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By Matthew Russell Lee, video

UN GATE, Feb 15 -- After months in which the United Nations of Antonio Guterres refused to answer questions about allowing 250 Sri Lanka soldiers to deploy to the UN mission in Mali, with an alleged war criminal Shavendra Silva seeing them off contrary to a false claim by Guterres that such deployments would stop, another  alleged war criminal has claimed the presidency: Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

  Now the US has placed a travel ban on Shavendra Silva, who has always been welcome in the UN of Antonio Guterres. The travel ban is under Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act. The UN's solicitude of this war criminal, as with Cameroon's Paul Biya, is based on the convenience and corruption of Antonio Guterres, wanting "peacekeepers" and budget favor. Next, Guterres should be banned from the US.

  Gotabaya should thank the UN for its ghoulish assist to his campaign. But who will hold corrupt Guterres accountable? Inner City Press in writing asked, repeatedly without answer from UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming which blocks its entrance to ask in person: January 10-2: On Sri Lanka, what are the comments or actions if any of SG Guterres on if the Sri Lankan government should abide by its commitments to replace the abusive Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) with legislation that respects its international human rights obligations. The cabinet of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced on January 4, 2020 that it would withdraw a proposed replacement law, reneging on pledges to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the European Union.  The HRW in a statement said, Rajapaksa, who took office on November 18, 2019, has also taken other steps that threaten human rights protections in Sri Lanka. He appointed army commanders implicated by the UN in attacks on civilians and other grave abuses during the civil war to defense secretary and other senior positions." No answer at all. Guterres is absolutely corrupt.

Now this from IPJT and JDS: "Ambassador designate for Sri Lanka, C.A.Chandraprema, because of his membership during the late eighties of a death squad responsible for the murders of hundreds of people, including human rights lawyers, journalists, university students and school children.      C. A Chandraprema was known as “Thadi Priyantha” at the time and was a key member of the People’s Revolutionary Red Army or PRRA, one of many shadowy armed groups working with the military to target suspects during a Sinhala youth uprising that saw 40,000 killed. PRRA routinely issued death threats to journalists and human rights activists, including staff from Amnesty International, whose reports at the time accused PRRA of being involved in executions and enforced disappearances.     Chandraprema was arrested in Sri Lanka in 2000 in connection with the 1989 assasinations of two human rights lawyers  - Charita Lankapura and Kanchana Abhayapala. A senior ex policeman in custody had named Chandraprema as the alleged assassin in an affidavit which is publicly available online.  However Chandraprema was released after the  Attorney General decided there was no legal grounds to proceed. Since then he has been protected by his links to all the major political parties in Sri Lanka.      “It is the ultimate irony that a man who has never been properly investigated for his alleged role in the murder of brave human rights lawyers should sit in the Human Rights Council,” a body intended to protect the rights of victims and human rights activists said ITJP’s Executive Director, Yasmin Sooka. “Sri Lanka has a past record of intimidating and threatening activists who attend the Human Rights Council – it is simply not safe to have a man like this heading a diplomatic mission in Geneva.”     In recent years Chandraprema became a newspaper columnist. In 2012 he authored a hagioghraphy of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa that denies all the allegations of war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan army against Tamils in 2009." And from Guterres' UN? Nothing, as LaCroix dissembles about using the Rajapaksas' and Shavendra Silva's soldiers.

  After covering the UN's failure on Sri Lanka, from the bloodbath on the beach through accepting Shavendra Silva as a UN Peacekeeping adviser, Inner City Press was roughed up and banned by Secretary General Antonio Guterres. FP and Reuters said nothing.

  In February 2019 when Silva became Army Chief of Staff, Inner City Press puts in among its written questions to Spokesman Stephane Dujarric a question on this. Despite Dujarric's on camera promise to answer Inner City Press' written questions, no answer.

 In August when Silva was further promoted, Inner City Press asked again and again in writing, including to Guterres new chief of "Global Communications" Melissa Fleming. No answer; Fleming banned Inner City Press from the UNGA week.

  Then Dujarric's office handed a claim, which Inner City Press even then called out diplomaticallly as quite possibly not true, to his teacher's pet FP, long time correspondent Colum Lynch and DC-based Robbie Gramer. Neither ever wrote a word about Guterres using UN Security to physically rough up Inner City Press and ban it 450 days since. They call this a scoop, when it is just spoon feeding for those who want to feel good about the UN. Reuters also reported it - and they actively lobbied Guterres' Dujarric to oust Inner City Press, here. No correction: corrupt.

   On the morning of September 26, while simultaneous covering the SDNY Federal court where CEFC China Energy, financially linked to UNSG Guterres was convicted of UN bribery, Inner City Press asked Guterres, his spokesmen Stephane Dujarric and Farhan Haq and Melissa Fleming questions including "September 26-2: On Sri Lanka, please immediately explain why your Office refused to answer weeks of questions from Inner City Press about the impact of Shavendra Silva being made head of army (despite Dujarric on camera promise, and Smale's written promise, to answer ICP's questions) then handed the answer to FP and how that doesn't make FP and Reuters the UN's teacher's pets? Is the belated decision even true?"

  No answer. Then this...

 Past 4 pm on Friday, August 30 the UN issued a denial of accreditation with no reasoning other than that accreditation had previously been revoked:

"From:  malu at un dot org
Date: Fri, Aug 30, 2019 at 4:23 PM
Subject: U.N. eAccreditation request for Matthew Lee Ref # M5413398 has been declined
To: Inner City Press:

Greetings Matthew Lee from Inner City Press,  Your media accreditation request, with reference no: M5413398, has been declined for the following reason: Media accreditation was withdrawn on 17 August 2018."

  This is Kafka-esque, and corrupt. We will have more, much more, on this.

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