On
Sri
Lanka, UN Says No Date Set for Panel Report, Ban to Proclaim on
Its Secrecy
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March 28 -- The UN on March 28 said that for its Sri Lanka
panel's report, “no date has yet been scheduled” for it
to be
submitted to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and that what happens
after that, including any release to the public, is for Ban “to
decide and pronounce on.”
Inner
City Press
had asked, in light of Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa's
recent statements, including that Ban's Panel could not investigate
in Sri Lanka, if Ban had given him assurances that the report will be
kept secret.
Ban's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky said that's for Ban “to decide and pronounce on.”
But has Ban already decided?
Ban and M. Rajapaksa, UN report and "flexibility" still not shown
In
December 2010,
Ban pronounced that due to Rajapaksa's “flexibility,” his Panel
could go to Sri Lanka. But time went on, and now Rajapaksa has said
he prohibited any investigative trip. What flexibility was Ban
praising? Inner City Press has asked, but it has still not been
answered.
At
Ban's last
press availability, Nesirky did not call on Inner City Press to ask
any question. Ban is now ostensibly "coordinating" the military action
in Libya. Many question the
differing responses to the killing of civilians in Libya this year
and in Sri Lanka in 2009 -- but that's a question for another day.
Watch this site.
Footnote:
Inner
City Press also on March 28 asked Nesirky about a public
statement by South
Africa's Vice President Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe that “As
of
March this year, we are aware that a Sri Lankan government
delegation met with the UN panel in New York.” The UN has denied
this meeting took place. Nesirky on March 28 did not even answer that
part of Inner City Press' question, terminated the noon briefing and
left.
* * *
On
Sri
Lanka,
UN's Haq Insists His Denial Meant Nambiar Isn't Target of ICC
Complaint, Is Only Called a "Co-Perpetrator"
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
March
11 -- On Sri Lanka, a complaint filed with the
International Criminal Court against Palitha Kohona states of UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff that there is “a
basis to question whether Vijay Nambiar was in fact an innocent
neutral intermediary or in fact a co-perpetrator within the
negotiation related community.”
Inner
City Press
on February 21 published a story containing that quote, and this
paragraph from the complaint:
"NAMBIAR
again
through
the United Nations-24 hour dispatch center in New York.
NAMBIAR replied to COLVIN that MAHINDA RAJAPAKSE, GOTABAYA RAJAPAKSE,
AND PALITHA KOHONA had assured NAMBIAR that the LTTE members would be
safe in surrendering to the SLA and treated like “normal prisoners
of war” if they “hoist[ed] a white flag high.”
Days
later Ban's
Deputy
Spokesman
Farhan Haq sent a reporter an on the record
statement that
“The
Inner City Press story is inaccurate; there has been no complaint
formally filed at the International Criminal Court.”
Inner
City Press
asked Ban's lead spokesman Martin Nesirky to explain Haq's statement,
but Nesirky refused, saying that Haq had sent it to another
journalist, not Inner City Press. But it was an on the record
response. Still, no answer, including from Nambiar.
On
March 11, for
the first time in weeks Haq and not Nesirky took questions at the
UN's noon briefing. Alongside questions about the vetting of Ban's
envoy to Libya and UN actions in Sudan, Inner City Press asked Haq to
explain his statement.
After
attempting
the evade the question by calling it "all of your personal
things" and saying it could be
addressed outside of the briefing room -- Inner City Press has asked
outside of the briefing, without answer -- Haq now argued that he had
been asked if the ICC complaint named -- that is, was against --
Nambiar.
But
Haq's
statement in his e-mail, which Inner City Press published
on February 23 and is reproduced in full below, did not refer to
whether Nambiar was the named target, which he couldn't be as a
citizen of India, which is not a member of the ICC. (Kohona is named
because he is a joint citizen of Australia, which IS an ICC member.)
UN's Haq in briefing room, belated e-mail spin not shown
Rather,
Haq's
statement called inaccurate “the Inner City Press story,” which
quoted directly from the ICC filing, as set forth above. The story
was not inaccurate.
It appears,
including to the journalist who
received the e-mail from Haq, that the goal was to convince other
media to ignore any link between Nambiar and the ICC complaint, and
the underlying killing including “white flag murders” in Sri
Lanka.
Even
many of those
closest to Ban Ki-moon have questioned why Ban sent to Sri Lanka
former Indian ambassador Nambiar, given India's interest in Sri Lanka
especially after the murder of Rajiv Gandhi, and with Nambiar's
brother Satish writing publicly in praise of the Rajapaksas military
campaign in Northern Sri Lanka which has given rise to the war crimes
charges.
One Ban
insider says, “It's not really Nambiar's fault,
Ban should just never have made him the envoy to Sri Lanka.”
But
the mistakenly-given role of Nambiar for the UN in Sri Lanka has so
distorted the
Ban administration's and the UN's response to the events in Sri Lanka
that the spokespeople act as described above, and won't even answer
with whom Ban's Panel on Sri Lanka met. It is a low point in Ban
Ki-moon's tenure as UN Secretary General.
From
the
UN's
transcription
of its March 11 noon briefing:
Inner
City
Press:
there was a filing with the International Criminal Court
(ICC), admittedly not by a Government but by a private group, naming
the Sri Lankan Ambassador here, but also having two paragraphs
concerning the Chief of Staff of the Secretary-General, Vijay
Nambiar. And I, it has come to my attention that you wrote to a
journalist saying that this is inaccurate; that there is no complaint
filed with the ICC. And I wanted to know what the basis of that
statement was, since they claim it was filed and they have proof of
filing?
Acting
Deputy
Spokesperson
Haq: Again, you know, this briefing is not for
me to discuss all of your personal things. We can always discuss
this outside. The basic point is a reporter — and I don’t know
what his exchange with you was, but his exchange with me was whether
a complaint had been filed naming Mr. Nambiar. That is not the case.
But here is
what Haq sent out:
From:
Farhan
Haq
[at]
un.org
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:16 PM
Re:
Question about Nambiar, ICC and Burma envoy role
Yes,
he
is
still
the acting Special Adviser on Myanmar.
The
Inner City Press story is inaccurate; there has been no complaint
formally filed at the International Criminal Court. Please ask
the
ICC for anything more on that.
As
for
a
full-time
Special Adviser, Ban Ki-moon has been considering
that idea; there is nothing to announce for now.
