled by Major General Shavendra Silva, who “was allegedly among those mentioned by MP Sarath Fonseka in a media interview where he had said that the former 58 Division Commander had received orders to shoot at sight LTTE suspects who came with white flags to surrender to the army during the final stage of war.”

At the UN on Wednesday, Inner City Press asked Martin Nesirky, the spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, about this reported appointment and that of General G.A. Chandrasiri to replace Palitha Kohona as Permanent Representative. Video here, from Minute 53:36.

While Nesirky said he wouldn't comment on hypotheticals, when Inner City Press asked if Ban would have some discretion to not accept credentials when presented, Nesirky said he would look into it.

Shavendra Silva is clearly a witness to the war crime events about which Ban has appointed a (stalled) three member panel to advise him. Would appointing him an ambassador give him de facto or de jure diplomatic immunity?

UN's Ban takes credentials from Kohona- is acceptance automatic?

Inner City Press also asked Nesirky if the four month “clock” of Ban's panel of experts had finally begun. No, Nesirky said, the clock has not started but it is being wound. But why so slowly? Watch this site.

Later on Wednesday Inner City Press asked a Sri Lankan diplomat about the reported new Deputy Perm Rep and Perm Rep. “It's not yet confirmed,” he answered, adding that the entire staff of the mission in New York might be replaced.

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On Sri Lanka, UN Has No Comment on Fonseka, Panel Still Not Started, Ban Book In Flux, Lee Kuan Yew Author Snubbed

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 13 -- As in Sri Lanka the government's “Lessons Learnt” panel began, with a focus not on the civilians killed in 2009 but on how a ceasefire earlier broke down, Inner City Press on Friday asked UN Spokesman Martin Nesirky if the UN had any comment on Sri Lanka's or its panel, or on the court martial of former General Sarath Fonseka, whose offer to testify about war crimes the UN has apparently turned down. Video here, from Minute 13:04.

Mr. Nesirky said the UN has no “new comment” on Fonseka, but had earlier urged due process. That was before the process and conviction, which Fonseka has called a sham.

In the interim, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was burned in effigy during a blockade of the UN compound in Colombo led by government minister Wimal Weerawansa. Since then, the UN has said and done almost nothing.

Inner City Press asked whether Ban's panel of experts on accountability in Sri Lanka has finally begun its work, triggering the start of the four month clock to turn in a report. Nesirky replied that he couldn't “say when” the panel will start.

In fact, the reason being offered to Inner City Press is the illness of the spouse of one of the three panel members.

The week's noon briefings were full of questions about author Tom Plate's statement that he will profile Ban Ki-moon as the third in his series of “Giants of Asia.”

UN's Ban unfocused in Sri Lanka, panel's start and book not shown

At an August 10 book party near the United Nations, Plate read from his book about Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew, who is quoted on page 55 of the book saying the

“example is Sri Lanka. It is not a happy, united country. Yes, they [the majority Sinhalese government] have beaten the Tamil Tigers this time, but the Sinhalese who are less capable are putting down a minority of Jaffna Tamils who are more capable. They were squeezing them out. That's why the Tamils rebelled. But I do not see them ethnic cleansing all two million plus Jaffna Tamils. The Jaffna Tamils have been in Sri Lanka as long as the Sinhalese...[referring to Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapaksa] 'I've read his speeches and I knew he was a Sinhalese extremist. I cannot change his mind.'”

Plate was asked about this section of the book, and said that it was difficult to keep it in. Afterward, Inner City Press asked Plate to explain: how had wanted the section to come out? Of all that he said Tuesday night, this was the only time that Plate asked to go off the record. We respected that, just as we respected the request to omit from coverage the presence of at least one individual and entourage.

But later in the week, Ban's spokesman Nesirky repeatedly insisted that Ban has made no commitment to Plate nor to anyone else for such a profile. Since Plate unequivocally said that Ban will be the third Giant of Asia, in Inner City Press' presence and in writing, Inner City Press asked Friday if there was some meaning of the word “commitment” that it was missing.

Nesirky responded that like any piece of information, it could change. Video here, from Minute 15:48. Watch this site.

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

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

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