Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

As UN Says Panel Sri Lanka Visit “Desirable But Not Essential,” Ban Protested

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 4 -- After the UN has repeatedly said that travel to Sri Lanka by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Panel on Accountability is “not essential,” Ban answered a question amid protests after his speech at Oxford by saying that his Panel “has not yet been able to complete its mission. They are still negotiating with the Sri Lankan Government.”

On February 4, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson's office in writing and in person to explain this statement (as well as Ban's statement that he had been in Sri Lanka twice since May 2009).

The UN did not answer the written question, so at the February 4 noon briefing Inner City Press asked how Ban's statement squares with the previous statement that travel to Sri Lanka, which has been blocked by the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa is “not essential.”

Ban's deputy spokesman Farhan Haq answered that Ban's Panel “has been discussing the proper arrangements to see if they can have such arrangements made.”

Haq said that of the Panel that “they do believe it is desirable to travel to Sri Lanka, but not essential.”

UN officials have already told Inner City Press, and then more formally confirmed, that Ban's Panel is unable to talk, that Sri Lanka will only talk to the Executive Office of the Secretary General.

UN's Ban and his Panel: mission not accomplished, transparency not shown

Haq did not allow the obvious question: how can the Panel meet its extended end of February deadline if Ban says, absent travel to Sri Lanka, the Panel “has not yet been able to complete its mission”? Will the intransigence of the Rajapaksa government make the panel unable to complete it mission?

Inner City Press has repeatedly asked with whom Ban spoke before saying on December 17, and again on January 14, that the Panel could travel to Sri Lanka. Watch this site.

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With UN Panel Blocked from Sri Lanka, Visit Now Called “Not Essential"

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 25 -- After breaking the news that the Sri Lanka Panel of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was being blocked by President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, Inner City Press has repeatedly asked Ban's Spokesperson's Office for comment.

In particular, since Ban on December 17 and January 14 told the Press the Panel could go to Sri Lanka, Inner City Press every day asked who Ban had spoken to before saying that, and what was said.

On January 25, the UN sent the following:

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:02 PM
Subject: Your questions on the Sri Lanka panel
To: Inner City Press

Regarding your questions about the possible travel of the advisory panel, we have the following to say:

Discussions are ongoing. The Panel wants to engage with Sri Lankan actors relevant to the question of accountability. A visit would be useful but is not essential for the Panel to provide advice to the Secretary-General.

Ban depicted in IDP camp

If the Panel “wants to engage with Sri Lankan actors relevant to the question of accountability” why did they not even request to interview Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Minister of Foreign Affairs G.L. Peiris, both in the United States this week? Watch this site.

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With Ban Called Weak on Sri Lanka, UN Claims Unfair to Judge, Unanswered Questions

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 24, updated -- With Human Rights Watch today critiquing Ban Ki-moon for “undue faith” in his so called “quiet diplomacy” with Sri Lanka's Mahinda Rajapaksa, the UN's canned response is that Ban "appointed an advisory panel, which will present its report to the Secretary-General soon. It would not be proper to prejudge the value of its work in promoting accountability and, more importantly, preventing human rights violations in Sri Lanka and other countries in future. But certainly, we are at work on that."

But Ban's Panel has been blocked from going to Sri Lanka, despite Ban's December 17 and January 14 statements to the contrary and even praise of Rajapaksa's “flexibility.”

Ban's approach, in fact, is worse that “quiet diplomacy” - he has actively praised Mahinda Rajapaksa, even as his government blocks any inquiry into the tens of thousands of Tamil civilians it killed in 2009, as detailed for example in The New Yorker magazine.

As Inner City Press has asked questions about Ban's December 17 and then January 14 statements about Sri Lanka, Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky declared on January 21 that he would not answer any more questions from Inner City Press until it somehow “acts appropriately” -- apparently meaning not to ask questions, which is all Inner City Press did on January 21 prior to Nesirky's extraordinary statement.

Inner City Press then submitted to Nesirky and his deputy Farhan Haq a series of factual questions, including about Sri Lanka. Only one question -- not about Sri Lanka, and even then only with a peacekeeping mission's pre-existing and dubious press release -- has been answered. Nesirky did not show up for the January 24 UN briefing, leaving Haq to read out the above quoted response.

Both to what HRW calls Ban's weakness on human rights, and what many call his weakness in opposing corruption, Ban and his team, represented by the seemingly silent Nesirky, will be called on to respond. 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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